Celebrating Birthdays and Strawberries
Memorial Day weekend was extremely hectic this year. My uncle turned 60 and threw a big clam/lobster-bake bash at my parents’ house, then we celebrated my mom’s birthday the next evening!
To top off the biggest meal I have ever experienced in my life, I made my uncle’s birthday cake.
Tip #1: Be wary of trying new recipes in a public setting
I made this frosting based on rave reviews from my sister. It was a failure, as it’s not meant for decorating (other reviews warned me, but I tried anyway). It was super soft and impossible to pipe. I also found the flavor and texture lacking but that was my fault, substituting half of the butter with shortening.
Tip #2: Value the power of cookie borders
My cake design included a pirouline cookie border, so neatness was salvaged and it ended up looking quite trendy against the messy icing.
Tip #3: It IS possible to put fresh fruit in a cake
I was very nervous putting fruit inside a cake – it can run, turn brown, or sometimes even mold. I waited until just a couple hours before to assemble. Squeezing lemon juice on the bananas and then nestling them in the cream was extremely effective.
Tip #4: Syrup ahead of time, or figure out a better wrapping method
The cake was a bit dry – my parents’ oven is broken so I had to bake the layers and bring them over 2 days ahead of time. I should have poured the simple syrup on before wrapping the layers in plastic and foil instead of waiting until the day I assembled the cake. I still haven’t quite figured out a good way to do this.
16″ yellow cake filled with strawberries and bananas nestled on vanilla pastry cream
Filed under Birthday, Cake | Comments (2)Take That, Guts
Anyone get hit by the nasty stomach flu lately? I did. At the most inopportune time possible – when I had to bake and decorate 2 cakes. Ahhh!!!!
Luckily I did the core decorations before I got ill, and hubby stepped in to help me with the baking to minimize contamination risks.
Here’s one of them – it was for a little cake decorating competition that I unfortunately placed last in. We’re blaming the loss on size (everyone else had a multi-tier cake), and the fact that I was subsisting off gingerale and toast. I had fun despite the obstacles and the bakery owner told me that I should consider decorating beyond hobby status (nice of her to say). Plus they put my cake on display in the window! 
I wanted to do a celebration of spring fruits and vegetables since we love eating locally. I made carrots, strawberries, asparagus, morels, and snap peas.
Tip #1: Pink is not a good color for a basketweave.
Tip #2: Weigh your health against the importance of the event. Or get a really wonderful spouse that will bake your cake for you so you can stay put in a chair and decorate. Helps when it’s not being eaten and you can get away with a box cake and mostly shortening inside.
The other cake I made WAS for consumption – a bridal shower cake for my hubby’s close family friend. Thanking my lucky stars that no one got ill from neither contagions nor rotten cake. I think it was decently attractive also. I got to sample a piece the next day and it was surprisingly scrumptious!!
This was round 2 of the Rose Levy Berenbaum’s All Occasion Yellow Cake recipe – remember I made it for my husband’s birthday cake? Not sure if sickness helps, but this time it came out fantastic. One difference I made was a simple syrup that I brushed liberally over each layer to maintain moisture (but didn’t really add sweetness).
The one complication was ruining the 2nd layer when we tried to take it out of the pan – let’s just say we now have plenty of trifle cake in the freezer now. A quick run to the store and a million more eggs later and we were done.
Yellow cake filled with Nutella mousse (now my fave filling) and covered in chocolate ganache. Calla lilies are made with gumpaste, dusted with yellow petal dust. Fondant handkerchief has the bride and groom’s monogram, pearls have pink luster dust.
Let’s Start Again.
I’m going to share two secrets with you. Although I suppose nothing is a secret once it’s published on the Internet.
1) I haven’t baked nor decorated a layer cake since January 2009.
2) In the almost 8 years we have been together, I have baked my husband only 1 cake. Yes, even during the years we were dating and still in “I’m out to impress you” mode.
Bizarre, right? Well, I decided I was going to end both streaks in one shot by baking hubby his birthday cake. BTW, he has had something with a candle in it every year, it’s just either his mom made it, or it wasn’t a cake. So none of you have to boohoo him about it.
Here it is. The parenthetic “Jon” is from years of his family trying to get me to call him by his full given name, with me resisting along with all of his school friends. This was the compromise.
My experience: I’ve tried a couple of recipes in Rose Levy Berenbaum’s The Cake Bible, and the woman is a genius chemist and baker. Problem is, even with her very specific instructions, success still requires finesse and practice. The result? A yellow cake that was delicious, but a bit dry on my first run. No problem – cover it with chocolate ganache, fill it with Nutella mousse, and you forget about the crumbies. Except for the oh-so-permanent state of photographs:
Still, I can’t be upset that it still ended up gloriously 12 inches high and that mousse (my own recipe) was fantastic. If you butter me up enough (not too much, I’m relatively lactose-intolerant) maybe I’ll share the mousse recipe with you.
Filed under Birthday, Cake | Comment (0)Home for the Holidays
Ok, we were actually at 2 homes for Thanksgiving (not to mention 4 homes for Christmas…but that’s the next post). This will be the last time we travel 1.5 hours between dinner and dessert – we’re just too tired taking dessert for 35 over at 8PM!!
I don’t have any pictures, but we also made mini toast crudites and asparagus wrapped with prosciutto, asiago, and phyllo (Martha Stewart) for hors d’oeuvres.
The dessert rundown:
- Linzer cookies (butter cookies filled with jam that I reduced with some lemon juice)
- Chewy gingerbread men and trees
- Buche de Noel (Yule log) – this one was a chocolate flourless cake filled with whipped cream and topped with ganache – tore pretty easily and mine was very sloppy when cutting
- Chocolate covered strawberries
- Mini pains au chocolats (chocolate croissants) – Epicurious recipe that is simply puff pastry wrapped around a bar of chocolate and glazed with cinnamon sugar (I used turbinado sugar so it was less sweet)
Year in Review
Yes, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve updated this blog. Partly because I keep forgetting about it, partly because I haven’t decorated a cake since January!
We did manage to eat a lot this past year, though. I’ll be posting quick recaps to get you caught up.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
- Vanilla cupcakes filled with peanut butter frosting, topped with chocolate ganache (and of course more frosting)
- Chocolate covered strawberries (Dove dark makes an awesome melting chocolate)
Triple Chocolate Cookies (1st Birthday Party)
Homemade sausage calzones (no, we didn’t make the sausage)
Foccacia – one with caramelized onions, one with tomato and rosemary
Happy Mother’s Day! An alternative to chicken cordon bleu: chicken stuffed with spinach, onions and swiss wrapped with bacon
More to come.
Filed under Cake, Cookies, Savory | Comment (1)