Temper, Temper

With forks still in our mouths, both of us said, "This is a great cake!"

Strawberry Maria (pg 184)

The Strawberry Maria has 1 recipe Genoise au Chocolat (pg 129), 1 recipe syrup flavored with Grand Marnier (pg 129), 1 recipe Strawberry Cloud Cream (pg 264), 1 Chocolate Lattice Band (pg 388) and strawberries dipped in chocolate.

J was so happy with the photo of this showcase cake, that her enthusiasm made the entire baking time fun. And, if we hadn't taken the class at La Tulipe, we'd never have had the confidence to do the lattice work with chocolate, which turned out so beautifully.

Tempering chocolate isn't nearly as frightening as I originally thought. We learned in the class about the 4 kinds of crystals in the chocolate structure and that the melting point of each of them is slightly different. Tempering involves melting teh chocoalte, cooling it so that a crystal in that chocolate (the one you want) begins to form, then heating it again so that the other kinds of crystals (the ones you don't want) don't form.

It sounds complicated, and it helps to have had a trained professional, in a professional kitchen show you how. I am beginning to see how working with chocolate could be a whole life's work. There is much to know about chocolate and how to be creative and do more daring things. But the basics- melt, cool, melt keeping it a little cooler but still workable- are not tough!! It see ms like some kind of mystical process, but

we said if those teenagers who work at Godiva in the mall can do it, so can we. We've had professional instruction after all.

We dipped the strawberries into chocolate, drizzled stripes on them and J suggested we melt some white chocolate to drizzle over them. What a hit. The texture of both dark and white stripes looked really cool.

The genoise came together quite nicely. Actually this whole section of genoise has come together nicely. The syrup, well, who doesn't like sugar syrup? And, can anything be bad if it has Grand Marnier?

Strawberry Cloud cream is a fancy way of saying strawberry flavored whipped cream. We did the same thing to strawberries that we did to raspberries -- take frozen ones, thaw them, capture the juice, bowl i t down, puree the fruit, blend. Add a cup or so to the whipped cream. Really simple now, but in the midst of doing this, we forgot to measure the pureed bit and ended up with what looked like the beginning of a very soft serve ice cream. So, we remade it. Urgh, the basics of measuring still bites us in the butt sometimes. It turned out quite nice.

Another cake that sounded good, looked good, and tasted good. One year ago, we would have been freaked out and probably not tried the lattice band. But, this really was easy to put together. We are so happy with this one, we will each make it again.

Now that I've at least faced my fear of chocolate, I hope to overcome my fear of piping. Who knows.

Robb

White Lily Cake

This is a lovely photo of the White Lily Cake (pg 202)

It consists of 1 recipe White Genoise (pg 127), 1/2 cup Cointreau (we used Grand Marnier, since we had it), 1/2 recipe Orange Fruit Mousseline (pg 245), 1 recipe of Rolled Fondant with orange flower water (page 306), & 1 recipe of Royal Icing.

Really, since we've done this so many times, we're no longer intimidated by the recipes. Well, I still say a quick, silent prayer whenever we have to do any piping work. But, it's a lot like doing hair color: Break it down into its component steps. And, since we know we can make a genoise, a mousseline and a fondant, we can surely put it together. And, I think that we did a fine job of it.

Even the piping turned out nice. They are supposed to look like lilies, and they do!

This was made e asy for a host of reasons. We had made the white genoise a few weeks ago. Frozen, it'll keep 2 months. We just defrosted it and followed the directions. J had the idea to make the cake layers at our last baking session. And, I thank her.

As for the Cointreau, we decided an orange flavored liquor could be substituted with another one, right? So we used the Grand Marnier that we had on hand.

We decided that making Orange Curd was a big waste of time. While we loved the color and the flavor, the runny texture and effort of making it is too big a drawback. We just substituted lemon curd, and added it to the mousseline.

Do you remember the mousseline? Neither could I. It is the one with a syrup of water and sugar, that gets drizzled into egg whites beaten with sugar. You beat this until it's cool, which has never happened in the prescribed time of 2 minutes. Then, you add butter, lots of butter, and beat until smooth. If you want to add liqueur or a flavor variation, you do so now. Yum!

I really don't care for fondant. It never tastes as good as you want it to and I usually pull it off. While I'm slowly lobbing blobs of butter into the kitchen aid full of egg whites, J made the fondant. We only had dark corn syrup. So, you'll notice that there is a lovely light beige tone to the fondant. We liked it quite a bit. The slight color difference made the piping really stand out and look more beautiful. The flavor of the fondant was enha nced with orange flower water. There was a nice fragrance wafting from the cake; a flowery orange aroma followed by the orange flavor of the cake. In tasting our slice, we actually ate the fondant!!

Periodically J and I would stop what we were doing and wander over to the other's station to check on the progress. The fondant starts out a crumbly mess. With some kneading, the gelatin, water, glucose(that's where the corn syrup is substituted), glycerin, solid white shortening and powdered sugar all come together at first, it looks a bit like a very dry biscuit dough. You'll notice how smooth J got it. The cracks seem to happen to us because we are too slow applying it to the cake.

It's come to the point that we've developed almost a short hand and have to constantly check to make sure we've not skipped or doubled up on steps. We each know what the other is going to do and rarely are we wrong about it.

I have to thank J for doing all the pre prep stuff. Sometimes, I feel like a FoodTV chef who's production assistants have done everything so all I have to do is smile for the camera and pour the pre-measured amounts into the stunningly clean Kitchen Aid.

This cake was lovely. We were both so excited, not just by how it looks or just by how good it tasted. For the first time, in a long time, we liked the cake we made! Then, on the first sunny day we've had baking in a long, long while, there we were, all done, sitting outside in the sun, sipping soda and tea and just chattin'

Welcome to Spring.

Robb

Looking Back

After I realized that we'd been doing Bake Through for a year, I found myself re-reading the previous posts.  Back in April 2007, we had said that we'd like to try the Chocolate Cherry Almond Pound cake (pg 32) in its more traditional Apricot Version.  Well, here it is.

I have to say that I wasn't a big fan of this cake, then or now. And, while I'm glad that I made it using apricot preserves and a lemon sugar glaze, I'll not make this again. The texture once again was too dry and crumbly. It had a host of good things in it: hazlenuts, almond paste, chocolate, yet, it seemed almost too bland to me.

When I mentioned to J that I had remade it, she said, "Isn't that the one that looked like meatloaf?"  As soon as she said it, I knew she was right. Look at this picture: 

Sometimes, it's good to go back and see how far you've come.  Honestly, a year ago, this would have seemed to daunting of a task to attempt.  And now, I did it on a Sunday afternoon, just because I had a bit of time.

Bake Through

Robb

Learning Lessons

The Golden Cage (pg 172)

Yes, we are still working our way through the Cake Bible. But, we've decided that it's much more fun to work through it a bit at a time and darnit, we enjoy just hanging out sometimes.

The Golden Cage uses the Golden Genoise (pg 125), Barak Palinka or brandy, Apricot Silk Meringue Buttercream (pg 243) and Gold Dust & Caramel Cage (pg 313)

The Golden Genoise is an incredibly dense cake, made with 12 egg yolks. So, it's rich with a texture that is fine -- RLB says it makes wonderful Madeleines. One of these days were going to have to try this. This cake has such a tight uniform crumb without being dense and heavy. Simply amazing.

After all this baking, I have to be honest, buttercreams still rock! We've done so many variations on this theme (Today's: Apricot Silk Buttercream). The Silk Buttercream, as you may recall, has a couple things happening simultaneously. You make a creme anglaise, you make an italian meringue, you beat the butter, you add the creme anglaise, until smooth, you add the Italian meringue (This is the one with egg whites and a sugar syrup beat into them). There are a ton of steps, but it always seems to turn out for us -- even back in the beginning.

For the caramel cage and dust, you basically do a controlled burn of some sugar with some water. Once you've got it just right (amber colored), you drizzle it over a prepared kugelhupf pan (OK, neither J nor I have one of these, so we used the alternate spring form pan to bake the cake in). For the cage, we improvised and ended up with a few really good pieces that we stuck into the top of the cake, in a caramel version of the Enchanted Broccoli Forest (in college, we had a copy of that cook book on our communal shelf. Full disclosure, I still have a copy on my shelf.)

We learned a couple of things with this recipe. A humid day really does make it tough to work with caramel. It never stops being sticky on a humid day. Although, in this months Gourmet, one of the writers says that they made wonderful meringue in Ireland, I wonder how they fare with caramel? Ours just never stopped being sticky, except when we wanted to get it off the spoon, it stuck like concrete! But it did taste good.

(Notice the strawberry? That was J's suggestion and she was right!)

Second, trimming the dark edges off the edge of the cake layers is a good thing to do. That's what we're doing this project for- to learn and improve and to have fun spending time together of course. I think we have done some improving, and I hope that it is noticeable?

This cake was an amalgam of things that we've learned baking our way through the Cake Bible and taking the class at La Tulipe. Next week's post will have an example of something we probably couldn't have done without some of this last year's worth of practice.

Wow, what a year it has been. I remember the trepidation that I had bringing up the idea of Bake Through to J. Would she think it a colossal waste of time? Would she laugh and politely get out of it? It didn't occur to me that she'd embrace it with even more excitement than I had. That she'd be the one to, more often than not, push to keep us on track so we will some day actually make our way through the book.

So while I take my hat off to Rose for the book, and Chef Maarten for the baking class, I throw it in the air that J and I get to spend this time hanging out. I can't imagine a better baking partner.

Bake through everyone.

Robb

Cooking Class: Part 4 The Finale

Alas, the fun and excitement of watching and learning from a brilliant chef has come to an end. The last session was a whirlwind I can hardly recount. Chef told us to come hungry and we ate nearly everything we made in this plated dessert session.

Once again, the quality of the ingredients used at La Tulipe is just extraordinary. The butter- always the high butterfat Plugra, the milk- organic, the vanilla beans- fat juicy beans from Tahiti, and tonight was no exception. We made a pear sorbet from the most wonderful pear puree and a liquor called Belle de Brillet. It is Brillet Cognac blended with Williams pears. Pear tends to be a fleeting flavor at best. Even the ripest pear seems to fade into an incapturable vapor leaving the suggestion of pear essence more than an intense mouthful. Packing 22 pounds of pears!!! into a 750 ml bottle of Cognac results in an intensity that is astounding. Combine the top notch puree, the liquor and an Italian gelato machine that mixes and freezes quickly so as not to create too large a crystal while not whipping in too much air, and frozen pear perfection is achieved. The photo is the last remaining tablespoons of what I brought home. In the class this was served with the most amazing caramel sauce I've ever seen.

Jessica, who escorted the C&H brown sugar all the way form Oregon for us, and who first introduced us to La Tulipe by (rightly) proclaiming the croissants the best in the land, has lamented that sorbet is a seasonal item at the bakery. Chef Steenman creates chocolate works of art in the cooler months and gelato in the warmer months. I now understand why Jessica is counting down the days to gelato season.

Now, that's not to say that the chocolates aren't also extraordinary. Again, I am overwhelmed at the quality of ingredients, the chocolate, the marzipan and the seemingly limitless talent. Pictured here are some of the chocolates that Chef Steenman makes for Easter. The frog and chick contained foil wrapped eggs and nuts, the pink bunny, duck, and rooster were made of marzipan. What a face on the bunny!! They were so beautiful we almost didn't dare to eat them, but knowing the quality of ingredients involved we had to sample!

The other items we enjoyed on that last day of our class included a strawberry compote with champagne sabayon, chocolate crepes with nectarine and a black pepper creme anglais, apples and raisins with frangipan baked in filo served with creme anglais, and praline beignets with lime basil creme anglais. The unsweetened, yeasty, beer beignet batter against the soft sweet filling was delightful.

Robb and I both enjoyed this experience so thoroughly- thanks to Michael, Kevin and my Dad for the wonderful gift!!

Janet

Daring Bakers March Challenge

Creamsicle cake?
ummm mmm!

This month's Daring Bakers challenge was based on a basic white cake and a Swiss meringue buttercream. We were allowed to treat that as our blank slate and take it from there. One suggestion given in the recipe was to flavor it with lemon zest and juice and fill with raspberry and decorate with coconut. That sounds like a great combination, and probably one that we will try sometime. But we figured that when given the chance to follow our own path, we ought to scoop up the opportunity.

There was MUCH discussion about possible flavors. Kevin has actually become quite good at imagining flavor combinations and was really into thinking of some. I suppose I could attribute that to his years with me, seeing the wonderful and creative process I use in coming up with menus for parties and the nearly constant recipe alterations that I make. But, truth be told, he's picked it up while watching Top Chef. I am not a big fan of the reality or competition shows. But I am happy for the side effect of a husband who can join with me in wondering how to make things taste, and what combinations would be good, etc.

We floated the idea of a pear and Chinese 5 spice profile by Robb. He liked it and together we talked about just how to do it. I made a single layer of the cake just to try it out and see if we'd go in that direction. I added 5 spice and almond extract to the basic recipe (below). I also made an adjustment to the fat- I used half cocoa butter and half butter. I was hoping for a richer quality without adding more sweet or changing too much of the recipe (we're supposed to follow the rules after all!). The cake was ok. But you know, it was like spice cake. Duh! I think that this pear 5 spice combo is firmly planted in my mind and I will be experimenting in the future. I want to get it elevated above spice cake that seems like it ought to come in a square pan with tub o' frosting. I think you all know how I feel about that. On to what we actually did...

Back at the drawing board we thought about citrus and orange sounded good. What goes with orange? I suggested orange with toasted hazelnut and a dark chocolate, but Robb talked me out of that, and said that whenever he has to use more than 2 colors on someone's hair, he's trying to fix up a mess and it might be the same with combining flavors. We opted to go with a straightforward pairing of orange and vanilla. Who doesn't love a creamsicle? I dare say it's universally likeable.

We omitted any lemon called for and instead used orange. The filling was orange curd mixed with buttercream- RLB's orange curd recipe with a vanilla bean steeped in the juice. Very interesting and pretty to have tiny black flecks in a sea of orange. To the Swiss meringue buttercream we added some Grand Marnier and orange extract. The addition to the cake layer was orange zest and vanilla extract with a small amount of butter replaced with cocoa butter (3:1). A little drizzle of the pourable orange vanilla curd (it's thin since naval oranges have much less acidity or whatever it is than lemons that helps to set it) on top for the round version and it was done. We served it at an Easter gathering at Robb (& Michael's) house.

The evening before- the day of cake baking- K and I had friends in town from Texas and we served the rectangular version. I used a couple of loaf pans, filled and frosted the same as the round but added some toasted almond slices instead of the orange vanilla curd and voila! I love the shape and will definitely be making rectangular and square cakes in the future.

Happy baking! Janet



The recipe that all us Daring Bakers started with is the perfect party cake, published by Dorie Greenspan.

For the Cake
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing
2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

To Make the Buttercream
Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.
The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.
Remove the bowl from the heat.
Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.
Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.
Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.
On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.
You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake
Using a sharp serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half.
Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.
Spread it with one third of the preserves.
Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.
Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).
Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.
Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Serving
The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but I think it’s best to let it sit and set for a couple of hours in a cool room – not the refrigerator. Whether you wait or slice and enjoy it immediately, the cake should be served at room temperature; it loses all its subtlety when it’s cold. Depending on your audience you can serve the cake with just about anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing
The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to two days. Bring it to room temperature before serving. If you want to freeze the cake, slide it into the freezer to set, then wrap it really well – it will keep for up to 2 months in the freezer; defrost it, still wrapped overnight in the refrigerator.

Playing Around
Since lemon is such a friendly flavour, feel free to make changes in the preserves: other red preserves – cherry or strawberry – look especially nice, but you can even use plum or blueberry jam.

Fresh Berry Cake
If you will be serving the cake the day it is made, cover each layer of buttercream with fresh berries – use whole raspberries, sliced or halved strawberries or whole blackberries, and match the preserves to the fruit. You can replace the coconut on top of the cake with a crown of berries, or use both coconut and berries. You can also replace the buttercream between the layers with fairly firmly whipped sweetened cream and then either frost the cake with buttercream (the contrast between the lighter whipped cream and the firmer buttercream is nice) or finish it with more whipped cream. If you use whipped cream, you’ll have to store the cake the in the refrigerator – let it sit for about 20 minutes at room temperature before serving.

Cooking Class: Part 3

Week three in our wonderfully exciting class was really terrific. We can hardly believe that there is only one more class, and we are sad at the idea of having this experience come to a close.

Robb discovered that he likes coconut after all! Naturally, the coconut used by Chef Steenman is top notch. We used a wonderful puree of coconut and a grated coconut. This is not the flaked sticky sweet stuff you are used to. It is a smaller piece and is not sticky or coated with sugar. It gives a coconut flavor that you cannot achieve with the sugared angel flake. The coconut was added to (our favorite!!) Italian meringue and whipped cream to make a delicious, brilliant white mousse.

We made a vanilla sponge cake- pretty standard, although there is always something to learn from Chef Steenman. For example there is no vanilla in this vanilla cake. In fact, we noticed that there has been no vanilla extract in anything thus far. For pastry cream, creme anglais, etc. he does use beans, that is, he uses the most fantastically terrific vanilla beans from Tahiti. He gave us each one to take home. I had never seen a vanilla bean so moist, fat, soft and dizzyingly fragrant. As we've said before, his ingredients are tip top.


We also made a mango mousseline. What's the difference between mousseline and mousse you ask? Good question. A mousse seems to be lighter in texture, although not the fluffed up stuff you may have had. Chef Steenman's mousse is light and smooth in texture, like a good gelato. In this case it was made with Italian meringue, whipped cream and fruit puree. The mousseline was firmer and more dense, made with pastry cream and knock your socks off mango puree, and the tasty Plugra butter.

The cake was assembled in a terrine mold, like what you'd use for pate, or well, terrine. The sponge was cut to fit- yes Robb got to measure with a metric ruler and math! The mango mousseline was piped- yes more piping- onto a long skinny rectangle of sponge cake, topped with another rectangle of cake and chilled until it was firm. It was a sort of ice cream sandwich, but not with ice cream and much longer. Cake lined the mold, coconut mousse was spooned in, the sandwich of mango mousseline was nestled in, topped with more mousse, and topped (bottomed really) with the last layer of cake. Once unmolded, we covered it with Italian meringue and had fun using a torch to get it brown. The most delicious coconut tuile cookies decorated the sides.

Normally one would not combine the textures of mousse and mousseline in one dessert this way. The mousseline is much firmer than the mousse and that makes them incompatible. But Chef wanted to show us how to do as much as possible.

I know that some of you are thinking, yeah coconut and mango, what ever. Tropical flavors are so so, and you're thinking about syrupy sweet pineappley polynesian stuff, or the hurt your teeth with so much sugar creamed coconut that you put in a pina colada. Well, that's not what you get with Chef Steenman. Each of the components of this were tasty individually, not favorites for me, but darn good. None of the flavors were too sweet. Instead they were concentrated fruit flavors. The mousse tasted like actual coconut not like Coco Lopez. The mousseline tasted like buttery melt in your mouth mango. And then put together- Pow! Zoom! Bam! (picture batman fight scenes). The combination of flavors with the crunch and toast of the coconut cookie totally blew me away. It was amazing, and a lot of fun to put together.

Visit La Tulipe if you can. It's expensive, there's really no way to suggest otherwise. But, you won't be simply purchasing a dessert, pastry or chocolate, you'll be supporting an artist and you get to take home a work of art.

Janet