Another Birthday... another Cake!

It is long past time to tell you about this birthday cake. Remember Robb's birthday? Way back in August? Well, on the SAME day, dear Greer enjoyed her birthday, too! Yeah, they share the same birthday. Even weirder is that they have the exact same couch. That might be where the similarities end, but no, there's at least one more thing they have in common... a birthday cake made by me this year!

Greer's husband Stefan (who also had a birthday recently... more to come on that) snuck around and planned a surprise party for a week after the big day. He requested a lemon coconut cake for her. I even knew that she likes tropical flavors, but instead of listening to him, I spent a bunch of time imagining all kinds of other flavors and really spinning my wheels. Finally, (duh) I landed on a lemon cake and a coconut custard filling with a vanilla buttercream with shredded coconut on the sides. I am very glad I listened, she loved it. A lot.

Here she is blowing out candles. Her helper may look familiar- that's Lila who had her own pretty pink birthday cake last December. Here she is helping Robb enjoy his birthday cake, too.

Boy, it was a darn fine cake. The lemon cake recipe is one I found in a cake decorating book. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so spectacular given the source, but WOW it was fantastic. If you'd like the recipe, just shoot me an email.

I had some fun with fondant and made pretty little daisies. They didn't dry before the humidity took hold. They were still pretty, even if flat like starfish by the time Greer got to see her cake. We also enjoyed some smokey pineapple jalapeno sorbet, and a cool creamy mango ice cream. It was a lot of fun to make all these goodies, and super fun to surprise Greer!

Here is the last hunk before it was all greedily eaten up, even Stefan had 2nds. That's saying something when a guy who claims not to give a darn about sweets goes back for more!

Happy birthday Greer!

- Janet

Daring Bakers August 2008 Challenge

Eclairs!

I love choux paste. It is just so fun to make.

About 20 years ago I made it for the first time. I had talked my way into a job at a bakery and was given some responsibilities I was not completely qualified for. It was a small operation with the manager/chef and me, plus some counter girls. There I was in my first week working alone one afternoon trying to make eclairs. I had seen it done, once, in culinary school by someone across the kitchen. I had a vague memory of how the dough comes together, but I wasn't sure if what I remembered was the student assigned to the task that day fouling it up or if that was the way it was supposed to go. When you are adding the eggs, it looks like it has totally gone to hell, then you keep mixing and it turns into beautiful dough. I'm glad I kept the mixer running while I tried to figure out what to do.

Not that I am some withered and dried up old lady, but youth does have its advantages, doesn't it? I didn't know enough to see how foolish I was to talk my way into this position. Somehow I muddled through for a couple of months and left to start the next year of school.


For this challenge I used a coconut cream filling in the eclair. It turned out like an eggy mounds bar which was a little weird.

Also, since I made these first thing in the morning, I filled one with some scrambled eggs with chives. Delicious!

For the recipe, and to see what some other folks did this month, please see some of the other Daring Bakers sites.

-Janet

Daring Bakers May 2008 Challenge

Ta Da!!!

This month's challenge was very satisfying. It is being called an Opera cake (click for pictures of a Google image search) but we had to make it in light colors- no coffee or chocolate. The recipe provided is insanely long- if anyone really wants it- shoot me an email.

The basics of the cake are joconde cake layers with buttercream, mousse and a glaze. The joconde is a sponge type cake made with ground nuts. Robb and I ruminated over flavor possibilities, and bizarrely agreed immediately on pineapple and coconut. As we kept chewing on the idea, we came around to creating what we hoped would be a Thai curry cake. Yes, you read that correctly: Thai curry and cake.

We used peanuts and almonds in the cake layer. Our buttercream was flavored with lime, ideally we would have liked to use lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves- at least that's what we had in mind. Lime juice and zest is a good approximation just to try it out. We can work on perfecting it in the future. The cake layers were brushed with a chile pepper syrup. The top layer was a coconut mousse and it was glazed with a pineapple glaze.

We liked the peanuts, the coconut mousse, the pineapple glaze and the texture and beauty of the cake. The flavors, all together, were really good. We were especially pleased because this was the first cake that we truly experimented with. We were totally winging it making the mousse. We initially tried one with grated coconut and hated it. We ended up using canned coconut milk, with Italian meringue and whipped cream. Who would have thought that Italian meringue would be something we have so readily available in our toolbox of tricks. What a very long way we have come!

We would have liked more chile pepper heat. We wussed out a little bit in soaking the cake layers. Next time, and there may be a next time for this one- we really like it- we will add more chile flavor.

After sitting out last month, this was a very fun challenge.

Janet

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

Kevin's Birthday

The fantastic Mr. Fisher enjoyed his birthday on January 5th. I surprised him with one of his favorite cakes on Friday the 4th. His favorites, now that all of you are wondering, are Red Velvet, Carrot, and German Chocolate. I think he favors the frosting more than the actual cake in all of those, but then who doesn't love cream cheese frosting and the gooey sticky sweet nutty yumminess of the coconut pecan frosting?

I confess that I wasn't planning to make a cake for K, but I was talking to my Mother that Friday afternoon and she said so plainly that he ought to have a birthday cake, that I followed her instruction. I would not describe my mother as particularly opinionated, certainly not bossy or pushy (I know, then where did I get it?). When she puts her foot down, you sit up and take notice. For example, a few months ago we made the cheesecake from the CB and didn't like it. My mother commented to us, and I am quoting her "a cheesecake must have at least 2 1/2 pounds of cream cheese, and sour cream belongs on top, not in it." She would know, having made hundreds of cheesecakes in her time. Really, hundreds. I won't be fooling around with cheesecake recipes that do not meet her criteria. You notice such a strong pronouncement from a woman who is usually pretty laid back. So, when she said in her matter of fact voice that I should make K a birthday cake, I listened.

I ran through the list of K's favorites and took inventory to see what was possible. No cream cheese in the house so I turned to the chocolate. Coconut? Check. Pecans? Check. Sweet Chocolate? No, but why not bittersweet? I made the substitution figuring that this is one cake where less sweetness would probably not be noticed and hoped that the bittersweet wouldn't overpower.



That was a slightly risky move since the intended recipient of this cake likes sweet, but it turned out just fine. He thought the chocolate flavor of the cake was just right and liked the soft and light texture of the cake. The frosting was delicious, plenty!!! sweet and so easy: evaporated milk, egg yolks, coconut, nuts. There's hardly an excuse to use the canned stuff with all the unpronounceable ingredients, it's that easy. (I have been reading one of Michael Pollen's latest books and the ingredients in the food we eat are a little bit more on my mind than normal. Not sure how far I will go in terms of being "green", but I will be able to avoid canned frosting if nothing else.)



Kevin had a happy birthday, and a relaxing birthday weekend. What more can you ask for?

Janet