07.30.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 12:07 am by julie
I love being a Daring Baker. Every month I get to try out a new recipe, often one I would never have chosen myself—either because it has an intimidating number of steps, or requires a technical skill I haven’t yet mastered, or perhaps because it involves texture and flavor combinations I wouldn’t seek out. These past few months since my son was born, I have particularly looked forward to my Daring Bakers challenges because they are one of the few things I still make time to do for myself (even if everyone I know benefits from the finished products also). That also means that part of the monthly challenge becomes simply finding that time, around the needs of a 4-month old baby.
This month’s challenge was a filbert gateau with praline buttercream, from Great Cakes
by Carol Walter, a gorgeous ganache-glazed hazelnut confection with ribbons of satiny buttercream. I decided right away that I wanted to make it to share with my in-laws, who were coming to visit us (but mostly Nolan) around the middle of the month. Their methods of event planning always keep us on our toes, and we didn’t know exactly when they would be arriving until the day before their flight, so I couldn’t start prepping the cake in advance. Luckily, they took a detour to visit more family in Coeur d’Alene, so I had a chance to go out and find hazelnuts, and then make the cake in an evening marathon with just the finishing touches to take care of the next morning.
This cake is chock full of hazelnuts. They are grown in Oregon, but it’s the wrong season for them, so they were a little hard to track down. Bulk bins are my friend. The first order of business was to get them skinned and toasted. I had quite enough of hazelnut skin stabbing under my fingernails when I made that sublime gianduja gelato a few months ago, so I tried a different method this time: blanching them in baking soda water, supposedly a foolproof technique. I don’t know if my hazelnuts were just being unusually stubborn, but I blanched them twice, attacked them with my vegetable scrubber (it will never be the same!) and still ended up spending about an hour scraping skin off each nut with my fingernails. It may not have been literally painful, but the clean-up afterwards was a real bear. I officially hate skinning hazelnuts.
The cake batter came together with Nolan’s assistance. In other words, once I got the toasted nuts out of the oven, I wore him in a sling while I worked. He did great most of the time, watching everything very intently, but started getting warm and cranky right about the time I was folding the sifted nut meal into the aerated batter. I ended up popping them in the oven at top speed, and after a bottle of milk, Nolan spent the rest of the evening napping like a little angel.
A few notes about the cake layers: The recipe requires you to sift the mixture of nut meal, cake flour and cornstarch through a mesh strainer to catch any stray chunks of hazelnut. By the time I was done sifting, I had about half a cup of coarse meal resembling sand caught in the strainer. Rather than let it go to waste, I incorporated it into my praline.
Also, the recipe calls for a 10″ cake split into three layers. That prospect was pretty scary, and I didn’t own a 10″ pan, but I honestly intended to purchase one and go through with it. I ran out of time to get to the kitchen store, however, so in the end I split the batter between two 9″ pans, and cut each of those in half for a total of 4 layers. As per the instructions, I just greased and floured my pans, and my cakes both wanted to stick on the bottoms. I know a few people had related incidents that led to huge holes in their cakes; one of mine nearly broke when it released at a bad moment, but I got away with just a minor crack. Parchment-lining the cake pans might be wise for this recipe.
Once Nolan was ensconced in the bedroom for the night, it was safe to proceed with the more dangerous element of this cake—the praline. This recipe uses the dry method to make caramel, which no longer worries me thanks to the milk chocolate-caramel tart from last August.
I popped the resulting hazelnut brittle in the fridge to chill while working on the buttercream. This particular Swiss buttercream comes together in the opposite manner of the one we used for our yule logs: the meringue is prepared first, and while the butter creams, you fling sticky dollops of meringue into it until—if all goes to plan—you end up with glorious, smooth, light buttercream. While I was still beating the meringue, the praline had hardened and was sent into the food processor for several minutes, until it had been ground into a paste with a packable consistency akin to brown sugar. Incidentally, this praline recipe makes more paste than you will need for the gateau; I highly recommend using some of the leftovers in these ricotta pancakes. Yum!
Here is where I’m not sure if my technique was off or if the recipe is flawed. As smooth as my praline paste appeared to be, when stirred into the buttercream, it tended to form little clumps. No amount of whipping improved the graininess, but since my buttercream didn’t break, I was still reasonably satisfied. The slight praline crunch did give it a certain charm, and the flavor was magnificent.
Before collapsing into bed at 1:30am, I managed to slice and assemble my layers. I used a vanilla-scented soaking syrup and remembered to add whipped cream on top of the buttercream layers, little difference though it would turn out to make. The assembled layers set up in the refrigerator overnight, and the next morning, after breakfast with my in-laws, I trimmed the edges of the cake as best I could and glazed it with apricot preserves to seal in the crumbs.
Next came the ganache. I used Scharffenberger 70% because I had it on hand, supplemented with less than an ounce of bittersweet Ghirardelli chips. I still don’t have an offset spatula (something else I had intended to get at the kitchen store), so I used a chef’s knife to smooth the top of the cake and a small spreader for the sides. I didn’t quite achieve a mirror finish, but it was still glossy and luscious, and many willing fingers assisted with the clean-up of the ganache that dripped under the cake.
I had some reserved buttercream to use for decorating my cake. Remembering how uncooperative buttercream can be when cold, I made sure to give it plenty of time to come back toward room temperature before attempting to pipe it. While I waited, I decided to make some caramelized hazelnuts for garnish. All I did was caramelize some sugar, skewer the hazelnuts with toothpicks (not on their seam), twirl them quickly through the caramel, and then stab the toothpick into the bottom of my mesh strainer. I kept the strainer on top of a deep bowl to catch the drips, and that was that. Not quite as fun, but nearly as effective as Tartelette’s apple-on-the-dishwasher trick in its own way, I’d like to think.
The scariest part of this cake was easily the piping. I’ve never piped frosting in my life, although I bought a basic set of tips back in December. I picked out the leaf tip from the batch and dove in, buttercream still on the solid side. That changed quickly as it started melting from the heat of my hands and squishing out the top of the bag. Turns out my leaf tip is a pretty small one, and the chunks of praline paste kept clogging it up, leading to some seriously thick and thin sections as the frosting backed up and then splooshed out all at once. If I had been smart, I would have reserved some unflavored buttercream for decorating before adding the praline paste. Ah well! In any event, I clearly need MUCH more practice with piping, and probably some different tips. Maybe I should go buy a can of frosting just to practice with… Anyway, it could have been worse, and the caramelized hazelnuts were a nice touch, I thought.
The cake was delicious, with a definite hazelnut flavor. I personally think that the Scharffenberger chocolate tasted a little too fruity for the hazelnuts; something a little more bitter would be more to my taste, or some Valrhona Noisette Noir Gianduja would fit this cake like a glove. I couldn’t taste the apricot or the whipped cream at all, and I left out the liqueurs called for, but didn’t miss any of those. I also didn’t let the cake sit at room temperature for more than about half an hour after it set, but our house was warm and the buttercream had already started softening in that time, and would have turned to mush if I’d waited longer (plus, we were hungry!).
There have been lots of comparisons by other Daring Bakers between this month’s challenge and April’s Opera Cake, since both included syrup-brushed layers of nut-based genoise and buttercream, with a finishing glaze. Many seem to prefer this cake to the opera cake because it is less sweet, but that never bothered me because of my extreme sweet tooth. I actually loved the mousse element of the opera cake and enjoyed the pina colada flavoring I chose for it, so the two cakes are about on par in my estimation. If this gateau had a more balanced chocolate-hazelnut/gianduja flavor, however, it would win hands down.
Thanks to Chris of Mele Cotte for choosing this interesting and delicious recipe, and be sure to check out all of the hundreds of more professionally decorated gateaux than mine on the Daring Bakers’ blogroll.
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06.28.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 10:44 am by julie
My blog posts are starting to get backed up, but Nolan is cooperating right now, so here we go!
Jeremy and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on June 19th. We couldn’t really get out anywhere with the little one to take care of, but we made up for it with a slow-cooked dinner using my shiny red anniversary present: a 5-quart oval Le Creuset that I’ve had my eye on for several years. I love it—the perfect shape for so many of the cuts of meat I braise, and not quite as heavy as Big Red. I immediately christened it with a Yankee pot roast, accompanied with a side of potato-celeriac mashers.
For dessert, Jeremy’s only request was something to go with vanilla ice cream. Because he had given me a cute little heart -shaped ramekin in addition to the dutch oven (not to mention a copy of the The Zuni Cafe Cookbook… I love you, honey!), I immediately thought of making molten chocolate cakes. Believe it or not, I missed out on that whole fad—not only have I never baked them, to my knowledge I’ve never even had one in a restaurant. I’m still not quite sure how I managed that, because they’re right up my alley. Anyway, I chose a simple version from Baking: From My Home to Yours, dividing the batter between the heart ramekin and 4 6-oz. round ones. You can find the recipe online here.
These little cakes performed their given function beautifully—they were great with vanilla ice cream. 
The portions were just the right size, and their innards were indeed nicely gooey, even though they don’t bother with ganache filling like many similar recipes. Make sure you use a chocolate you would be happy eating straight, because that’s all you taste: I used Scharffenberger 70% dark.
The best part about this dessert, though, was how mommy-friendly it is. I mixed up the batter in a few minutes early in the afternoon when I had a free moment, and just popped the covered ramekins in the fridge for later. When we were ready for dessert, all I had to do was preheat the oven and pop two ramekins in… and the same went for the next night too!
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05.28.08
Posted in Cake, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 12:29 am by julie
Since I had to skip last month’s Daring Bakers challenge due to having a newborn, I was determined to participate this month—but I have to admit that when I found out the challenge was to make an Opéra Cake I very nearly changed my mind. Opéra Cakes are beautiful, classy layered confections, and I didn’t see how I would possibly have enough time around the little one’s feeding schedule to make one. Upon reviewing the recipe, however, I realized that the various components of the cake were not time-consuming individually, and that I might be able to squeeze them in—baking the joconde here, boiling simple syrup there—and make it work, as Tim Gunn would say.
The traditional Opéra Cake is very dark, flavored with chocolate and coffee, but a major part of our challenge was keeping the cake light in color in honor of Barbara’s Taste of Yellow LiveSTRONG event. The recipe provided called for almond joconde with vanilla buttercream and a white chocolate mousse and glaze, but we were given free reign with the flavors as long as they remained light and springy in color. My first thought, to go with the white chocolate, was cinnamon and almond praline, but I had some leftover coconut milk and pineapple spears in the refrigerator, so I ended up doing a Piña Colada Opéra Cake instead. Piña coladas may not inspire opera, but they are still song-worthy, after all.
I started on a warm Saturday morning by feeding Nolan and coaxing him to take a nap in his swing. Then I made a mad dash for the kitchen and whipped up some pineapple curd, the main flavor component of what would be a pineapple mousse. I based my curd on a Cooking Light recipe, and in just a few minutes it was covered with plastic wrap and chilling in the fridge. I had just enough time—and pineapple juice—to make a pineapple-flavored soaking syrup for the joconde, and then it was time to feed the little guy again and pump for his next meal.
At the next opportunity, I made a quick run to the little market down the street for a dozen eggs. The batter for the joconde was fairly straightforward, especially since I decided to save my sanity and purchase almond meal rather than making it myself (I wanted to avoid a grainy texture, and save myself some time). I used a true jelly roll pan (10×15), but I only have one, so I had to bake my layers one at a time. Fortunately, that only took about 9 minutes per layer and the batter was no worse the wear for waiting. Unfortunately, it was over 90F outside by that time and over 83F in our house, so the searing hot kitchen was not exactly a fun place to be. My cakes turned out of the pan perfectly and cooled to (above)room temperature while I ran back to take a breather and feed our patient little sticky bun yet again.
Jeremy took a turn entertaining Nolan while I made masaman curry for dinner. Since I had to wait for the rice to cook anyway, I decided to make my buttercream while prepping the few ingredients for the curry, a bit of a bold proposition since I’d never actually made Italian buttercream before and was nervous about the hot sugar syrup. It heated to 225F faster than I anticipated, and my finished buttercream was on the runny side due to the residual heat in the kitchen, but it didn’t separate or scramble or fill up with shards of hardened sugar—and it was delicious. I flavored the sugar syrup with vanilla paste, and the buttercream with a few tablespoons of coconut milk and a drizzle of coconut extract.
After dinner and another bottle of breastmilk for the sticky bun, I cut my cakes, brushed them with soaking syrup, and layered them with the buttercream. The cake went back in the fridge to congeal while I whipped cream and folded in the pineapple curd with some melted and cooled white chocolate. As I spread it on top of the cake, though, I realized the mousse was the same shade of ivory as the buttercream. I had been hoping it would be more yellow like the curd. Oh well—it tasted good!
Before bed, I also thinly sliced our last spear of pineapple and dried it in a 200F oven for about 2 hours with a sprinkle of turbinado sugar, to use as a garnish. The next morning, I had a moment to make and set the white chocolate glaze, then hastily trimmed the edges of the cake and decorated it with dried pineapple “flowers.” I was hoping to put on some final touches of piping, but that is when Nolan’s patience really ran out. I managed to photograph the cake and cut two pieces, but then ended up having to eat my slice over about 45 minutes while simultaneously trying to calm down a very unhappy baby. It’s hard to eat with someone sucking on your finger.
The cake was delicious, though the flavor was predominantly of coconut. I love coconut, so that wasn’t a problem at all. The pineapple syrup helped keep the joconde layers nicely moist, the buttercream was silky smooth, and the mousse was softly set, squishing pleasantly out from under the white chocolate glaze. One of the big surprises was Jeremy’s comment, upon nibbling through some of the trimmings as I finished up the cake, that the white chocolate glaze was really delicious. We are in the dark chocolate camp through and through, and generally turn up our noses at white chocolate, excepting minor garnishes and white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies. I blame the high quality Guittard white chocolate wafers for this seeming non-sequitur.
If I had it to do differently, I would definitely cut down the amount of cream I whipped into the mousse, and maybe add a drop of food coloring to make sure it maintained that bright yellow coloring. I might try doubling the curd recipe and doing a curd layer in the center of the cake. I would also consider adding shredded coconut to the buttercream and toasted coconut sprinkled over the glaze before it set; shreds or thin slices of fresh or roasted pineapple between the layers or stirred into the mousse would also be an option. I purposely avoided adding elements like shredded coconut or pineapple to my own cake, however, because the texture would have irritated me. The glaze, delicious though it was, came out on the thick side (and I understand many others felt the same), so I would use a higher proportion of cream to white chocolate next time.
In the design department, I would have liked to do a bit of piping with colored white chocolate. I was very pleased with my dried pineapple flowers, but might have inserted them before the glaze was completely set, and I would definitely let the cake settle longer (and use a hot knife) before trimming the outside edges, as they were decidedly ragged.
This was a wonderful challenge. The cake was beautiful and delicious, and making it gave me a lesson in new-mama time management as well. I made joconde and Italian buttercream for the first time, and I realized that I actually only dislike white chocolate when it is of the waxy, tasteless low quality variety. It was great fun coming up with flavor profiles for a light-colored Opéra Cake, but I’d love to try making the traditional coffee-chocolate version someday as well. Thanks so much to Lis of La Mia Cucina, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, Fran of Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie, and Shea of Whiskful for hosting this month’s Daring Bakers challenge; you can find the recipe, in all its glory, on their sites. There are some really spectacular Opéra Cakes out there today, so make sure to check out the Daring Bakers blogroll.
Pineapple Mousse
This version represents the adjusted ratio of cream to curd that I would use if making this mousse again. My original version used a cup of cream, which gave me a very light pineapple flavor and lots of extra mousse.
1/2 C sugar
1 T cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
1 C pineapple juice
2 T fresh lemon juice
1 egg
2 egg yolks
2 T butter
1/2 C plus 2 T whipping cream
1/2 C white chocolate baking wafers
Combine the first 3 ingredients in a medium, heavy saucepan, stirring with a whisk. Stir in juices and egg and yolks; bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk. Reduce heat, and simmer 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add butter, stirring gently until butter melts. Spoon mixture into a medium bowl; press plastic wrap directly on the surface. Refrigerate the curd for about 1 hour.
In a small bowl, whip the cream until stiff. Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate with the 2 tablespoons of cream and cool. Gently fold the chilled pineapple curd, then the white chocolate, into the whipped cream. Refrigerate the pineapple mousse to set for 3 hours or overnight.
Source: Adapted from Cooking Light
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05.11.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 8:24 am by julie
(I took this picture one-handed, while trying to calm down the flailing, crying baby in my other arm at the same time. Happy Mother’s Day!)
As you may have noticed, I wasn’t able to participate in the Daring Bakers challenge for April. (I fully intend to bake May’s challenge, by the way, and have already purchased the ingredients. Now to formulate a plan of attack for breaking it down time-wise… I’m thinking it would be a good Mother’s Day project for me.) I can count on one hand the baked goods I had time to make in April: peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies, no-bake cookies, some rather blah cinnamon muffins from the King Arthur cookbook, a batch of buttermilk biscuits, and some chocolate chip cookies. Not exactly exciting, but we take what we can get these days. (I thought I had already written up my no-bake cookies, but maybe not. They aren’t anything special, but we like them… I’ll snap a shot and write them up next time I make some.)
I was dying to try out something new but still relatively easy, and I hit on the Light Chocolate Pound recipe in Alice Medrich’s book, Bittersweet. It was low fat, not overly complicated, and didn’t even require me to dirty a board chopping chocolate—right up my alley! I don’t have a tube pan of the appropriate size, so I substituted in the “bundt” ring in my 9″ springform, which turned out to hold just the right amount of batter. Releasing the finished cake from its clutches turned out to be an ordeal though, despite the pan’s non-stick coating and my preventative spray of oil. Good thing I wasn’t serving it to company, but a drizzle of ganache will cover a multitude of sins in any case. I cheated with a jar of Scharffenberger ganache we were given at Christmas, but this cake would be delicious with a little icing glaze or even just a puff of powdered sugar. I should also note that this is one of those cakes that improves overnight: I found it a little dry right out of the oven and thought I had overcooked it, but it was much more moist the next day (when we ate wedges of it with our fingers like snack cakes!).
A Light Chocolate Pound
1 C plus 2 T sugar
1 C AP flour
1/2 C unsweetened natural cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
3/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
4 T unsalted butter, softened
1 cold large egg
2 cold large egg whites
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 C cold low-fat (1%) milk
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350F. Spray a 6-cup tube pan with vegetable oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa, soda, and salt. Add the butter, egg and whites. Set a timer for 2 minutes and begin beating with an electric mixer on medium speed. When the dry ingredients are moistened but not wet, increase the speed to high and beat until the 2 minutes are up.
Combine the vanilla and cold milk, and add to the batter. Start at low speed, then slowly increase to high speed and beat for exactly 2 minutes more total. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread it evenly. Bake just until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 35-40 minutes; do not overbake. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then unmold onto the rack to cool completely. Serve dusted with powdered sugar or drizzled with icing or ganache.
Note: The original recipe called for a teaspoon of espresso powder, but I left it out, because I don’t have any and I am not a coffee fan anyway (and yes, I know all about coffee’s affinity for chocolate.) Add it if you like! Also, I misread the instructions and added 3/4 tsp of baking soda instead of 3/8 tsp; then I attempted to scoop some of it back out when I realized my mistake, but I’m sure there was more soda in my cake than intended. It made absolutely no difference that I could tell, and we were happy with the texture of the cake.
Source: Bittersweet, by Alice Medrich
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03.30.08
Posted in Cake, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits at 12:05 am by julie
I’ve had a pretty bad record of procrastination when it comes to Daring Bakers challenges. The rapid decline of strawberry season last July meant that I really had to rush in order to make my Strawberry Mirror Cake, but since then, I’ve taken a much more leisurely approach to the deadline. With our own little sticky bun due to finish baking at any moment, however, I knew it would probably be a bad idea to put off baking the March challenge: Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake in Baking: From My Home to Yours, a white layer cake with lemon buttercream, coconut and raspberry preserves. It looked so fresh and cheerful in the photos that I thought it would be a perfect fit for our baby shower on March 7th, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Plus, I’m not big on lemon, so I figured that it was the perfect occasion to get a bunch of folks to help us eat it up.
A few days before the shower, we went to Costco, and while Jeremy was poring over the muffin options, I meandered over toward the fruit aisle and delightedly discovered bags of Cara Cara oranges on display. I’d never even heard of them before this year, but I took the rave reviews on faith and lugged a huge bag of oranges into our shopping cart. That night I tried one out and found them absolutely delicious, if a little hard to peel and section (or maybe I’m just too used to satsumas now). In case you aren’t familiar with them, Cara Caras are a pink-fleshed orange known for being especially sweet and only mildly acidic, with a flavor reminiscent of a cross between oranges and ruby red grapefruit. As soon as I took a bite, I knew that I wanted to flavor and garnish my challenge cake with these oranges, so after some consideration, I ended up making a Cara Cara creamsicle cake with cherry preserves and candied orange slices.
The cake itself was incredibly easy to make. My only adjustment was using vanilla paste rather than lemon zest rubbed into the sugar. They came out pale and tender and gently domed, the latter counteracted by cooling them on the rack upside down. I’ve never done a real layer cake before (unless you count Jeremy’s German chocolate skyscraper cheesecake from last month), so my biggest concern was cutting the layers in half without mangling them or coming out all crooked. Somehow it all worked out beautifully, though.
The buttercream was the next hurdle to tackle, but I had more confidence in this arena after making two flavors of Swiss meringue buttercream for my Yule log in December (which, incidentally, feels like just a few weeks ago… where has the time gone??). I followed the directions and didn’t hover in the kitchen while my stand mixer did its thing, and lo and behold: perfect satiny smooth buttercream with nary a curdle in sight. My buttercream was flavored with fresh Cara Cara orange juice and zest, plus the vanilla extract called for, and it ended up delicately colored and scented with orange.
The third element, which I actually started working on first, was the candied orange slices. At first I intended to just candy the peels, but that pink-tinted fruit was so lovely that it seemed a waste to scrape it all out. Also, the process for candying whole slices was a little less onerous in terms of blanching, so I was able to spend a little less time on my feet, always an important consideration when you’re 38 weeks pregnant and counting. My orange slices simmered away in sugar syrup while I made and baked and cooled the cake layers, then continued soaking while I whipped up the buttercream. Before assembling the cake, I laid the slices out on a rack to drain, and strained the orange-infused syrup that remained. I couldn’t bear to let the latter go to waste, so I brushed each cake layer with some syrup before spreading on the cherry preserves (pureed to a smooth, spreadable consistency with my hand blender) and buttercream.
I had to assemble my cake on an ordinary dinner plate, due to limited storage and presentation options. That was actually the most challenging part of the whole challenge, because the cake was nearly the same size as the plate. The waxed paper I used to keep the mess down was very effective at that job, but got in my way while trying to frost the bottom portion of the cake. Fortunately for me, coconut disguises a host of frosting ills, and looks pretty to boot! The frosted, but ungarnished, cake went in the refrigerator overnight, and the candied oranges were left out to air-dry. I turned them a few times to make sure they weren’t gluing themselves to the rack, and at lunchtime on party day, I coated them with granulated sugar and fanned them out on top of the cake. As Dorie recommended, I gave the cake a few hours to come up to room temperature before the shower.
There wasn’t much time for photography during the shower, since I was busy serving cake and chatting and opening gifts. I managed to snap a few quick photos after the party, and it was a good thing I did, because my cake disappeared in the blink of an eye. I think it is safe to say that it was the best-received dessert I’ve ever brought to work. Everything about it worked perfectly, as I suppose I should expect from a Perfect Party Cake. The cake itself was fluffy and light; the orange buttercream was silky-smooth and not overpowering, which I find can be the case with citrus desserts; the cherry jam, which I would ordinarily snub my nose at for cake filling, blended perfectly with the orange and vanilla flavors, and presented no textural problems for my palate; and the candied oranges were just the right touch on top, soft enough to cut through easily while I was doling out slices and completely edible. I liked it so much better than I expected to, that I was actually very disappointed to find that only a single slice was leftover for us to take home. But there were still 8 egg yolks in the fridge crying out to be made into pierogies and butterscotch pie, so I didn’t mourn for long.
Many thanks to Morven for choosing a great March recipe; you can find the original version on her blog. I’ve had the cookbook for several months, and would likely never have chosen this recipe to bake for myself. Even though I fooled around with the flavorings, it was a rousing success, so I tip my hat to the Daring Bakers for pushing me, once again, out of my comfort zone. That’s why I’m a member, after all! Be sure to check out the hundreds of other Perfect Party Cakes (as if you could miss them!) on the Daring Bakers Blogroll, to see how everyone else fared.
Perfect Party Cake
For the Candied Orange Slices
1 Cara Cara orange
1 1/3 C water
2/3 C sugar, plus more for coating the slices
For the Cake
2 ½ C cake flour
1 T baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ¼ C buttermilk
4 large egg whites
1 ½ C sugar
2 tsp vanilla paste
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
For the Buttercream
1 C sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ C fresh Cara Cara orange juice
1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
For Finishing
2/3 C cherry preserves, pureed with a stick blender until spreadable
About 3/4 C sweetened shredded coconut
Getting Ready
Center 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 Candied Orange Slices
Using a sharp knife, cut the orange into 1/4-inch thick slices, removing any pips. Meanwhile, bring the water and sugar to a boil in a large saucepan. Add the orange slices to the pot, cover and reduce the heat so that the syrup simmers gently. Cook, turning the slices every so often, until they are completely soft, translucent, and candied; start checking for doneness after about half an hour. Remove the slices from the syrup and drain on a rack; strain and reserve the syrup. Allow candied slices to dry overnight, then toss in a bowl of sugar until coated; shake off any excess sugar.
To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg whites.
Whisk together 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.
In a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar with the paddle or whisk attachment at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until they are very light.
Beat in the vanilla paste, 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 orange juice and zest, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla. You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pale orange 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 of the cake. Decoratively arrange the candied orange slices on top of the cake.
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.
Source: Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan (p. 250-252, 468).
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03.29.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 12:17 am by julie
It’s hard to believe, but our little guy is already a week old. I think that constitutes a reason for New Orleans sheet cake! Since it is my personal favorite birthday cake, I had planned to bake this cake on Nolan’s original due date of the 13th and freeze most of it to eat after he was born—but amid other preparations, I never got the chance. Fortunately, however, my parents are still here visiting and they graciously offered to bake it for us today.
Nolan won’t be eating any cake for a while yet, but we’ve been eating extra slices on his behalf, never fear. We’re currently working on building his appetite so that he can regain his birthweight, and he appears to be making some good progress.
New Orleans Sheet Cake
I think most of the country knows this cake as a Texas sheet cake, and I’m not quite sure the origin of my family’s name for it. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it is moist, gooey and fluffy at the same time, and only about as thick as a brownie. It freezes beautifully, and is at its very best alongside a scoop of good vanilla ice cream.
1 stick unsalted butter
1 C water
4 T cocoa powder
1/2 C canola oil
2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 C AP flour
1/2 C buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
Grease a 15×10x1″ jelly roll pan.
Mix and bring to a boil in a heavy saucepan the first 4 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients in order and mix well. Pour into the jelly roll pan, and bake for 25 minutes at 375F. Watch not to overbake. Cool and frost.
Frosting:
6 T milk
4 T cocoa powder
1 stick unsalted butter
1 lb. sifted powdered sugar
4 tsp vanilla
1 C chopped pecans or walnuts
Bring to a boil in a heavy saucepan the milk, cocoa and butter. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. It is better to ice the cake while it is still a little warm.
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02.07.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events at 9:13 pm by julie
Jeremy’s favorite and most often requested birthday cake is German chocolate. When we were first married, I made them with cake mixes and canned frosting, but oh, how far I’ve come. I made a pretty tasty version last year. And while he was away at school in New York City—over his 30th birthday, I might add—I connived a way to turn a chocolate yogurt loaf cake into an inside-out German chocolate cake (frosting in the middle) so I could safely send him a birthday cake in the mail. But I’m not sure if any German chocolate cake from this point on will ever be able to compare with the one I made for Jeremy’s birthday on Sunday. If you have a weak heart, consider yourself warned:
This is the German chocolate skyscraper cheesecake from the Junior’s Cheesecakes cookbook. I got the book back in November due to fond memories of Junior’s from Jeremy’s grad school days. Although almost every recipe in the book is drool-worthy, I somehow haven’t gotten around to trying one out until now.
My prior experience with baking cheesecake has been limited to an old family recipe. It’s a simple one with few ingredients, and I always cooked it in a graham cracker crust until the top was quite brown, then served with cherry pie filling (just the cherry goo part for me, no actual cherries please!). I didn’t make it often, but just enough that I couldn’t really understand why the thought of making a cheesecake seems to strike fear in so many bakers’ hearts. (Perhaps, for that reason, it would be a good Daring Bakers project one day?). Maybe that’s why the thought of baking a two-layer cake with a New York-style cheesecake sandwiched in the middle didn’t make me cringe. I have to admit, though, that once it was actually underway, I started to doubt myself.
I bought all the ingredients for the cake the previous weekend, but since then, one of the bricks of cream cheese was repurposed for emergency bagel-smearing needs. I anxiously watched the morning slipping away until Jeremy could run back over to the store for me, and by the time I got started on the cheesecake layer, it was already around 1:30pm. According to the book, both the cheesecake and chocolate cake layers needed several hours of cooling time on a rack, followed by time in the fridge (and freezer in the case of the cheesecake)—in other words, this recipe is the polar opposite of the all-in-the-pan cake I last wrote about. Then there is the fact that my oven is not the most reliable, and I pictured my cheesecake coming out of the oven with an uncooked and sunken center and a scorched top. I muttered to myself that, even if it did come out poorly, the flaws would be hidden in the middle of all that cake and frosting. However, it was too late to back out, and a good thing too: Foil-wrapped and water-bathed, my cheesecake was done exactly when the recipe indicated it should be, perfectly set and lightly golden on top. Not only did it never crack or sink, it pulled gently from the sides of the springform as it cooled, and performed beautifully in the finished cake, as you will see.
The cake batter was a little fussier, and the cooled layers threatened to crack a bit when it came time to wrap them in plastic wrap for refrigeration, but they held up just fine in the end, and the trimmings indicated the cake itself was very fluffy and light and German-chocolatey. I also toasted nuts and coconut while the oven was still hot. By this point it was past dinnertime, so I paused long enough to make a big batch of lamb kefthedes and spinach-mashed potatoes for dinner, and watch the post-Superbowl episode of House.
Then it was right back to the stove to clean up and make the frosting. This is the part of the recipe I feel a little sketchy about. It took quite a bit longer than described at a hard simmer to achieve a golden-brown color, and when I started adding nuts and coconut, it stiffened up in a hurry. I ended up adding less coconut than called for, and after a half-hour cooling period in the fridge, it was so hard and crumbly that there was no way I could spread it on the cake; my solution was adding a bit more cream for lubrication and zapping it for a few seconds in the microwave. At least then it more resembled frosting than candy, and I was able to gently smudge and press it over the layers. The cheesecake layer was a walk in the park by comparison. I didn’t bother trying to frost the outside edges of the top cake layer as the recipe indicated, even though there was probably enough frosting leftover to do so; it would never have stayed put.
Finally, around 11:00pm, I sliced that sucker open and we gave it a try. The first slices were a little messy to extract, but after setting up in the fridge overnight, all the layers melded and made slicing a piece of cake (sorry, I couldn’t resist). The cake parts tasted like good German chocolate cake, but oh-my-gosh, the cheesecake was heavenly! I’m still a little in awe that I produced it myself, because it really does taste exactly like the cheesecake we bought from Junior’s. As Jeremy put it, it was perfectly creamy and neither too airy and light, nor too dense and rich. I have actually been a little sad since Sunday that we don’t have any upcoming events that would warrant my bringing a fresh cheesecake to, or even anyone at hand to share this spectacular cake with. After all, how on earth are we going to be able—and more to the point, should we even try—to eat the whole thing ourselves? (Answer: I’m guessing a good chunk will end up in the freezer for future indulgence.)
This post is my entry for the Serendipity Bake-Off being hosted by Familia Bencomo. I think it’s impressive-looking without needing additional decoration… at least that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it!
German Chocolate Skyscraper Cheesecake
Cheesecake Layer
3 8-oz packages cream cheese (use only full fat), at room temp
1 1/3 C sugar
3 T cornstarch
1 T vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs
2/3 C heavy whipping cream
Early in the day, preheat the oven to 350F and generously butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Wrap the outside of the springform tightly with foil, covering the bottom and all the way up the sides.
Put one package of cream cheese 1/3 C sugar and the cornstarch in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on low until creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping several times. Blend in the remaining cream cheese, one package at a time, scraping after each. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat in the remaining sugar, then the vanilla. Blend in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the cream just until completely blended.
Gently spoon the batter into the prepared springform and place in a large shallow pan containing hot water that comes about 1″ up the sides of the springform. Bake at 350F for about 1 1/4 hours until the edges are light golden brown and the top is slightly golden tan, looking set and no longer wet. Remove the cake from the water bath, transfer to a wire rack, and cool in the pan for 2 hours. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (still in the pan) until completely cold, about 4 hours. Place in the freezer, still in the pan, for at least half an hour before assembly, or overnight if you are preparing in advance.
Cake Layers
1 1/2 C sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz German’s sweet baking chocolate
1/2 C water
3/4 C unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 C sugar
3 extra-large eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 C buttermilk
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
Once the cheesecake is out of the oven (make sure to remove the water bath), start the cake layers. Generously butter the sides and bottom of 2 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottom of both pans with parchment paper, but don’t let the paper come up the sides.
Sift the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt together in a small bowl. Melt the chocolate in the water in the microwave or in a small saucepan over low heat, then set aside to cool. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl on medium speed until light yellow and creamy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each. Blend in the melted chocolate and vanilla. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk and blending well after each addition.
Beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together in a clean bowl on high heat until stiff peaks form. Stir about 1/3 of the whites into the chocolate batter to lighten it, then fold in the remaining whites. Don’t worry if you still see a few specks of white, since they’ll disappear during cooking. Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and bake at 350F until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a moist crumb, about 30 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pans on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then turn them out onto the rack and gently peel off the paper liners. Let the cakes cool completely, about 2 hours, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to assemble the cake.
Frosting
1 1/2 C chopped pecans
1/2 C sliced almonds
1/2 C chopped hazelnuts
4 C angel flake coconut, plus 1/4 C for sprinkling
2 C sugar
2 T AP flour
1 C heavy whipping cream
1 C whole milk
1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 T vanilla extract
Once the cakes are out of the oven, spread out all the nuts on a large rimmed baking sheet and toast at 350F until golden, about 5 minutes, tossing once or twice. Set aside to cool. Toast 1/4 C coconut the same way until golden brown and set aside for garnish.
When you are nearly ready to assemble the cake, mix the sugar and flour together in a large saucepan. (This is when I moved the cheesecake to the freezer.) Add the cream, milk, butter and vanilla, and stir until well combined. Cook and stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens and turns golden brown, about 12 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the toasted nuts and untoasted coconut. Refrigerate until the frosting is thick enough to spread, about 30 minutes.
Assembling the Cake
Remove the cheesecake from the freezer and let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes (if frozen overnight). Place one cake layer, top side down, on a cake plate. Spread with frosting. Release and remove the frozen cheesecake from the ring of the springform, then release and remove from the bottom of the pan (I slid a thin knife around the bottom, then flipped the cheesecake bottom and all onto the cake layer and gently pulled the pan bottom off the now-top of the cheesecake.). Spread with some more frosting. Top with the remaining cake layer top side up, and frost the top of the cake and the sides of the top cake layer only. Sprinkle the top evenly with toasted coconut. Refrigerate the cake until ready to serve (if the cheesecake was frozen overnight, it will take about 2 hours to thaw enough to easily slice). Use a sharp straight-edge knife, not a serrated one, to cut it.
Source: Junior’s Cheesecakes Cookbook, by Alan Rosen and Beth Allen, pg. 160-161.
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02.02.08
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert at 10:38 am by julie
I haven’t been doing as much cooking lately as I usually do. My excuse is that I’ve got old lady hips now, so standing in the kitchen for any amount of time inevitably ends in me hobbling back to the sofa to rest my swollen ankles. Good thing March is next month! In the meantime, I’ll take this opportunity to share a simple little cake I’ve made quite a few times, most recently a few weeks back.
This was the first recipe I made from In the Sweet Kitchen, and it’s still the primary reason I use the book—although the flavor pairing and substitutions charts frequently come in handy as well. The most recent time I made it, I went from scratching my head, thinking, “I wish we had something for dessert,” to eating cake in less than an hour and a half. So it’s a great quick-fix and doesn’t make many dirty dishes, all good things when you’ve got on your achy old lady hips. I have to admit to speeding up the cooling time for the cake by popping it in the freezer for about 15 minutes once the frosting was ready to go, which worked out perfectly.
All-in-the-Pan Chewy Chocolate Cake
1 1/2 C AP flour
1 C sugar
1/4 C unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 T canola oil
1 T white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C cool water
Quick Chocolate Butter Icing
1/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
2 C confectioners sugar
2-3 T milk or water
1 1/2 T unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350F, and get out the butter for the icing, if using. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt into an 8×8 or 9×9 ungreased square baking pan. Stir well with a fork or flat whisk, making sure to get the corners of the pan. Make three wells in the dry ingredients (small, medium and large); pour the vegetable oil in the largest indentation, the vinegar in the medium one, and the vanilla in the smallest. Pour the water over everything. Again with a fork or flat whisk, stir until all the ingredients are well-blended, making sure to catch all the dry pockets that may form around the corners and edges. Don’t beat, just mix until most of the lumps are out and the batter is fairly uniform (no patches of overly thick or runny batter).
Bake an 8×8 cake for 30 minutes, or a 9×9 cake for 23-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is springy when touched lightly. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely before cutting or frosting. Because it is a very moist cake, it can tear if cut too soon, and of course you don’t want the icing to melt. While waiting for it to cool, make the icing, if using.
Icing: Cream together the butter and 1 C of confectioners sugar until the butter is well distributed; it will still be dry and powdery. Stir in 1 T milk or water, then sift the cocoa powder over and cream to blend. Mix in the vanilla, then the second cup of confectioners sugar. Add as much remaining liquid as necessary to achieve a thick creamy icing.
To serve, either cut the cake into squares and simply dust with confectioners sugar, or spread with icing (there will be plenty; you don’t have to use it all unless you really like icing!). Serve with vanilla ice cream or a glass of cold milk, and try not to eat the whole pan in one sitting.
Source: In the Sweet Kitchen, by Regan Daley, p. 407-409.
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12.23.07
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert, Foodblog Events at 11:00 pm by julie
And on we forge! After filling and rolling the genoise on Friday night, around about midnight, I wasn’t able to get back to get back to the cake until the next evening. (We went and had a 3D/4D ultrasound done so my parents could watch it. Very cool!) The roll set up nicely in the fridge, and I got it all laid out with cut stumps and limbs on a brand-new platter purchased just for the occasion. The chocolate genoise was so rough and bark-ish by itself that it almost didn’t even need frosting, but where would the fun be in that?
The branches held together just fine without toothpicks, as you can see, but I took no chances and frosted all the joints first. I left the cut edges bare so that the roll itself could act as the tree’s rings. The frosting was just slathered on roughly and then scuffed up with a fork to look like bark.
Once I had the frosted log back in the fridge, I did all the advance prep for the decorations. First I made meringue for the mushrooms. Although I purchased a set of pastry bags and tips especially for the occasion, none of the tips were the right size or shape for the mushrooms, so I ended up using a snipped plastic bag after all.
It worked out alright, and I just left the meringues in the cooling oven overnight to dry out as much as possible. As you can see, I dusted the caps with cocoa powder, and when I put them together this afternoon shortly before we left for the party, I used melted chocolate for the “glue” that stuck the pieces together. The finished mushrooms came out really cute and surprisingly realistic. Half my family thought they were real mushrooms at first glance.
Next, I made homemade marzipan. Since I forgot to buy almond paste when we were at the grocery store earlier in the day, I also ended up making that, using equal parts whole almonds and powdered sugar, whizzed together in the food processor with an egg white and a bit of almond extract until they formed a smooth, uniform ball. It was much easier to make than I had expected, and tasted better than the marzipan I’ve encountered in the past. I left half of it uncolored (it was a nut-brown beige due to the almond skins) and tinted the rest a bright green. In the morning, I shaped the uncolored marzipan into little acorns and painted their caps with melted chocolate; the green marzipan was rolled out on a silpat and cut out in the shape of ivy leaves, with rolled vines and tendrils.
As finishing touches, I also made some sugared rosemary by brushing fresh rosemary branches with corn syrup and thoroughly sprinkling it with sugar. I used corn syrup because the alternative was egg white and I already had four orphaned yolks in the fridge. The corn syrup didn’t ever dry, though, so I’d use the egg white next time, regardless. Finally, as another decadent touch, I made some very simple bittersweet truffles rolled in cocoa powder. I’ve done these before, but ran into the unexpected snag of having warm hands. (I usually have ice-cold hands all the time, which is great for working with truffle ganache, but my hands have been really warm during my pregnancy. Weird.) Good thing they were meant to look rustic!
As you can see, I decided to play with the mushroom shapes a bit, and made some shelf mushrooms to insert on the sides of the log. They came out really cute, and were a nice detail.
Here’s the finished log in all its glory. It had a lot going on, but I think it came out beautifully, and I had a lot of fun playing around with the artistic aspects of decorating the cake. It was a big hit at my family party, too, though everyone assumed it was filled with ice cream for some reason. They also refused to cut it, so I ended up doing the serving myself, a bit of a challenge with the irregular shape. I wasn’t personally able to discern the chestnut flavor in the filling, but all the frosting was delicious and silky smooth, balancing well with the tender chocolate genoise.
This cake was a showstopper and delicious to boot. There is also a ton of room for creativity in flavoring and decorating it; so, although I might not make a yule log every year, it will definitely make an appearance on my holiday table again, in one form or another. For the full recipe, visit our gracious host, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. And as always, be sure to check out all the other fabulously daring creations on the Daring Bakers Blogroll here.
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12.22.07
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events at 11:38 pm by julie
Daring Bakers can’t stop being daring just because it’s Christmas. This month’s challenge was a big one: to make a Yule Log, complete with meringue or marzipan mushrooms, and write about it mere days before Christmas. I decided to make mine for a family holiday dinner on the 23rd, so timing has come right down to the wire. I’m still working on decorations, and will finish them up in the morning, but I wanted to write about the first part of my buche-building experience now (while I am up anyway waiting for ganache to cool and pate fermentee to rise).
The yule log challenge was threefold: make a genoise cake capable of being rolled, make a Swiss meringue buttercream to fill and frost the cake, and make either marzipan or meringue mushrooms to decorate it. We were given quite a bit of leeway as far as flavoring the cake: I went with chestnut buttercream for the filling, chocolate genoise, and chocolate buttercream for the frosting. I made the meringue mushrooms and some homemade marzipan for other decorations on the log.
I tackled the buttercream first because I had heard many stories about curdled or broken efforts, and figured that I should give myself the time to screw up—and retry it—if necessary, before moving on to the cake. I used organic cultured butter and softened it thoroughly via low power in the microwave. When I was done, I had a reasonably smooth but very runny unflavored buttercream. Because I wanted to use two different flavorings, I split the batch in half and popped both bowls in the fridge to chill, in hopes of thickening it up.
It thickened alright, and curdled too. When I stirred a few tablespoons of sweetened chestnut puree into one half of the buttercream, it curdled even more, and I started to panic (hence no photo). Since I had nothing to lose, I decided to melt down part of the curdled muck over a water bath, pour it back into the rest, and beat the heck out of it with my stand mixer.
As you can see, it totally did the trick. I used pretty much the same trick with the chocolate buttercream, but it just needed the heat of the melted chocolate to whip it back into shape.
Next on the docket was the genoise. I had a bit of a scare because when I pulled the box of parchment paper out of the drawer, it looked like I was not going to have enough to line the jelly roll pan. But in a Christmas miracle, I had exactly the amount I needed, no more and no less. I couldn’t have cut it more perfectly if I had tried. The batter itself was fairly straightforward, though I had a heck of a time incorporating all the dry ingredients into the aerated egg mixture without deflating it too much. I baked it for just under the time called for, and it sprang back perfectly.
To prepare it for rolling, I took Rose Levy Berenbaum’s advice and draped a damp tea towel over the hot cake while it was still in the pan. When it had cooled enough not to melt the buttercream, I ran a knife around the edges, spread on the chestnut buttercream filling, and used the parchment as an aid in rolling up the cake from the long end. It cooperated much better than I had anticipated, with no cracks in sight; I wrapped it in plastic wrap and gave it the night to set up.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment, which will cover cutting, frosting, and decorating the log!
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