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Lemon Canadian Crown

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The last few weeks have been a bit crazy for me and as a result I haven’t been baking.  As a friend once told me, “Baking is my happy place,” which really is true for me.  I have missed the whirr of my KitchenAid and the aroma of sweet smells whafting from my oven.

Last week’s Heavenly Cake baking assignment was the Lemon Canadian Crown.  Fortunately for me, I baked this cake for my husband’s birthday in September.  Out of all the cakes in Rose’s book, Hubby chose this one for his special day.  Since we are not allowed to post about cakes before they have been assigned, I did not post about it at the time.  I figured I would end up making it again when the rest of the group baked it, but with everything going on I wasn’t able to. This cake definitely lived up to its expectations.

The frozen dessert needs to be made at least 5 hours ahead so it can firm up before eating.  It calls for ladyfingers which can be store bought or homemade.  Generally I would have leaped into making the ladyfingers but I didn’t have time so I went with store-bought. You cut the bottoms off and of the ladyfingers and line the pan with them.  It took two packages for this.

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Free Choice – Torta De Las Tres Leches

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This week was free choice and I had such a hard time deciding what to make. Finally I enlisted the help of my husband and we decided on the Tres Leches Cake. I’ve never made one before and so I thought this would be fun.

The cake is really pretty easy to make. You begin by mixing eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt in a bowl and setting the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until it is warm to the touch. Then you immediately transfer the bowl to the stand mixer and beat with the whisk attachment for 5 minutes. The mixture should quadruple in volume. You add the flour and that is it for the batter.

Now I made a little mistake at this point. I was halving the recipe and so I decided to use a 6-inch pan. But I wasn’t paying attention that we were to bake all the batter in one pan. I am so used to always using two cake pans per recipe that I pulled out two 6-inch cake pans and divided the batter between the two. Oops!

The cakes baked up fine and I removed them from the pan immediately as instructed. In the meantime, I prepared the “leche mixture.” Nonfat milk and whole milk are boiled until reduced by half. Then you add sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream, along with a little sugar.

The top crust of the cake is cut off, leaving a small mound on top. You pour the “leche mixture” onto the top of the cake and it soaks right in. Then the cake has to sit overnight in the fridge.

The next day you can frost with whipped cream and eat! Since I made two layers of cake instead of the one, I just ended up frosting them individually and gave one to a friend.

We really loved this cake. I liked how easy it was and we loved the flavor of it. We will definitely make this again.

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Gold Ingots — Plain and Fancy

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I am so honored to have been chosen as featured baker last week.  I didn’t even think to explain how I decorated the cake when I posted so since there was quite a bit of interest I thought I would share what I did.  I love seeing how everyone adds their unique touches to their cakes and it gives me such inspiration.  So last week after I saw so many beautiful renditions of the cake I decided that I could not just have some plain old cake and decided to come up with something.  Of course the cake had caramel ganache so I tried to think of something that would complement the caramel.  Then I remembered that I had a can of Dulce de Leche left over from some flan I made a while back.  I put the caramel in a pastry bag and microwaved it just a touch to soften it up (make sure you take the decorating tip off) and that is what I used to pipe the design on my cake.  It really is a great little item that can be used to dress up a dessert by pooling some on a plate or drizzling it over the top.

Well, today’s baking assignment turned out to be a very pleasant surprise.  I’ve secretly been dreading these little cakes for a while because I was afraid they would be just too plain for my liking (no chocolate AND no icing).  But I found this nifty little pan at Hobby Lobby and I started feeling a bit more positive about the whole thing.  This actually turned out to be the PERFECT pan for making the financiers.  Not only is it a really nice size for the cakes, but while most silicone pans are a real pain to work with because they flop around, this pan actually has a steel reinforced rim which keeps it rigid when you are putting it in and out of the oven or removing the cakes.  It is made by Davison (www.davison.com) and is called a Dessert Bar Pan in case anyone is interested in it.

I usually start checking the blogs on Sunday afternoon to see if I can get a little preview of what is to come and see if there is any advice that I can use in my own baking experience.  The couple of entries that I happened to see were not very complimentary of the ingots and I started to worry.  It sounded like they  really were going to be as unexciting as I had figured (or worse) and I considered not even making them.  Instead, I started hatching a plan of how to salvage the recipe (more on that later).

The recipe is pretty easy.  It requires toasting slivered almonds (I used sliced) which are then ground with sugar in the food processor.  The other ingredient that gives these cakes flavor is the beurre noisette.  I’m actually getting pretty good at making the beurre noisetts  since it’s about the third time we’ve had to make it in the last several months. Once the almonds and butter are ready, they are mixed with egg whites and Wondra flour and it mixes up in about five minutes.

Rose instructs you to put it in the fridge for about an hour and then pipe it into the pan using a pastry bag.  Since I really didn’t want to wait around an hour, I decided to just put it directly into the baking pan.  I put the batter in a measuring cup and then poured it into each cavity.  I didn’t have any problem with this and would highly recommend others to do it this way.  I was also very happy when my batter came out perfectly for my pan and I had 12 little financiers.

I popped the cake in the oven and they baked up very nicely.  I let them cool a bit and then took them out of the pans.  As I said earlier, I had worries over these little cakes, so in the meantime I had whipped together a few items to dress them up — some chocolate ganache (can never go wrong with that) and custard.  These two items came to mind because I figured the ingots were going to taste a lot like yellow cake and I decided to make some mini boston creams out of them.

So this was the point where I was very pleasantly surprised!  The ingots didn’t taste like yellow cake at all and they weren’t at all lacking in flavor.   The almond and browned butter flavors came through very nicely and made for a very tasty little cake, with a nice texture,  that I think would go well with a little fruit compote or a few berries.  I would like to try making these in my little teacake pan  as I can picture them on a dessert plate drizzled with berry coulis.

Now since I already had my custard and ganache ready, I went ahead and tried the cakes that way too.  The custard was actually a bit sweet (not from scratch) which I felt detracted from the almond flavor of the cakes.  But I really liked the chocolate paired with the almond and it added just a touch of moistness and elegance to it.

This was a great little recipe and one that I am very glad that I tried.  I am sure that I will be making these again and again.

Next week is free choice and I really can’t decide what I want to make.  There are so many recipes I am interested in that I am having a hard time narrowing it down.  So I guess you will be surprised next week.

 

 

 

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Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache

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Seems so many of the other Heavenly Cake Bakers are disappointed when we bake something chocolatey.  This is something I really cannot comprehend.  I LOVE chocolate!  In fact, one of the reasons I decided to join the Heavenly Cake Bakers was to widen my horizons and force myself to bake more things that aren’t chocolate.  But I am always very happy when the assignment involves chocolate.

This week’s assignment was the Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache.  I made sure to read through the instructions a few times before starting so I wouldn’t have any surprises.  Since the ganache needed to sit for several hours I decided to start with that.

The first step to the ganache is making the caramel.   I have three little words that I suggest everyone write in the margin of their book:  Mis en place!  I started heating the water and sugar and thought I would get everything else together while it came up to temp.  Only problem was that there wasn’t a whole lot of time and the caramel was starting to darken by the time I finished getting the food processor out, chopping the chocolate and measuring the cream.  Next time I will have everything ready before I start the caramel.

Rose instructs you to check the temperature of the caramel which turned into a bit of a challenge.  I considered skipping that step but was afraid there might be something magic about 370 degrees so I figured I had better do it to avoid any problems.   I had to tip the hot pan to get enough liquid for the thermometer and every time I checked it was only a little over 300 degrees.  As the caramel kept getting darker and darker I suddenly realized that maybe my thermometer didn’t go any higher and sure enough, that was the problem.  So I let the caramel get a bit darker and then pulled it off the heat and added the cream.  I ended up with some chunks of caramel but was able to melt them back down over the burner.  Then I added the caramel to the chocolate in the food processor.  The end result was a very lovely and tasty ganache.

The cake is baked in one 9″ cake pan and then the cake is sliced into two layers.  The ganache is used as a filling between the layers and as icing on top.

The cake was very good and the ganche, which thickened up into a fudge-like consistency, was fabulous.  I would have preferred a stronger caramel flavor as it seemed rather subtle to me, but perhaps the caramel needed to be darker.  I will make this cake again and I will probably use this ganache with some of my other recipes as well.


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Marionberry Shortcake — Takes 1 and 2

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MMMM — Marionberries!  They make me think of Oregon because of course that is where they are from.  Our family lived in Oregon for 7 years and we absolutely loved it.  We loved the climate, the people, and the lifestyle.  And I loved being so close to the ocean. My vision of a perfect day is to gather the family and head to Cannon Beach.  When I mentioned that I was making Marionberry Shortcake this week, the first thing my daughter said was that she missed going to Sauvie Island.   I miss that and so much more.

Because I live in small town USA I did not think that I would be able to find any frozen Marionberries so I was absolutely thrilled when I found them at my local store.  And I have to tell you that the Marionberries are really what made this dessert fantastic.

The genoise cake was pretty strait forward to make.  You first make beurre noisette.  Then you heat your eggs over steam just until they are lukewarm.  You whip the eggs on high in the KitchenAid for about 5 minutes.  Then it is just a process of folding in the flour and the beurre noisette.

Now I ended up making my cake twice.  This was not because I made it incorrectly, but I made a very bad choice in what pan to bake it in.  First of all, I should say that I was very good and resisted buying the Nordicware Shortcake Basket pan.  I really really wanted to buy it and I even saw that the local cooking store had it available.  But right now I am trying to be really good about not spending money I don’t need to.  So, I did not buy said pan.  So I wondered what else I might use to make it feel a little special.  I decided that I could use my mini bundt pan.  Now I DID ask myself if it would be a problem to make genoise in that type of a pan.  But, I figured that if we could make a genoise cake in a rose shaped pan, I should be able to use a bundt pan.   Well  — no, it did not work.  I greased the pan well, and the cakes looked great after coming out of the oven, but when I  attempted to take them out of the pan, they were just not coming out.

So, take 2 on the cake.  Made the batter again, and this time I decided to try my little mini cocotte dishes by Le Creuset.  I greased and lined them with parchment and popped them in the oven.  They baked up very nice.  And this time, they came out of the pans very easily and looked very nice.

I brushed the cakes with the marionberry syrup and made up a little whipped cream for the top.

All I can say is YUMMM!  Every bite made me feel like I was back in Oregon.  Hubby thinks the recipe is a definite keeper –so much so that he even thinks we should buy the basket pan!  I’ll probably wait until next summer for that, but I think we may be making this again soon.

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Chocolate Feather Bed

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I had mixed feelings about this recipe from beginning to end but after all was said and done, I thought this cake was excellent!

Normally I only make half of the assigned recipe but since we were having a gathering at our house on Monday night I  decided that this week I was going to make the full recipe.  Figures that I would decide to do this on the one recipe that actually requires more work to make the full recipe and I notice most bakers only made half this time (lol).  But that’s okay. . . it was actually worth the effort.

For some reason I thought that the ganache was supposed to be made two hours before the cake.  So, I dove right in and made the ganache.  I skipped the food processor directions and just heated the milk and then poured it over the chopped chocolate.  It was a bit unusual to have twice as much cream as chocolate in the ganache.  I kept wondering if this could be right clear up to the point that the soft peaks appeared while beating it and I felt very relieved.  Then it needed to go into the refrigerator and stirred every 30 minutes until it reached 65-68 degrees.

With the ganache made, I proceeded to make the cake.  To make the full recipe, you must make two separate batches of batter and bake two separate pans of cake. Each cake is cut in half so that you have four layers to stack with the ganache layered between.  The egg yolks and egg whites are each beat separately so I felt like I would never quit beating eggs and the recipe would never end.  It probably didn’t help that I ran out of cream of tartar after the first batch so I had to run to the store to get more.


Finally, both cakes were baked!  But then I realized that I was supposed to chill the cake before I assembled it.  That was a small problem since my ganache had just reached 66 degrees.  Hmm. . . . well, I decided that I was just going to plow ahead.  I proceeded to beat the ganache and it came out perfect (although it took longer than the 30 seconds it says it will take in the book).  I popped the warmest layer of cake into the freezer for about 5 minutes (the other one was at room temp) and I proceeded to assemble.
The layers were pretty fragile but with the help of a cake lifter it was all good.   I put a full cup of ganache on top of the first cake layer (because that’s what the recipe says), but by the second layer I could see that there was not going to be enough ganache to put a cup on each layer.  So then I just spread it thinly on top of each layer and it came out perfect at the end.  I wrapped the whole cake in saran wrap and put it in the fridge.

Monday night I pulled the cake out of the fridge about an hour before our gathering was to begin.  I put some chocolate curls on top and voila!

The cake definitely seemed to be a hit.  I say this not because people were raving about it, but because I think nearly every person went back for seconds.

I wasn’t sure about the texture of the cake layers right after I made them.  But when the cake sits in the fridge overnight, the layers meld right together and it is completely transformed into an AMAZING cake.  It is intensely chocolate but actually has a very light texture. I guess that’s why they call it a chocolate feather bed!

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Plum and Blueberry Upside-Down Torte

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The last several weeks have been pretty crazy for me.  I’ve had lots to do at work and lots going on at home too.  I didn’t even get last week’s assignment done.  So I told myself that I absolutely had to get this week’s baking project done.  Since I’m headed out of town on Sunday afternoon (back to Mayo for a few days), and since I ended up having a short work day today (Saturday) I decided to stop on my way home from work to get what I needed and get to work baking.  I honestly hadn’t even looked through the recipe until this morning so hadn’t had much time to ponder anything about it.  But it looked pretty straight forward.

Of course I had only one choice when it came to the plums because of my lovely small town (note the sarcasm).  Anyway, I bought said plums and blueberries and headed home.  There is no picture of this recipe in the book so I was excited to see what it was going to turn out like.  The first step in this baking project is to make caramel.  This is done by heating sugar and water together until it turns a deep amber color. You must watch carefully so that you pull it off at the right time.  The caramel is then poured into the bottom of a prepared pan.  I decided to halve the recipe and use a six inch pan because I didn’t want to make a whole recipe and have it go to waste.

Next, you remove the pits from the plums and then arrange the fruit in the bottom of the pan. I had PLENTY of fruit for my six inch pan so I left some of the blueberries out.

The final step is to make the batter.  You mix the dry ingredients first and then mix with the butter.  I decided to do this by hand (literally) instead of using the food processor.   Then you add the eggs and vanilla.  The batter could not have been easier to make.  I filled the pan and I was a little worried that the pan would overflow in the oven.  After I took the picture, I decided to remove a little batter.  The cake baked up perfectly and came out of the pan quite nicely.

We were pretty busy  most of the evening and so we didn’t actually try the cake until the next day.  My hubby, my daughter and I really liked it and we definitely will make it again.  I definitely liked how easy it was to make.   My husband liked that it wasn’t too sweet  yet  it was still sweet enough for the rest of us.  It was just a nice balance of flavors.

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Designer Chocolate Baby Grands

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I’ve been really looking forward to making this recipe.  Unfortunately, my rendition didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  I am attributing this to my own execution of the recipe and I will probably have to try this recipe again when I have a little more time.

The cake batter is the same batter that we used for the ice cream sandwhich a couple of weeks ago.  We really enjoyed that cake so I knew that I wouldn’t be disappointed as far as that went.   The batter mixed up easily.  I did, however, have the same problem as last time when the cocoa and water turns into a paste rather than a smooth mixture.  I am taking comfort with the fact that other people seem to be having the same problem as me and since it doesn’t seem to affect the outcome, I am just not worrying about it.  I made what I see as my biggest mistake when I filled my cupcake liners too full.  It seemed like I had about 3/4 of an inch left from the top but I only ended up with 9 cupcakes and clearly after they were baked they were not flat like in the picture.

The second step was to take the hot cupcakes and poke about a dozen holes in each one with a skewer.  Then we were to pour milk chocolate ganache over the top of the cupcakes and into the holes.   I had two sizes of skewers and I opted for the smaller one to poke the holes.  I seemed to have problems getting the ganache down inside though, and I would probably use the larger one next time.  I did feel like I had filled them pretty well, but after they sat a while I could see that there was still space in a lot of the holes.  Because of time, I did not go back and make more ganache and fill them in.

The third and final step is to make the Lacquer Glaze.   This is the part that I expected would make these little cakes over-the-top delicious.  In the picture it looks so thick and smooth and so I  expected a fudge like texture.  My glaze, however, turned out pretty thin and runny, even after it cooled a bit.  So the million dollar question is — is the glaze in the picture actually thicker than mine, or is it just that the cupcakes are very flat which makes a thicker layer of glaze possible?  I think I made the glaze correctly,  but I was having problems with my thermometer so maybe I didn’t do it exactly right. I’m not sure.

Anyway, the cupcakes were good, but not exceptionally better than any other chocolate cupcake.  Even my son, who is not really a chocoholic like myself, thought the glaze needed to be thicker. So I will have to leave it for now but when I get some extra time, I will be cooking these up again.

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Chocolate Banana Stud Cake

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This weekend’s project was Chocolate Banana Stud Cake.  The recipe was fairly basic which is a good thing in my book.  I started by making a paste of cocoa and boiling water.  This is added to a mashed banana, sour cream, eggs and vanilla.  Then the dry ingredients are added alternately with butter.  Then it’s into the oven to bake.  I decided to make two 6″ rounds so that i could sample one and have one to give away.

After baking I let the cakes cool for about 15 minutes and then I removed them from the pan.  The first one crumbled a fair amount on the bottom, most likely due to the fact that I didn’t have parchment in the pan because I ran out and was too lazy to run to the store.  The second cake came out perfectly, however, so I figured I could eat the crumbled one and give the nice one away.

A basic ganache is made and allowed to thicken up over several hours before icing the cakes.  Everything went exactly as directed in the recipe.  The most time consuming part of making this is probably placing the chocolate chips on the outside.  I practiced on “my” cake and spaced the chocolate chips out a fair amount which ended up looking only so-so.  For the second cake I placed the chips closer together and it definitely looked much nicer.  This cake is going to go to some friends who took it upon themselves to help us out a few weeks ago.  They just called us up and told us they were going to take care of an assignment we had because they knew we were going to be gone most of the week and wouldn’t have much time.  It was very sweet of them.

We liked the cake a lot.  I think that the banana flavor was a little too subtle though, and next time I would definitely add more banana.  Despite that, it is very good cake — moist and flavorful. We will definitely make it again.

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Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwich

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I have been looking forward to making this cake for the last couple of weeks.  The first time I read through the recipe I knew that I wanted to use starlight mint ice cream for this.  I know – the flavor suggestions were much more sophisticated — like coffee, vanilla bean or dulce de leche.  But for me, I could just taste this cake made with my favorite ice cream.    I have to tell you that I was not disappointed.

This recipe uses a chocolate cake that has oil in it rather than butter.  Because of this, the cake stays soft when frozen.  It is the same cake used for Rose’s German Chocolate Cake.  I wanted to try the sandwich rather than the cake so I made a half recipe in a ten inch cake pan.

The cake went together quite easily, although the first step had me worried that I had ruined the whole thing.  I was to whisk cocoa and boiling water together until smooth.  What I ended up with was a very thick paste.  I added a little extra water and didn’t know what to do so I forged ahead.  I was so sure that it had to be wrong that I kept recalculated my half recipe to see if I had added too much cocoa or not enough water.  I was worried right up until the end when it said the batter should be like a thick soup, which seemed about right to me.  I baked it for only about 20 minutes when it seemed done so I took it out.  It didn’t take long to cool and then I sliced it in half and assembled it.  I was quite impressed that the cake held together very well even when thinly sliced and had no problem moving it to be assembled.

Next came the Snowball Hot Fudge Sauce.  I melted the butter and chocolate in the microwave.  The cream and sugar are brought to a boil on the stove and then added to the chocolate mixture.  I had  no problems at all.  The sauce thickens up quite a bit as it cools.

The sandwich held together just fine for eating with your fingers and I liked the idea of using a dipping sauce as Rose suggested.  But it also looks great served on a plate with the sauce drizzled over the top.

We loved the overall flavor and textures.  I felt like this particular sauce was extremely sweet and in my opinion you could cut the sugar in half or even just go with a plain ganache.   But this recipe is definitely a keeper and one we will make again.

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