Thanksgivukkah

As I'm sure you heard, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah overlapped this year (on the 28th of November), a rare occurrence that (apparently) complicated things for American Jews who had to have celebrations two nights in a row. Since I'm currently studying in the UK, I had class on Thursday until 6:00pm, so no chance of a proper Thanksgiving regardless of the timing of Hanukkah. So we combined both celebrations and pushed them until Saturday so that our British family (who had to work Friday) could come over, enjoy the day, celebrate Hanukkah and, of course, eat lots of turkey.

Chocolate Cake with Pumpkin Spice Latte Filling

I start grad school this week. Yikes! I'm excited, don't get me wrong. But it's been a while since I've been a student and even longer since I've been in college. I know it's going to be a good experience and I'm going to learn a ton, but right now I just feel incredibly stressed.

Happily my friend Katy (who's getting a very science-y PhD) and her family invited me and my mom to their lovely house in St. Albans for lunch today. Her father is an excellent cook and a delicious meal with friends is the best distraction from the imminent doom--I mean exciting opportunity--of starting classes tomorrow.

Kahlua Bonbons

We had to come up with our own bonbon recipe. I was going to do earl grey tea, orange zest, and dark chocolate. Then it hit me that my aunt was coming to visit and that she loves Kahlua and cream (in fact it's the only drink I've ever seen her order...although I really haven't seen her order many drinks at all, so maybe it's just that.) So I decided to make a Kahlua and dark chocolate bonbon instead. It isn't that hard; just add Kahlua to the chocolate ganache filling (making sure to reduce the amount of cream accordingly) and make the bonbons as usual.

I decided to color the bonbons with cocoa butter based food coloring rather than luster dust (what I used for the saffron-honey bonbons). I'm not sure why, but I had some trouble with it sticking to the mold rather than the chocolate. Perhaps I heated it too much an threw it out of temper. Ah well, I still had some that looked very nice with a touch of red (I picked red because it matched the Kahlua label and I don't like yellow as much) and some plain ones that looked very nice too. More importantly, they tasted very nice as well and my aunt liked them!

Saffron Honey Bonbons

Bonbons are a bit tedious to make and more than a bit difficult--between the price of chocolate and the labor involved, I understand why the cost so much at chocolate shops. The basic procedure is to make the filling (more on this filling in a moment) and temper chocolate for the shell. At this point get a clean, dry mold, decorate it with cocoa butter cutters or luster dust (I used a light coating of gold luster dust), and warm it slightly over an open flame (i.e. a gas burner) then fill up the mold with chocolate. Tap it or knock it off the table to get rid of bubbles and then, at exactly the right moment, pour out the excess chocolate tapping the underside of the mold to make sure all the excess chocolate drips out. Then scrape off the outside of the molds, so that the bonbons are flush with the top edge of their cavities. Let harden upside-down on a cooling rack until the cutting point and then turn rightside-up and scrape off any excess chocolate that may be on the outside of the mold. Let harden fully. Then fill with your desired filling almost to the top of the shell, but not all the way up or the bottom won't stick. Cover the bottom with more tempered chocolate (there are number of different ways to do this--my favorite is to coat a piece of parchment cut to fit the mold with a layer of chocolate, put it on top of the mold and scrape across the top to force the chocolate onto the bonbons, when it's hardened peel off the parchment.) Finally, when the chocolates are fully hardened, unmold them like you would get ice out of an ice cube tray.

The filling I used in these is a saffron, honey and dark chocolate. It was absolutely amazing. I could have just eaten it with a spoon! The mild sweetness of the honey and the subtle earthy-ness of the saffron mixed with strong dark chocolate was delicious. It's no wonder why they're called bonbons--they really are goodgood!

Petit Four Tray

Every other class during the petit four unit, we tray up our creations like we would if we were making a petit four tray at a restaurant. My partner and I made this tray with our tuiles, financiers (with chocolate chips), chocolate and raspberry macarons, rum raisin cookies, and Sarah Bernhardts. If I had it to do over again, I'd switch the financiers and rum raisin cookies so that the colors and shapes would be a bit more varied. Ah well, it still looks good and every tasted delicious.

We all bring our trays to the front at the end of class.
Aren't they pretty?

Macarons au Chocolat

These macarons are made with a traditional almond paste method rather than the still-traditional-but-slightly-more-recently-developed meringue base method, so they don't have quite the same elegant look as the macaroons that Ladurée and other patisseries have made so popular in recent years. Honestly, I like them a little more. They have a more distinct flavor and a very slightly chewy texture that I really enjoy. We sandwiched them together with chocolate ganache which made them pretty much perfect!

Marjolaine

A marjolaine is the most decadent, insane cake I've ever made (or eaten), and gosh darn it was incredible! From bottom to top the layers are: chocolate genoise, dark chocolate ganache, daquoise (remember those?), crème d'or (remember that?), daquoise, praline buttercream, daquoise, stablized whipped cream, and another daquoise. Then it's iced with more praline buttercream and covered with chocolate glaze. The top is decorated by making a crosshatch pattern in the partially set glaze with the back of a knife. Chopped hazelnuts line the bottom of the long edges and a line of candied hazelnuts (always a nice decoration) finish it off. See what I mean about decadent?

A close up of the layers.

Chocolate Ganache Cake

This was a very nice cake. It was three layers of chocolate genoise (a French "sponge" cake...although sponge in the sense that it is dry and porous, not like an American sponge cake) sandwiched together with whipped chocolate ganache. This is assembled in a cake ring and then chilled so that the ganache sets up. After it's unmolded, we poured chocolate glaze over it. Yum! We were supposed to decorate it with sugared rose petals and chocolate curls, but we ran late and couldn't. So when I got it home I decorated it with chocolate covered cocoa nibs. It was very pretty and quite delicious.

Chocolate Mille Feuille

This was amazing! This is a classic napoleon with a chocolate twist. Instead of regular puff pastry, it's made with chocolate puff pastry. Instead of vanilla pastry cream, the filling is chocolate cream. The chocolate cream, by the way, is called crème d'or. It's made by folding melted chocolate into whipped cream. I've made that before, but I call it chocolate mousse (I do know that mousse traditionally has eggs, so I knew that this wasn't officially mousse, but it seemed like the best description, because it closely resembles the taste and texture of chocolate mousse,) but I digress. Instead of fondant with thin chocolate lines on top, we used chocolate ganache with thin white chocolate lines on top, reversing the traditional chevron pattern's colors. It was beautiful and delicious! This is one of my favorite things we've made all class, and definitely my favorite thing from the puff pastry unit.

Tarte au Ganache Chocolat

This was a tender, not-too-sweet tart shell filled with rich, bittersweet chocolate ganache...need I say more? Seriously, this was amazing! Unfortunately my crust fell apart a little, but no matter, a bit of melted chocolate used like spackle to fill in the cracks and we were good to go.

The decorations on top were surprisingly easy to do. We learnt how to make a coronet to pipe melted chocolate and then all we had to do was pipe a pretty design. I admit I wasn't very creative, I just did what the chef had done in his demo. I think it's really pretty though!

Restaurant Week at Le Caprice

Eton Mess at Le Caprice

I love restaurant week! It's a great way to try out nice restaurants without spending a bundle.  I always do lunch, since at $24.07 (plus tax and tip) if you don't do drinks it's a great buy. So my mom and I tried out Le Caprice.  Well I tried it, my mom's already been there and loved it!

The meal was superb! But that's not what I want to talk about...I want to talk about the dessert, which was absolutely amazing! There were two choices on the menu so my mom got one and I got the other. Hers was a blueberry and peach pie.  It was actually a mini pie rather than a slice of a larger one. Now pie might not be the right word, it was a wonderful slightly cakey thing where the fruit was baked into a sort of light, nutty, cake-like tart/pie.  Whatever it was, it was excellent (and I don't even like blueberries). It was served with a very nice vanilla ice cream on top.

I had the Eton Mess. I usually like Eton Mess, but it doesn't thrill me. This thrilled me! It was made with fresh, not-too-sweet whipped cream; a perfect berry sauce; fresh strawberries; and perfect, crisp meringues.  Plus there was one piece of what I'd guess was a homemade strawberry jelly candy. I'm not entirely sure what it was doing there (as far as I know it's not a part of traditional Eton Mess) but it was really nice, so I'm not complaining.

Look at the lovely meringues on top. There was a bunch broken up in it too.

After we finished the desserts, they brought us a plate of lovely chocolate truffle logs. You see, my mom had mentioned that we were celebrating a number of different things including my graduation and acceptance to the FCI (because she was very proud and telling everyone), so they ended up doing that for me as a congrats gift!  I was stuffed, but that didn't stop me from eating them! They were wonderful dark chocolate ganache truffles coated in a thin shell of dark chocolate and cocoa powder. Yum, yum!

Chocolate Coconut Pie

Wow this was amazing!  I really wanted to try a recipe from my new Martha Stewart Pies and Tarts cookbook that I got for my birthday.  However, with my thesis due this past Monday I didn't have time before Passover to bake a pie.  I was a bit irked, because I really didn't want to wait any longer.  Happily I found this pie (Crisp Coconut and Chocolate Pie...or perhaps Coconut Crisp and Chocolate Pie), which is Passover friendly.

This is not only an incredible Passover dessert, but also a wonderful anytime dessert.  It is basically a thick pie crust made of coconut filled with chocolate ganache.  The crust is baked before you pour in the ganache and then it is just chilled.  This process, in my opinion makes it a good summer pie, because the oven isn't on for long intervals and it's served chilled.  Plus there's something summery about coconut, I think.

Anyway, my one pointer for this is do not make it too last minute.  The cookbook says to let it chill for anywhere from an hour to a day.  The one hour guideline is too short.  It's what I followed (because I'm rather impatient!) and the filling was not fully set.  That said, it was still amazing!  It had an almost pudding like texture.  Although, if I'm honest, I did like it slightly more the next day when it was fully set and chilled through to the center.  I'd suggest making it in the morning or very early afternoon if you can, then let it chill until dessert time.  That seems like it would work well.

Chocolate Cake with Whipped Ganache Icing

      

I made this using the left over layer of chocolate cake from the Birthday Cake.  It was very good!  Basically, I used the left over whipped dark chocolate ganache (of which there was a lot) to ice the cake.  I didn't even try to make it smooth looking, instead I decided to give it a nice textured look.  It's really easy to get this look, all you have to do is spread on a think layer of a smooth, creamy icing (not stiff buttercream, like I used for the other cake).  Then, using an offset spatula, swirl the icing.  Don't worry about it being neat, it is supposed to look messy, that's the beauty of it!

You could stop at this point, the cake looks beautiful and delicious plain.  However, I wanted to practice my decorating technique before I started on the big cake, so I did it on this one.  I think it came out looking really beautiful.  If you want to know how I made the icing just click here.

Birthday Cake, step 2

I forgot to mention yesterday that imbibing is especially useful if you are making a dry-ish cake like a genoise.  I do it with most cakes even if they are already moist, I just use a lot less liquid so that the cake doesn't become damp.  Personally, I tend to use Frangelico or Chambord but I'm sure other liquors would work well too, just try using what you like.  If you don't want to use liquor you can use simple syrup instead.  I've never tried that, but I'm sure it works because all my cookbooks that discuss imbibing cakes say it does.

Anyway, on to the next step.  I made a batch of buttercream.  I don't do traditional buttercream with eggs, by the way.  I literally cream butter, add lots of powdered sugar, a bit of milk, some flavoring (in this case I used vanilla extract and Frangelico), and usually more powdered sugar.  I wanted it white, but if I don't I add food coloring when I add the flavoring (and more at the very end if I need).  I really don't measure any more, I know what it should look, taste and feel like.  If you want a recipe, check it out here.

I also made a large batch of chocolate ganache (oops, I had far too much left over, but I used it on the spare cake...to be posted later).  I let it cool a bit and then whipped it.  I didn't whip it too much--certainly not enough to get it light and airy--just enough to give it some body.

I piped a thick ring of buttercream around the edge of the cake layers that would be filled with ganache (the bottom and middle layers, not the top layer).  This is a useful step if you are using a filling that is not buttercream because it keeps the filling from oozing out when you put the next layer of cake on top of it.

Then I filled inside the ring of butter cream with a generous layer of ganache.

FYI: The ring probably should have been closer to the edge of the cake, but I've never done this before so I was a little nervous about it oozing out.  In the end I had to pipe more buttercream in to fill the gaps that were left because I made the ring too far in.  

I had plenty of buttercream left over which I used for the crumb coat. To be continued...

Birthday Cake

  

As promised, here is the cake I made for my friend's birthday.  Isn't it pretty?!

It was a rich chocolate cake imbibed with Frangelico.  Between each of the the three layers was a layer of whipped chocolate ganache.  The whole thing was frosted with my buttercream.

Over the next few days I will post the whole step-by-step method I used to make this cake, along with lots of photos.  So stay tuned!

Almost Flour-less Chocolate Cake

   

This was meant to be a flour-less chocolate torte.  Unfortunately, it was really humid here today and the 8 egg whites that I was supposed to whip to soft peaks wouldn’t hold their shape at all (that’s why you should never make meringue based baked goods on humid days).  So I whisked the almost completely liquid egg whites into the rest of the batter (made of melted chocolate, butter, egg yokes and sugar).  But I was afraid that because the batter had little air in it (because the egg whites weren’t airy) the torte would be a flat, dense disk.  So I winged it (or as I like to say, wung it), and added in some self rising flour.  I figured that the flour and the baking soda (that is mixed in with the flour) would make the torte rise a little and be slightly lighter.  I was right.  It was still a very, very dense crumb, like a torte.  But it is also distinctively cake like, in that as a whole it is domed on top and dryer than a torte (not dry by any means, just less moist than a torte). Overall, this turned out to be a cross between a cake and a torte...and better for it!

The recipe I was loosely following suggested a glaze to top the cake, but I didn’t like the sound of the glaze that it called for.  So I made a thin-ish chocolate ganache and poured it on top.  Yum!

Leftovers, they aren't just for casseroles!

I had left over pound cake from New Year's that was getting a little stale, so I didn't want to eat it plain.  I also had left over ganache from the anniversary cake which I needed to use for something and I didn't want to make truffles.  So I melted the ganache in a glass bowl over a pot of boiling water and added some warmed up skim milk until it was a very thin sauce.  But I decided it needed more, so I mixed in some cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg...sort of a spiced hot chocolate taste to it.  Then I cubed up the left over pound cake, put it on top of some vanilla frozen yogurt and poured a ton of the chocolate sauce over it. YUM!

P.S. I'll post a photo at some point, I promise.

Anniversary Cake, con't

 

This is the Anniversary Cake I posted photos of before.  It is a chocolate genoise cake, a traditional French sponge cake, imbibed with Frangelico, a hazelnut liquor, covered in a chocolate ganache, and topped with marzipan roses.

A genoise is nothing, I repeat NOTHING, like an American sponge cake.  It is actually quite dry and, when made properly, light.  I mention made properly, because I had some trouble in that area.  Genoise is not an easy cake to make (or at least not the easiest) and this was my first attempt.  Everything went well at the beginning.  I was able to use the bowl of my new Kitchen Aid (thank you mom!) over a pot of boiling water to heat the eggs then transfer them to the mixer.  They fluffed up just as they were supposed to.  My problem came as I folded in the dry ingredients.  I forgot to turn the bowl periodically, so when I went to pour out my nice light batter, I found a large pocket of unblended dry ingredients.  To mix them in after starting to pour the batter, I had to deflate it significantly.  This meant that my cake was a little too dense, didn't rise as much in the middle as it should have, and had large 'tunnels' in addition to the small delicate air bubbles that it was supposed to have.  It still tasted excellent and I didn't really want to make another cake, so I used it.

As I said above, I imbibed it with Frangelico.  I used it because I thought the hazelnutty vanilla taste would be a nice compliment to the chocolate cake, not to mention the marzipan roses.  I was right, if I do say so myself.  And like my cookbook said, the dry genoise sucked it right up.

I coated the cake with a layer of ganache (basically heavy cream and melted chocolate).  The trick to getting a nice even, thick layer is to freeze the cake for 30 min before you pour the ganache on it, that way the ganache hardens quickly, thus it doesn't pour off the sides too much.  To get a even and bubble free layer, it is important to mix the ganache as little as possible before you pour it on the cake.  The more you mix, the more air bubbles get trapped, which will pop on your cake when you spread on the ganache.

Finally I made the marzipan roses.  These were easier than I expected, though they were still hard.  The trick is to work with it between 2 layers of plastic wrap.  That way it doesn't stick to anything, and you can make it as thin as it can be.  Anyway, I'm not going to give a blow by blow description of making a marzipan rose.  If you want to know, post a comment telling me so, and I'll post the instructions.  Basically, I made a cone of marzipan to attach each carefully hand made petal to.  I flattened one edge of the petal more than the others to make it realistic but still stable.  Each successive row of petals had to be slightly larger than the one before it, to make the rose look like it was blossoming.   I made one open blooming rose, one slightly open bud, and one closed bud, which I arraigned on the cake.

It took many hours to make all this and so little time to eat.  If it wasn't so delicious, it would almost be sad to eat it.

Anniversary Cake

Details coming soon, but for now here are some photos of the anniversary cake I made for my mom and pops.

A close up of the marzipan roses

The whole cake

Birthday Cake

I made this cake for my mom’s birthday this past August.  It took me a grand total of 6 hours to bake. It is comprised of three 9-inch devil’s food cakes, which as it turns out are not easy cakes to bake. As they say, “the devil is in the details,” and clearly that is where the devil in devil’s food cake comes in, because it is the most detailed cake recipe I have ever followed. After close to an hour preparing the batter (melting chocolate, frothing egg yokes and whipping egg whites to soft peaks by hand are just some of the highlights), the cake bakes for close to an hour and then have to cool for a full hour before it will come out of the pans (which have to be properly prepared beforehand, of course). By the time I turned out the cakes onto the cooling racks, it was close to 2 in the morning. After a short sleep, I got up at 7:30 so that I could have the cake finished before my mom woke up. Unfortunately I didn’t anticipate another 3 hours of work, so my mom was up well before I finished, but I digress. To dress the cake (so to speak) I first sliced each of the 3 cakes in half. I then imbibed the bottom halves of each of the cakes with black raspberry liquor. I didn’t drown the cake in the liquor, but I was certainly liberal with it, because it is a very strongly flavored cake it overpowers the liquor unless you use quite a bit. Then I went about making a dark chocolate ganache filling for the cakes (I will post the ganache recipe next time I make truffles.) I filled each cake with the ganache and put all the halves back together. Then came the fun part, buttercream. I made a triple batch of the vanilla buttercream. I didn’t dye it because I thought the white contrasted so well with the deep brown chocolate cake, plus I had planned on decorating the top. I iced what became the bottom layer, then put the middle layer on top of it, and iced that. Finally I placed the top layer on and covered it with icing and filled in any spots on the sides that I missed earlier. I had every intention of decorating the cake with purple and pink flowers (I just got a new pastry bag I’ve been itching to try out) but it was so late by then and the cake looked so amazing (not to mention it would have meant making another batch of icing) that I let it be.

And let me just say that it was worth those six hours! It is honestly the best cake I have ever eaten, if I do say so myself! Yes, I know it is rather presumptuous to declare a cake I have baked to be the best cake I have ever eaten, but it is the truth. The cake itself was moist, rich and sinfully chocolaty. The imbibing added a subtle taste of black raspberry and vanilla. The ganache made it all the more sinfully chocolaty. And the icing was fluffy and thick and sweet and, most importantly, buttery. It is impossible to have just one slice. Perhaps that is another reason why it is called devil’s food cake, because it is evilly addictive and quite fattening (but who cares about fattening, it is a birthday cake and calories don’t count on your birthday, right?)