Lemon, lemon, lemon

Now this cake has a long story. Here we go...

My parents were planning a visit, and their birthday had just passed, so I decided to throw them a little birthday party while they were here. We invited over my parents siblings who live around here, and voila a party.

Now, of course, a birthday party must have a cake. So what cake? I let my parents choose. Their first choice was carrot, but I laughed at that because everyone wants a carrot cake these days. My parents wanted to let my creative juices flow, so they asked for a lemon cake. My mom stipulated that she really likes dense cakes.

I read lots of lemon cake recipes, and most of them boast that they are light and fluffy, so it took a while to find one that sounded good. I settled on a lemon version of the grapefruit cake from Thomas Keller's book Ad Hoc at Home, which I had just gotten Wes for fathers day. The description says it is an all purpose cake, which seems like a cross between a sponge and a quick bread or a muffin. Sounded dense, so I tried it out.

This recipe suggests a light glaze as a frosting, but I wanted to make a more decorated cake so I went on a quest for a good filling and frosting. I tried out the lemon curd recipe from the Cake Bible, and I tried out a white chocolate ganache from Chocolate. Well, I didn't cook the curd long enough so it was quite runny, and the ganache didn't set up like I thought, so it was also runny. The cake was quite dense and really sticky due to the fact that you puncture it and soak it in lemon syrup, so I thought cutting it and layering it would be difficult. I had this awesome vision of creating a dam of icing, and filling the top with curd, so it had a nice yellow top. Unfortunaltey when I tried something like that, everything just spilled off the top, and the cake was covered in a gooey white chocolatey lemon curdy mess. I did not take a picture of this practice cake, but it tasted ok.

So the day came to make the actual cake, and I really didn't know how it would turn out. I found a different white chocolate ganache recipe from the Cake Bible, based on whipping cream and pouring melted white chocolate in it. I thought this might be more stable for frosting. And I thought if I cooked the lemon curd longer, it would congeal more. Well, I cooked the curd longer than I thought, and I was worried it was spoiled...but it actually turned out ok. But the second ganache recipe was also a fail. When I put the chocolate into the whipped cream, it turned into a clumpy mess. Maybe the chocolate was still too warm. I get impatient sometimes. To any bakers out there...what is the deal with white chocolate ganache? How do you get something with the consistency of a regular ganache?

In the end, I resorted to a lightly lemon flavored all butter buttercream (my mom really likes butter). I knew it would set up well, and hold shape to make the dam for the lemon curd. The end result was really delicious, and I think looked nice too! I got compliments from the birthday boy and girl and the rest of the family. I got 2 types of advice....1) serve the cake un-frosted, it has a great lemon flavor on it's own. This makes sense, given that's what Thomas Keller intended anyway ;) and 2) fill the cake with lemon curd as well as putting it on top, some people really liked that extra tartness.

So despite all the failed ganache, the cake was a success! Here are the photos!

Chocolate, berries, and ganache

I've been working on baking lately, then doing a quick decorating job, so the photos these days are not as interesting. I'm trying to make things that taste better, and learn how to decorate with things other than buttercream. The result isn't always pretty, because different mediums are harder to work with, but I'm learning.

So I've been wanting to figure out this ganache thing, and learn how to get the consistency right for piping. I also wanted to try out filling a cake with chocolate ganache and fresh berrries. So here is a little 6 inch cake, two layers of chocolate cake, filled and frosted with chocolate ganache and fresh rasberries. It was hard to get the ganache smooth, but yummy!

Ice Cream Cake

I'd been wanting to try out an ice cream cake, and our friends the K's gave us the opportunity. Their daughter is headed up to UO this fall, and we wanted to get together to talk about what it's like to go to school there. Also another great reason to make a festive cake. Some of the members of the K family, who shall remain nameless, are very picky, so I had to make sure the flavors were acceptable. They chose cookie dough ice cream, so I made the bottom layer chocolate, the top vanilla, and filled it with ice cream.

I used a trick from Martha Stewart, to use a stand mixer to beat the ice cream just until soft enough to spread. Then I filled it, then let it set up in the freezer. After freezing, I made a frozen buttercream transfer, this time trying it out without using a black outline, to see if I could get a smoother finish. I didn't press hard enough into the edges, because I didn't have a solid outline, so unfortunately you can see some lines in there. But it turned out alright. The O was a little too thin, so it broke when I transferred it. Oh well, lesson learned. I also didn't have enough buttecream for a border, so it's a little unfinished looking.

I was also worried that I made the cake layers too thick, and that it would be just like eating a rock since the cake was also frozen, but it worked out fine. And hey, now I can make ice cream cakes :) Go Ducks!

Frozen Buttercream Transfer

Not long ago, I was perusing the Wilton site some morning while Emeline was napping. I came across a video for a frozen buttercream transfer. I'd never heard of it, but thought it sounded interesting. I watched the video, and it looked really easy. Too good to be true? Not sure. But I wanted to try it.

Then my cousin Jesse was about to graduate from college, and my aunt was going to host a grad party for him. So I jumped at the opportunity to make him a cake. Jesse is an artist, so I thought it would be really cool to try to learn this technique and put some of his art on his cake. Most of his art is too technical for me to attempt to trace with buttercream, but this self portrait cartoon looked like it might just work.
Of course I had to do a practice run, before the big day. I thought maybe I should just try out the technique with something easy like a flower or a smiley face, but I figured, I should just jump right in so I could learn what to do better on this particular picture. So here is my first draft.
This is just a 6 in round, so the first thing I learned was that using the #3 tip was too large for such a small cake, it made the details to scrunched up. But I thought it would look good on a bigger cake. I was experimenting with trying to get texture in the hair with the squiggles, but that just looked weird, so I did not do that for the final one. I also really wasn't sure what to do for a border, and I think I ran out of icing, so I skipped it.

For the big day, everyone said carrot cake was Jesse's favorite. I have a kick butt carrot cake recipe after all the trial runs for Emeline's birthday, so I used that. And I added a graduation cap to the picture for fun! Here's how it turned out.
Not as good as the original art of course, but not bad. Everyone knew what it was supposed to be. I experimented with the star border around the image itself. It was hard to come up with something that wouldn't look too frilly with such a modern image. I think if I made a butterfly cake or something, I could have done flowers around it or something. I also learned that when piping the border around the image in the base color (white/cream cheese in this case), I should just do one time around. The first transfer was not very thick, so I tried to make it come off the cake more with a thicker border. It was thicker all together, but the outline was far too wide. Good lesson for next time. I did a simple rope border around the edge, but cream cheese frosting is kinda hard to work with. I had to do the piping quickly before it got to warm. And it was difficult to get a very smooth edge.

But the result was delicious and Jesse liked it! That's all that matters. :) Happy Graduation Jesse! Thanks for letting me make you a cake!