Change is Coming

I've decided to make more of a push for turning my hobby into a profitable one. I've sold cakes and cookies in the past, but not very many and very inconsistently. Well now I'm ramping it up and a new website will be coming. I'm going to keep the blog (and try to actually update it sometimes) but the main page will a lot different.

I'm excited and hopefully all will go well!

In the Name of Salted Caramel

I received the Baked book for Christmas (well two copies actually, but that was sorted out) and am pretty damn pleased by it so far. I've made quite a few things from it, but very few complete recipes. Quite a few of their recipes have multiple parts and I've been mixing recipes at will. For a birthday cake this weekend I'm using the buttermilk cake recipe from my favorite cupcake book, the salted caramel from Baked and the milk chocolate whipped ganache from another Baked recipe.

I've started with the salted caramel because it doesn't take much time and I could make it before I had to go to work. It also needs substantial cooling time before use, so I needed to make it far in advance. I've made it twice now and I really like it. It has a nice salted taste and is not overly sweet. I also don't have to bother cleaning my candy thermometer either, which is grand. The book says to use a thermometer, but the book says a lot of things. I've made enough caramel that I can usually eyeball it, but if you've never made caramel, use the thermometer. This recipe is also a bit odd in that you let the caramel rest off the heat for a minute before adding the cream. During that time, the caramel with get more brown and deepen, so if not using the thermometer, take it off the stove before it's dark enough.

Working with candy is something I've been wanting to do more of, and making caramel seems to temporarily fill the void. I'll type up the recipe later, but for now here is a walk through of the process.

When making caramel, it's really important to use a much bigger pan that you think you'll need. The first time I made caramel I was not aware of this and used a tiny pan that perfectly fit the amount of sugar syrup I was boiling up, seemed fine. Alas, not all is fine when you add the hot cream and the thing bubbles up like the devil and doubles or triples in volume. Candy burns are no good and neither is trying to clean caramel off of the stove, wall and floor. In summation, us a larger pan. See exhibit A:



Looks ridiculously large. Is not. Trust.

Let it boil until it reaches roughly this color:



Pretty, huh. Still looks like a huge pan. I know, it will. When you add the hot cream though...



Okay, I admit, this is not the most convincing picture. It got much higher as I was stirring it, but I couldn't take a picture and stir boiling hot candy at the same time without disastrous results. At this point the caramel is belching steam and if you're not careful (as I was not because I was taking damn pictures), you'll burn your fingers. Steam hurts, let this be a lesson. A long spoon or whisk is best.

This caramel recipe calls for sour cream which is unique and nice. It also keeps it from having obscene amounts of cream. After the sour cream is whisked in you have a lovely pot of caramel that will burn the skin off your fingers, so don't dip away. Do as I do, dip a spoon, blow of the caramel so it makes neat patterns on the back of the spoon and carefully dab a finger in. When you're certain you won't burn off your taste buds, insert spoon into mouth and savor.




Fab. (See how high the caramel line is on the pot!) Use as a cake filling, over ice cream, in coffee, by the spoonful, anywhere, any time. It's great stuff and not very hard to make, but very satisfying and enjoyable as long as you respect the power of steam.

Banana Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Icing

This cake was pretty good, but I have no idea where I got the recipe. Maybe I can dig it out sometime. For now, all you get is a glamour shot of a cake long gone.

Royal Icing Work

This Hello Kitty was made by a very fun, if time consuming, process of flooding. She is a hard but fragile thin piece of sugar. I made it by printing out the picture of her and taping in to the counter. I then placed a piece of parchment over the image and piped the outline with thick royal icing. I let this dry completely then painted all the lines with black food color mixed with a little vodka to thin it. When that was dry, I thinned down the royal icing with some water until it was of a pouring consistency. I filled in all the white bits and then colored some of the icing for the colored work. The whole thing must dry for several hours and when completely hardened, the parchment is peeled off and the sugar decal can be used for cakes.

The advantage of this process is that highly complicated designs can be made weeks in advance and stored until needed. It's a lot of fun, but laborious.

My First Fondant Cake

This was my first attempt at covering a cake with fondant. It was a while back, and I do not remember the particulars. This is the problem with not regularly posting. I end with with a huge back log of photos and can't remember much of anything about them.

Company Birthdays

A while back I had made cakes for a birthday celebration at the boy's work and this is a sample of some that I made for them.

I believe the top cake was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, but it's been a while so I don't completely remember. The bottom cake was an orange cake with homemade mango preserves and buttercream frosting.

These are half sheet cakes and huge and kinda hard to work with.

Birthday Cake

A birthday cake made for the head chef at my restaurant.

Chocolate cake layered with chocolate frosting and raspberries covered with chocolate frosting.

Chocolate Angel Food

Chocolatey Celestial Cake

What to do with a metric ton of egg whites? A common problem among bakers and custard makers as I found in my quest for egg white recipes. I had made a couple of half-sheet cakes on comission and one of said cakes required six egg yolks. I ended up making a triple batch. That is a lot of whites. A lot of gooey, yellowy gunk sitting in a bowl in my fridge slowly evaporating.

It seemed inconceivable to throw them out. Surely I could come up with things to bake. Meringues! Marshmallows! Angel Food Cake! Macaroons! The problem is, I do not really like most of those. Meringue is fine in conjunction with a pie, but hell no, I was not going to make a pie. I used to have luck with pies, now I find myself impatient and irritated with them. Pie was out.

Meringue cookies. Well, I have made them before, and let me tell you, you get a whole freaking lot of meringues out of just two egg whites, so I did not even want to contemplate the yield of eighteen. I am not a big fan of them either, so there goes that idea.

Macaroons, feh. Traditional French Macaroons intrigue me, but I was not willing to try it this time around. Heaven forbid I make those coconut monstrosities. All egg whites and sickly sweet coconut is not for me. We made them at a bakery I worked at and while I liked making them because they were fast and easy, I would never steal any. There were tons of things that I would steal, mind you. Nothing wrong with an M&M cookie for breakfast at five in the morning.

I enjoy homemade marshmallows. Making candy is very satisfying although it can be a bit fussy if dealing with sugar syrups at ungodly temperatures. Pouring 260 degree molten sugar into a running stand mixer is a wee bit frightening the first couple of times. So marshmallows, perhaps, but the recipe only takes four egg whites. Fourteen more to go.

Hm. Angel Food Cake. I have been wanting to try it for a while now, so it seemed the best choice. It is a little bland though, so after some searching I found a chocolate version. Intriguing. If only I had a tube pan.

After more store hopping than I would have liked, I found what I needed at Sur La Table, a truly indulgent place for me. The place is pricey and like some kind a chichi baker Valhalla. I found what I envisioned complete with the tiny feet I wanted (see the recipe post for picture).

It turns out that making angel food is damn easy. Whip up eggs, add sugar, fold in flour. That is really about it. For a first attempt, I could not be happier. It is beautiful, slightly sticky and deliciously addictive. Restraining myself from standing above the cake ripping off chunk after chunk until it is gone is difficult. I will have to send it away from me, or I will eat the whole damn thing. It is a bit addicting I think because it is so light and insubstantial. Not rich and filling, it simply dissipates leaving a craving for more, more, MORE!

The recipe calls for a berry compote which I did not try, because no big surprise, raspberries are a bit expensive and the strawberries at the store looked like crap. I did try the yogurt topping and added some cinnamon to it. Good, but I think it would benefit from using Fage (I could live on their tzatziki) or some other thick Greek yogurt. Running down the plate almost overflowing, my yogurt topping was a stark contrast to the beautiful picture on the website. Lying pictures aside, it was good, but a bit of an odd contrast. Perhaps the fruit would have helped.

All in all, operation Angel Food was a stunning success and I will definitely be making more with my fancy new pan.

Chocolate Angel Food Cake

From Self via Epicurious.com

Chocolate Angel Food Cake

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
12 egg whites (or 1 1/2 cups prepackaged egg whites)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract


Transfer the oven rack to the lowest level. Preheat oven to 325°F.

Sift 1 cup sugar with flour, cocoa, and salt; set aside.

Using an electric mixer set at medium-high speed, whip egg whites, lemon juice, and vanilla in a medium-sized bowl until peaks form. Set mixer to high speed and whip in remaining 1/2 cup sugar until semistiff peaks form (do not overbeat).

With a plastic spatula, slowly fold in the remaining dry ingredients, 1/4 cup at a time, until flour mix disappears.

Scoop batter into a 10" ungreased tube pan and spread evenly. Bake until cake springs back when touched, 45 to 55 minutes.

Remove from oven, invert cake pan, and place upside down* on a cooling rack.

*Some recommend placing the tube pan upside down on a bottle so that you get enough air flow. I have a tube pan with handy dandy feet, like so, that is fab and requires no bottle that will just be accidentally tipped over knocking the precious cake to the dirty ground inciting ire and vulgar language from the baker.

Piss Off Cake