No Recipe Today!

Okay so I know this is supposed to be a recipe blog, and a recipe blog it is! But some days I just want to share some really really neat things that I find, and share some websites that I love.  And today is one of those days! (: so bare with me and let’s get started!

First off, I want to talk about this wedding cake that my mom and I are making. I am so excited for it and having a lot of fun gathering all the items we need for it. All we need left really is the fondant, and we are going to use Satin Ice since it doesn’t taste like playdough. In the meantime I’ve been doing some practice cakes for flavours. So here is what the bride wants (I say only bride because the groom doesn’t even like cake, so he left it all up to her. how nice!):

-3 separate tiers of 16″, 12″ and 8″.
-They have a huge dessert table so she wants the 16″ cake to be fake, so styrofoam.
-The 12″ cake will be a tiramisu inspired cake. 3 layers: white cake brushed with kahlua/coffee mixture with mascarpone cream filling and then a moist chocolate cake (with a possible mocha layer in between the chocolate cake cut in half) and then more mascarpone cream filling and then another kahlua/coffee brushed vanilla cake layer. Frosted with a sweet buttercream and then covered in white fondant.
-The 8″ cake is their little take home cake, which is a lemon poppyseed cake. Layers of lemon poppyseed with a lemon curd and sweet buttercream filling. Frosted with sweet buttercream and again, covered with white fondant.

Now, for the decoration. On the 16″ and 12″ cakes, they are to be covered in white fondant. There will be black vertical stripes on both tiers, with a black bead border on top. In the middle there will be a black  fondant oval plaque with a small white bead border, and the bride’s name on the 16 and the groom’s on the 12.
On the 8″ cake, it will be covered in white fondant, with a black ribbon bow on the bottom third. But still with a black bead border on top and the plaque on top but with their last name.

Just in case you don’t understand, the picture at the top is a drawing I made in paint that took me a while…ha. I must say that I am not  fan of the new paint layout in windows 7! It’s all different and I don’t like it. Anyways, look up top to see!

So this is how it should look. In the beginning I thought the design was kinda ugly! Not gonna lie. But now after I drew it here, I think it looks okay. And kind of pretty! There is one thing that I left out though. The bride wants black daisies on the bottom of the 16″, and black eucalyptis on the bottom of the 12″, and I think that would make it too busy. I’m sure when it gets set up on the wedding day it will be nice.

There is one thing that my boyfriend has always asked me. In the future, if I had my own cakery (ha, my short form for cake bakery.) and someone asked me to do a wedding cake (or any cake) that I thought was really ugly and I was so not into it, what would I do? And this is my answer: If I really thought the design was something I wouldn’t do well for whatever reason, I would tell them that I didn’t think I was the right person to do their cake, and maybe recommend someone else that I thought would do a better job on it.

Okay this just turned into a huge jumble of words! And I don’t want to read over it to make sure there are no errors. Oh well!  I also just thought of a sweet name for my dream pastry shop! And I’m not telling (:

OH YEAH! the reason why I actually wanted to write this post in the first place is to share my love of CAKE STENCILS! ahhhh! I love them so much! I really really really want the Damask 5 tier stencil set and the lace 5 tier stencil set!!!! they are so cool! You can find them at www.designerstencils.com and I LOVE themmmm so much!

Happy Baking!

Lemon Cake

This cake is from a recipe I found in my mom’s old recipe book. Can I just say first that I LOVE making this cake? It always turns out right. Light and fluffy, golden brown on the outside, sweet and tart from the lemon, and no matter how you drizzle the icing on a bundt cake it always looks so pretty! This cake is such a comfort food for me. I like to eat this cake anytime at all, but it just seems extra good when I’m wrapped up in a warm blanket reading a book when it’s snowing outside. This cake is great all seasons though. The light lemon taste is great for an after dinner dessert in the summer, and yet is comforting and warms your heart in the winter. I recently came across Ina Garten’s lemon cake recipe and noticed how similar these recipes are. In fact, I don’t recall noticing any differences. (I love almost every single recipe I’ve used from Ina Garten. ESPECIALLY the wild mushroom soup. Sooooo good! And I don’t even like mushrooms at all.)

1 cup of unsalted butter, softened*
2 cups of sugar
5 large eggs
1/4 cup of lemon zest
3 cups of flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
3/4 cup of buttermilk
3/4 tsp of vanilla extract

1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/8 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups of icing sugar

Whip together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time until each is well combined. Add the lemon zest at this point.
In a bowl, combine the flour, the baking powder, baking osda, and salt and whisk to combine.
In a measuring cup, mix together the buttermilk, lemon juice, and vanilla.
Add the wet and dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture. Beginning and ending with the dry. (I usually do 3 dry, 2 wet.)
Make sure everything is fully mixted together by using a spatula.
Pour into a greased bundt pan and bake in a 350F oven for about 55 minutes, a knife inserted should come out clean.

While the cake is baking, combine the 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of lemon juice in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
When the cake comes out of the oven, spoon the syrup over the cake. Use all of it! It’s really good Allow the cake to cool in the pan, if you can’t wait til it’s fully cooled that’s okay. I never can either.

Once the cake is fully cooled, mix together the icing sugar and 1/8 cup of lemon juice, adding more lemon juice to get the right consistency if needed. It should be really thick looking and fall in a ribbon when you drizzle it over itself.
Drizzle this over the cake and let it fall over the sides.

Next step: EAT IT! because it’s so good!

*I sometimes hate when recipes say butter at ‘room temperature.’  Because sometimes your kitchen isn’t warm enough to let the butter actually get soft at room temperature! Like today, I left the butter out for about 5 hours, which is usually enough for me. But because it’s cold out now, the butter was still hard when I went to use it.

Tiramisu Cake Squares

So my mom and I were recruited to make a wedding cake for some friends of our family. I think I mentioned this in the previous post about the chiffon cake. Anyways, with the leftover cake we had (about a 6″ square of cake), I decided to make a quick  miniature version of what I wanted the cake to be. I bought some tiramisu cake squares from Longo’s and tried my best to replicate those, because they are so good! So I whipped together some whipping cream, vanilla, and soft cream cheese to make the white filling, and brushed the cake layers with a mixture of sweetened coffee+amaretto+kahlua. I then COVERED the top of the cake with cocoa powder, just like the ones from the store. Then I cut off the sides so that it would look pretty when I took a picture of it. And voila! Delicious tiramisu cake squares that to me, were way better than the ones from the store (obviously! they were made at home from scratch! Aren’t things done that way always so much better? I think so.)

Ingredients

1 recipe of perfect chiffon cake (You can substitute any cake you think would be good. Why not try it with a chocolate cake? mmm)
1 8oz package of cream cheese, super dooper softened (you can also use mascarpone. I just didn’t have any and was only doing a test.)
2 cups of 35% whipping cream
2 tsp of real vanilla extract
1/4 cup of sweetened hot brewed coffee
1 tablespoon of amaretto
1 tablespoon of kahlua
lots of dark good cocoa powder

Make the cake as directed in the previous recipe. Once this has cooled, cut in half. Each layer should be about 3/4 of an inch tall. Something like that. Just not too thin or too thick. Well, I suppose you could make it as thin or thick as you want!
Whip whipping cream with a sprinkle of sugar and the vanilla, and set aside.
Whip the cream cheese until soft enough to mix the whipped cream into it. (I put a little bit of stabilizer in the whipped cream to help it stay a bit fluffy.)
Mix together the cream cheese and whipped cream. Set aside.
In a small bowl, combine the coffee, amaretto and kahlua. With a brush, brush this onto the bottom layer of the cake.
Spread half of the cream cheese mixture onto the bottom layer of cake. Top with the second layer of cake.
Spread the other half of the cheese/cream mixture on top of the second layer. Make it as smooth as you can.
Sprinkle the top liberally with cocoa powder, and then trim off the rough sides of the cake to make each edge pretty. Cut into squares and you’re good to go!

Super delicious and fairly easy to make tiramisu squares!

Perfect Chiffon Cake

(My camera is deciding that it doesn’t want to take nice pictures for me for the time being. This looks like a scan of a real picture! horrible.)

My mom wanted to make a trifle for tonight’s dessert. She told me she was just going to use a cake I had made previously (which was totally kind of gross) so I said I would make her a fresh cake. I dug out my very favourite book of all time that I bought, which is FULL of amazing recipes and information scientific information as to why things happen in baking. (The book is The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Friberg 4th Edition, Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry. If you are really into this kind of thing, it’s an amazing book to have on hand.) Anyways, if you have a good digital scale you will have no problems with this recipe.
7 ounces of cake flour
3 ounces of bread flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
12 ounces of sugar
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
6 egg yolks (1/2 cup)
1 cup of water
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
10 egg whites (1 1/4 cups)
4 ounces of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Line a half-sheet pan with parchment paper or a silpat mat.
Sift together the flours, baking powder, and the 12 ounces of sugar.
In a separate bowl mix together the oil, egg yolks, water, and vanilla. Mix until well combined. Gradually add the dry ingredients to this mixture utnil smooth.
In another separate bowl, whip the egg whites with the remaining 4 ounces of sugar and 1/2 tsp of salt until stiff peaks form.
Fold the egg whites into the yolk and flour mixture. Spread this evenly over the half-sheet pan.
Bake at 375F for about 25 minutes until brown on top and the cake springs back when pressed lightly with your fingertip.
Allow to cool for a few minutes before you run a knife around the side to release from the pan. Flip upside down onto a dish towel lightly coated with flour. The edges might not be so pretty, so trim off if desired.

My mom and I are making a wedding cake for some friends of ours for November, and we have decided that we are using this cake for the 12″ tiramisu cake. It has good strenght but lightness to it. I love it!

But for now we are just going to brush the cake lightly with kirsch syrup and use it  in a  cherry trifle. I will take pictures of it when assembled

Oh Wow!

It has been so long since I posted anything on this blog! Truth be told, I sort of forgot about it because I have it registered with an e-mail account I don’t use that often. I’ve now set it to forward all emails to the one I do check frequently, so now I will remember this blog

Well, now I feel like I should post a SUPER good recipe! and I will.

This recipe comes from a family-made cookbook on my Mom’s side, so it’s full of delicious Dutch recipes, and some other fun things.  It’s a sour cream coffee cake, with the standard brown sugar/cinnamon layer inside. I still remember the first time I made this cake. I was in grade 3 and my Oma was coming to visit us from B.C. And when my Oma comes over, that means a lot of tea will be made. (I’m somewhat of a tea granny myself, can’t get enough of the stuff.) I wanted to make something for us to have after dinner with our tea while we were playing Scrabble. I pulled out the cookbook that I had never really noticed before, and found this recipe. Even though it’s a “coffe cake”, I figured it would still be good with tea! And it was. Everyone loved it! It’s a really moist cake, not too sweet, and the perfect texture a coffee cake should be (according to me anyways!).

Sour Cream Coffee Cake:

1/4 c  margarine
1 c sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 c sour cream

1/2 c brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Cream the butter, and then add the sugar. Add the eggs in one at a time, making sure everything is fully mixed together. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Then alternately add the dry ingredients and sour cream to the butter/sugar mixture.

Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl. Sprinkle half of the mixture into a greased tube pan, then add half of the batter and spread carefully and evenly. Sprinkle the rest of the mixture on that and cover with the remaining batter. (If you really wanted to, you could make a little extra topping and sprinkle it on the top, which becomes the bottom anyways.)
Bake in a 350°F oven for 40-45 minutes in the lower third of the oven until a toothpick or thin knife comes out clean. You can eat it right out of the oven or room temperature! It’s awesome either way.

My favourite thing about it is that the brown sugar sprinkled on the bottom of the pan makes a sweet and crunchy crust on the outside of the cake. I love it!

Eet Smakelijk!

Lemon Coconut Chiffon

This is an awesome cake to make. I have made it for my sister’s birthday for the last 3 years in a row because she loves it so much. The cake is so light and fluffy and the lemon curd is tart but sweet at the same time. And the coconut cream icing is so good and brings it all together.

Ingredients:

CAKE LAYERS
2 1/4 cup pastry flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 cup of toasted coconut
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil
7 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup of water
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp coconut extract
3 egg whites
1 tbsp cream of tartar

LEMON CURD
1/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
3 egg yolks
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup of butter
1 tsp of lemon zest

COCONUT CREAM ICING
4 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp corn starch
1 cup of whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp coconut extract
1 cup sweet flaked coconut
toasted coconut for garnish

TO ASSEMBLE:
For the cake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl combine the flour, all but 2 tbsp of sugar, coconut, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the centre and all the oil, egg yolks, water, vanilla and coconut extract. Beat until smooth. In a separate bowl, beat the 10 eggwhites until frothy and add the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Beat in the remaining 2 tbsp of sugar until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in a third of the egg white mixture to the batter, then fold in the remaining two thirds. Pour the batter into an ungreased tube pan. Run a knife through the batter to burst any air bubbles and bake for 1 hour. Make sure you don’t open the open door until at least 50 minutes have passed. Invert the pan and cool.

FOR LEMON CURD
Whis together the lemon juice, eggs, yolk, sugar and zest in a bowl over a pot of gently simmering water. Whisk in the butter and whisk until the curd becomes thick pale and creamy. That should take about 10-15 minutes. Remove the bowl from the heat and cover with plastic wrap, laying it directly over the curd so that a skin doesn’t form on top. Chill the curd in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

FOR COCONUT CREAM
Combine the icing sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan and gradually stir in 1/4 of the whipping cream. Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly for a few seconds. Scrape that into a small bowl and let it come to room temperature. Be careful not the burn it. Add the vanilla and coconut extract. Whisk the remaining cream to soft peaks. Add the cornstarch mixture, whisking constantly until stiff peaks form. Fold in the coconut.

To assemble the cake, but the cake into three equal layers. Spread 1/2 of the lemon curd on the bottom layer and the other half on the middle layer. Using an offset spatula, spread the coconut cream over the cake and garnish it with a sprinkle of the toasted coconut. So good!

♥ Tara