Molly's Birfdai

This has been an extremely busy week. Work has killed, and I've had a commitment right after work each day. This isn't the kind of week I'd normally plan to bake anything, but it happens to be my baby sister's birthday party tonight and I wanted to make her something special: a cake. Duh!

I began Wednesday with the buttercream and filling: both raspberry. Everything went really well and as planned. Although, I think going forward I'll have a new strategy for adding raspberry to the buttercream. What I do now is puree raspberries, strain out any large chunks of seed, then add it to the buttercream. It works well but some small bits of seed get into the buttercream, and although it's not even really noticeable, it is enough to bother me. So I was thinking.. the filling I make is really runny when it is hot. I could strain some of it and set it aside to add to my buttercream. I'd get the punchy raspberry flavor, plus a tiny hint of lemon and a little bit of sugar. Sounds great to me!

Last night I made the cake: 8" white and 6" chocolate, extra batter going toward cupcakes that will be served at the bar for her drunkie friends (including me). Nothing exciting to report on the cake baking, except that I am 99% certain the sink hole dilemma in the chocolate cake is directly related to using dutch process cocoa powder rather than regular.

I had a friend over while I baked, which was tons of fun, but not very efficient. We kept getting wrapped up in fun conversation and I'd ignore the dishes and then forgot to take out my buttercream to let it get to room temp. So when it came time to frost, I had to put the frosting in the microwave in short increments to bring it to spreadable consistency. Not my favorite plan. I also had trouble halving the white layers and trimming the top, so it was rounder than I wanted, which made frosting more complicated. I put the chocolate cake on top before giving it a crumb coat (dumby) so chocolate crumbs fell into the frosting on the 8". By this time the buttercream was runny and not easy to work with, but it was late and I didn't want to fuss with it. So I decorated it anyway, and it didn't come out very pretty.

To personalize the cake, I melted some dark chocolate and piped it on to some parchment paper. Then I put it in the freezer to set (lazy) and topped the cake. It came out pretty good.

Lesson learned: I've decided I have a humongo long way to go when it comes to decorating a cake. I'm just plain not good at it and I don't have a steady hand. Thank your lucky stars I'm not a surgeon! I should have known this, though. I learned I wasn't good at 3d art in high school.. my sculptures always looked demented. I'm worried this means I need a new hobby. I hate being bad at things!! I guess as long as it tastes good I'm halfway there..

M 24!:

Vanilla BOO Bakery- Today's Inspiration

A few weeks ago I sampled some cupcakes from a bakery in San Carlos named Vanilla Moon. My friends got four cupcakes to go, which we planned to eat later in the day (easier said than done). I had heard great things and was excited to try one of their cupcakes, so I took a slice from a chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake. It was actually really good and tasted like the perfect combo of a cupcake and cookie dough, yum. So yesterday I took JoAnna there so we could try some other flavors. As we waited in the line to merely see the cupcakes in the absurdly placed display case, stuffed in an awkward wedge between wall and occupied cafe tables, I was a little irritated but also excited; the crowd seemed to indicate this place was bomb. Finally after about 5 minutes we made it to the display case.

First thing I noticed was how pretty the cupcakes were. Second was I surprised there were only about six options. Third I was impressed they had mini versions of what I assumed were their most popular cupcakes. Fourth.. well, I feel bad admitting this one, because the place does look super clean and all the people behind the counter seemed clean... atop the peanut butter chocolate cupcakes were wedges of reese's peanut butter cups.. each one with a fingerprint in the reese's chocolate. At first I thought, "ha! that looks bad!" Then I thought, "AH! that looks bad.. why weren't they wearing gloves?" Eek. Yeeek. Bleeehhh.


I rationed it was an honest mistake and instead focused on my order. I opted for four mini cupcakes: vanilla, red velvet, choco chip cookie dough, and yes.. peanut butter chocolate. JoAnna's order was surpremely screwed up- they kept giving her the wrong thing, didn't charge her (and blamed her for that), didn't give her her all the cupcakes she ordered, and when we got back to my place, we noticed they had replaced the peanut butter chocolate cupcake she ordered with a chocolate cupcake- probably for the best :D I first took a bite of the vanilla. CRUMB FEST!!!! So dry and crumby. JoAnna likened it to sawdust. Then I had the peanut butter.. it wasn't bad but JoAnna hit the nail on the head and said it was lightly sweetened peanut butter atop a boring chocolate cupcake. The red velvet was, well, red velvet.. ever ambiguous flavor.. but this one was definitely lacking something. I just couldn't tell what. I saved the best for last.. cookie dough. It was definitely the best of all four, but a little on the dry side. My guess is the mini cupcakes just don't get as much care and dry out easier. My solution would be to nix them from the menu, but they seem to sell. If anybody is like me, they ration that four minis is equal to one regular cupcake, ha ha! Perfect for all those San Carlos mommies watching their weight, or something..


So I made it a mission to make a good, no-crumbs vanilla cupcake tonight. I used my white cake recipe and added extra vanilla. I made my go-to swiss meringue buttercream, and at the end added melted white chocolate. The result was way better than Vanilla Moon's, but I guess that's not saying much! You'll just have to try one for yourself! Honestly though, like I told JoAnna in Half Moon Bay yesterday, which is severely lacking a good bakery cafe- these towns have no excuse, we're at sea level! Get with the program! Let's get a phenomenal anti-boutique (sprinkles, kara's) down-home local bakery going here!! Thank you. :D

Four Darlings:

Friendlier with Sprinkles:

Iron Cupcake

I was sitting at work the other day, minding my own business, when a cube neighbor randomly came over and asked if I had ever heard of "Iron Cupcake." This was exciting for two reasons, 1) I'm getting a reputation for being a baker and not just a banker, 2) people seem to want to enable me, YEAH! I told him I had never heard of it, but I was intrigued because I know about Iron Chef and could imagine a colorful and chaotic time crunched baking competition with flying sprinkles and spilled cake flour creating a dramatic mist... like a drag show you can eat! As I continued to dance around in my iron cupcake candyland imagination, he went on to explain that Iron Cupcake is a meetup group that meets once a month in San Francisco, in which contestants are given a theme or ingredient to use and bring a bunch of homemade mini cupcakes made with that theme or ingredient. The cupcakes are then rated by cupcake lovers to determine the winners. Not exactly what I imagined, but still fantastical!

I decided I am going to attend this month's Iron Cupcake as a guest. However, the theme is bacon. I don't actually like bacon, but I want to participate as a baker soon (like, next month) and I might as well attend as a guest first to get a feel for the competition ;) Actually I have a killer idea in my head for a bacon themed cupcake but will not share for fear it will be stolen! Did I mention I'm competitive?? I'll pay $5 to sample a bunch of mini cupcakes made with bacon, hopefully meet some fellow amateur/amazing bakers, and prepare myself for April's show down. Here is a link to the site:

http://www.meetup.com/Iron-Cupcake-San-Francisco-Challenge/

Fun!

Happy Birthday Melissa!

I'm getting so popular for my cake baking abilities, I get last minute calls for cake requests ;) Baby chister Hortence, aka Molly, called late in the week asking me to make her BFF's birthday cake for her party on Sunday. I was thrilled to accept the task, although also a little nervous because Melissa is a trained chef. She taught me how to carve a turkey last Thanksgiving.. so she's got to know I'm a total amateur in the kitchen!!

Molly told me Melissa's favorite flavor is chocolate.. I love girls who love chocolate. They know what time it is. Fortunable I have a fabulous chocolate cake recipe (see Mike's Birthday post), and since Melissa isn't Brad, I could use one of my more exciting chocolate frosting recipes. I peeked at her facebook event and noticed 17 people rsvp'd to her party... whoah oh oh no! Molly mentioned she would also have a Cold Stone Cake that evening, but since I am paranoid, I decided to make a tiered cake , 8" and 6". The bottom tier was three layered chocolate with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream (I'll explain how I ended up with three layers in a minute). The top tier was two layered chocolate cake with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream and fresh strawberries sandwiched with buttercream in the middle for filling.

Now last time we talked about my chocolate cake, we discussed tumors and sinkholes. This time around I regained my patience and let my buttermilk actually get to room temp, opted to use regular flour, and instead of using all dutch process cocoa powder, I substituted about 1/3 regular cocoa powder. The tumors threatened me half way through the baking process, but to my surprise, they totally disappeared by the end. As I pulled the cakes out of the oven, it became evident that the bottom 8" tier was going to be way too tall in proportion to the top. So I cut each layer in half and set one half-layer to the side for Brad and frosted it with some rainbow chip frosting I had on hand. Somehow, he managed to be totally surprised I made the cake/"bread" from scratch.. ha!

This is the first time I've paid attention to the amount of time it took me to make a cake. Usually I'm alone, but this time Brad was hanging out in the other room and chatting. When I finished, Brad exclaimed at how nice the cake looked and awed at all the time it took to make it.. and emphasized that because of this, he hoped the birthday girl appreciated it. I thought he was just being funny, then I realized: I started the cake at 10 p.m. and finished at 2 a.m. It seemed like it took a couple of hours, not 4!! Now I understand why people charge so much for cakes!! I couldn't survive on $20 a cake... two a day, 5 days a week.. that comes to a salary of about $10,000 before taxes and supplies. HAHAHAHA!!!

Proud Baker:

Happy Cake:

(topped with sparkling candle)

deluxe fatty cake

Okay the post should really be called "Deluxe Sunday Morning Coffee Cake," but soon you'll see why I had to change the title.

Who doesn't love coffee cake? Sometimes before school, mom used to let us run into Quik Stop and pick something out for breakfast. Powdered and those waxy Chocolate donuts were on the top of my list, but sometimes I'd go for the buttery(ish) brown sugary(ish) hostess coffee cake. I say "ish" because I'm sure it was all sugar and corn syrup with "natural" flavoring, but it sure was good! My point is it's hard to mess up coffee cake because all it is is fat upon sugar upon fat and so forth... winning combination.

Lavryn has told me time and again that the Joy of Cooking deluxe coffee cake is THE BEST. Being the authority on all things fatty and delicious, I trust her judgement. Her favorite part about the cake is that it gives you the option of using buttermilk, because according to Lav, "cakes made with buttermilk really make me feel like I'm making a real old fashioned cake, so moist, yeah!" (loosely quoted but still accurate). She made some last week and facebaked it with her special modifications (less flour, more sugar, please!)... which led me to drool and crave some. The best part about this recipe is I had all the ingredients on hand, even the buttermilk (left over from Mike's birthday cake). Instead of using nuts in the crumb topping, I used some almond flour/meal to give it a nutty flavor without the distraction of crunchy nvts. A moist cake deserves to be savored, after all!

And moist it was.. seriously the moistest coffee cake I have ever eaten. It practically melted in my mouf. No doubt this had to do with the 1.25 sticks of butter and 3/4c buttermilk. Add to that about 1.5 cups of sugar, and barely fill an 8x8 pyrex dish half full, and soon you understand why this is the best fat and sugar dance your mouth has ever had. The top was a little too crumby for me (prob the almond flour, I added a little less than 1/4c), so next time I'll add more butter. But overall, one of the best coffee cakes I've ever tried. Unfortunately I cannot find the recipe online and I'm a lazy girl who doesn't want to type it out.

Also, this is the only photo of the cake, whoops!!:



oh, and p.s., BRAD LIKED IT! he only ate a sliver and doesn't generally eat non-chocolate cake, but said it was good. triumph!