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Young & HungryIf you can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen! |
| 23 April |
When does our perception of birthdays change? I’m guessing it is somewhere between 21 and 25. The ages, after which, you no longer need that extra year as an enabler. There are other benefits that the years deliver, however. Knowledge, wealth, friendships, and experience all build over time, but these are often overshadowed by achy backs, extra pounds, and ever growing responsibilities. Either way, I think there are two main offenders to which we can point our fingers.
| 3 March |
I actually made these while I was experimenting for the Master Chef casting call. They seemed a unique combination of sauces and flavors and they are! Alas, my taste test panel concluded that they are better warm so they didn’t make the cut. Speaking of making the cut, I’m pretty sure I, like the mushrooms, did not make the cut. While I haven’t gotten the “we didn’t choose you for Master Chef, but come try out for our new Biggest Loser Bride” rejection email I also haven’t received any positive feedback or inquiries into the cavernous depths of my past which is rumored to be part of the background check. Wasn’t a 12 page application enough?!
I’m going to chalk it up to just not meant to be, this year anyway. I at least got to try some good recipes and meet some interesting people! With the Academy Awards coming up this weekend, this recipe would make a great pre-show nibble and it’s just as fancy as all the glowing movie stars that will be in attendance. We don’t all end up on the big (or small) screen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy those who do. Life outside of the spotlight can be just as fabulous and that’s just how I intend mine to be!
| 29 January |
It was purely by chance that this cake made it into my kitchen. I am not particularly enthusiastic about gingerbread, nor do I tend to make desserts that do not contain any trace of chocolate. I am enthused, however, that my guest of honor who is a fan of both gingerbread and fruit desserts inspired me to bake this upside-down cake. It. Was. Delicious. And pretty! And really not all that bad for you! So if you find yourself in the company of one of those people who doesn’t keep an emergency stash of cocoa products in their purse, car, and desk or if you just feel like taking a bite on the other side, try this cake. I promise even the worst chocoholic won’t be disappointed.
| 21 December |
Holidays: Christmas; Christmas Eve; stockings and bows and garland and tinsel; good tidings and trips home. The holidays are by far, without doubt, my most favorite time of the year, and the food is just the icing on that glorious yuletide cake. Holiday dishes call for, of course, decadence. I hotly anticipate this season all year, and naturally want it to be worth the wait. This is not the time to sub in Splenda or wonder if margarine will do. It will not. Bring on the cheese, the nuts, the fudge, all the richer the better. What follows is an account of one young and hungry girl’s attempt to create memorable Christmas desserts, desserts basking in unbridled dietary depravity. A grand finale worth the mea culpas.Gloriously decadent figgy pudding
My baking began with the proverbial question of what to make. Sure, I could easily toss together a simple-yet-delicious gingerbread trifle or whip up a batch quick peppermint brownies, but those endeavors seem so….everyday. Nay, my favorite holiday calls for desserts demanding fastidious attention to detail and hours of kitchen toil (there are few things I love better than kitchen toil.) And so here are my two picks for Christmas ’09, one classic and one decidedly untraditional, both equally resplendent in their copious steps: Steamed Toffee Pudding and Cuatro Leches Cake. They are both so mind-blowingly rich and full of carefully nurtured, gorgeous flavors that I may just make them again come Valentine’s Day. Memorable indeed.
For Christmas Eve I chose the quintessential Christmas dessert of yore, Steamed Toffee Pudding, a recipe I took straight from my Craft of Cooking cookbook. One of my most favorite restaurants and home to innumerable memorable meals, Craft, to me, epitomizes the essence of fine dining, and I’d trust any of the recipes in Chef Colicchio’s book. And seriously, how much more Christmas can you get than to hear your family clamoring for more figgy pudding? I half expected Tiny Tim to walk through my door.
| 14 October |
Not too long ago, one of the girls at work brought in Browned Butter Cookies. Have you ever had browned butter? It’s amazing. While I noticed the flavors are much more intense when used as a sauce, how could I not try to incorporate this deliciously nutty transformation of an everyday staple into baked goods! And so my quest for a Browned Butter Cake began.
Upon googling brown(ed) butter cake I was presented with a myriad of recipes for Hazelnut Browned Butter Cake. Surprised at how common this relatively specific cake was I decided to go for the one recipe that opted for almonds instead. Sorry hazelnut. Why is it that all the cakes containing browned butter also contain nuts? I don’t know exactly, but imagine that it brings out the aforementioned nutty flavors of the butter. When you taste this cake you’ll see what I mean. It has flavors quite unique from anything you’ve had before. The recipe, too, is quite unique. It contains no trace leavening agent, powdered sugar instead of the usual white, hardly any flour, and meringue?! Crazy, I know.
| 18 September |
The last wedding weekend of the year has finally arrived! I think there has been much anticipation all around. It has been almost two years since the bride and groom first came together and it has been obvious for all of those two years that they were made for each other. So cheers to you both, you know who you are! And hopefully you are not currently coupled to you computers reading my toast to you.
My second toast goes to the Maid of Honor, who did a fabulous job planning and baking for the many events that tradition persists should herald a marriage. It is no easy feat planning bachelorette parties and showers amidst busy everyday life and a move, just as it is no easy feat to mask a cake resembling the bride’s “double Ds” on a 5 hour caravan to Tybee island. Yet another masterpiece of design from your oven to my tummy! Which was not quite prepared to eat an entire D cup and then dawn a bikini…
| 20 August |
And there it lay before me…..a stiff challenge requiring a most disciplined approach. Could you….make a (very simple) wedding cake? A simple question. A most complex answer. Well, yes, technically I suppose I could, given my training in beginning and intermediate cake decorating courses. But still….a wedding cake? As a woman, I am vastly aware of the importance of this day. “The Most Important Day of Your Life” is how it is so often described, and I hold it with such regard. How horrible would it be to accidentally drop the cake or poison the guests or just plain fail to live up to the bride’s expectations?
I did it!
And yet, I was determined to not let fear stand in the way of both checking off one of my culinary career’s major to-dos while simultaneously (hopefully) helping make one bride’s magical day that much more special. So I said yes and what you see below is the result. One layer of fugde cake iced in buttercream piped with a Cornelli lace design and one layer of white cake filled with raspberry and also iced in buttercream piped with a tiny patchwork heart design, both trimmed with satin ribbon. The bride elected to leave the cakes unteired, creating a beautiful tablescape to accent a beautiful day, and we were both very happy with the outcome.
So there it is; I made a wedding cake. Not the best or the biggest or the most ornate, but a wedding cake nonetheless, which is hopefully a launching point for a rich life filled with many, many more cakes to come.
| 9 July |
As a patriotic citizen, I always jump at the chance to bring the spirit of Americana to my kitchen, and in my opinion, there is just no better Fourth of July dessert than a flag cake, specifically the venerable Ina Garten’s version. A rich poundcake-like cake iced in cream cheese frosting and boldly emblazoned with berry stars and stripes is a winner in my book no matter what the occasion, and it’s quite simply fun to make in a baking-meets-arts-and-crafts type of way.
This cake is baked in a sheet pan; in my estimation it easily serves over 50 people (note: careful with transport…this cake is heavy!), and is a true a crowd pleaser, being not only tasty but visually appealing, as well. All in all, a perfect accompaniment to any holiday, any time, any country!
PS–feel free to play around with the decor. I used a single row of raspberries, laying them horizontally and then piped out my stars and stripes using an Arteco #34 star tip.
Continue reading…
| 26 April |
In the throes of my avid cake decorating career (aka the past four months,) I have had to throw away, on average, 2 cake tops per week in the process of perfectly leveling my cake layers. I don’t have to be part of the “green” initiative that seems to be sweeping the nation (and Hollywood, but I think that’s more for show than anything else) to know that such wastefulness is, well, wasteful. So what’s a girl to do with copious cake tops? Why, make cake balls, of course!
Not sure about other parts of the country, but in Big D, cake balls are the new confectionary trend, yesterday’s cupcake if you will (not that I don’t still totally love cupcakes, but they had their moment.) They’re popping up everywhere from dinner parties to my cake studio, where they’re now offering a cake ball class! But I digress….the beauty of the cake ball is twofold: 1. easy way to use up leftover cake and 2. built in portion control. In case you’re wondering what, exactly, a cake ball is….quite simply, it’s a ball made of cake and icing mashed together and coated, usually in some form of chocolate….a perfectly proportioned, moist bon bon of cake, icing, and décor, how efficient! I like to serve mine frozen, if circumstances permit, both because it cuts a bit of the sweetness and because the balls take on an ice creamy consistency. Yum!
Continue reading…
| 26 March |
Cake decorating. Most of my friends think me crazy for spending hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours pursuing such an esoteric craft, particularly when bakeries abound. The truth is that I enjoy cake decorating, I do, but the appeal runs deeper than that. Somewhere along life’s way, at least my life’s way, it became easy to forget what it feels like to be good at something. In between our routines, our obligations, and addressing our “opportunity areas” at work, we lose the chance to experience the elation that comes with proficiency. That little jump in the heart when one is not ok, not good, but pretty damn good at something. And if that something so happens also to be a passion, even better.
I discovered my knack for cake decorating when I took a beginner’s cake class one Saturday; pardon my lack of humility, but my final output was one of the best in class. Perhaps I had tapped into a hidden talent (which, after 27 years of failing miserably at any activity calling for even the least bit of coordination or athletic dexterity, was a welcome change), who knows, but what I do know is that the feeling of performing with confidence and relaxing into an inherent deftness was thrilling.
In preparation of my first course, I spent seven hours preparing for my intermediate course. Seven hours of shopping and hauling and mixing eight pounds of “decorator royal icing” to last me through the first two weeks. It was exhausting to say the least, but when I finally finished baking, leveling, filling, and crumb coating that first cake, my exhaustion gave way to a feeling of true accomplishment, and that is something I’m willing to be called crazy to pursue.
- Decorator buttercream: heavenly!
- Nakey cake!
- Crumb coated cake, ready for class
- Practicing my basket weave
- More basket weave and marzipan flowers
- Gel design transfer and stained glass butterflies
- Cornelli lace technique–harder than it looks!
- My first fondant cake!
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