Collection: Black Friday!

...so another Black Friday has come and gone.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last several years, you will know that the term "Black Friday" does not mean this,

...but instead identifies the day after American Thanksgiving; a concentrated day of store (and now online) deep discounts on a myriad of products and services. Literally thousands of hopeful bargain hunters will line up for hours in the cold outside a store, waiting for it to open super-early in the hopes that they may score a $99 flat screen television, or $25 vacuum, or the like.

The levels of violence, selfishness, and just plain uncivilized behaviour at these events has to be seen to be believed; fights, beatings, shootings, stampedes, stabbings, and even murder are par for the course just so one or a few shoppers can grab the last whatever-the-hell item that they probably wouldn't have given a second look at when it was regular price.

It boggles my mind.

Until recently, any country that was Not America could stand back and gloat virtuously over the venality that the Ugly American shows every time this "holiday from retail hell" rolls around. Canada, for one, celebrates Thanksgiving in October, and so the connection to Thanksgiving and Black Friday is not as clear; therefore, Canadian retail does not display nearly the insanity that U.S. shoppers have gloried in over the last few decades (for which I am eternally grateful).

Having said that, we're starting to see a few "Black Friday" sales and promotions pop up in our major city centres, as has the UK and the rest of Europe.

*shudder*
Gawd help us...

The whole mishegoss has me thinking that the only "Black Friday" I want to celebrate is of the cakey variety.

I would be perfectly happy celebrating Black Friday if it were more like this:

And less like this:

If the poor retail workers forced to work Black Friday's Retail Hell had to take fewer of these:

But instead munch on more of these:

For frantic shoppers to fight over fewer of these:

And instead share a slice of this:









...now, don't you think this world would be a better (and tastier) place? :o)

Meyer Lemons!!! Yaaaaay!!!!!

I found Meyer Lemons totally at random this weekend, in the Ottawa region of all places!

I am NOT KIDDING when I confess that my eyes got wide as I snatched the single remaining bag of Meyer Lemons off the display table, pressed them to my heart as I squeaked (yes, *squeaked*), and then growled, "MINE."

My sister, who was with me at the time, was a little concerned for my mental health.
She just doesn't appreciate the POWER of the Meyer Lemon!

Now, what shall I make with these little jewels of floral, lemony awesomeness?

Should I attempt those delicious Pierre Herme Meyer Lemon Tarts I posted about last month? Or something else just as lovely?

Maybe I could make this scrummy Meyer Lemon Bliss Cake from the recipes of King Arthur Flour? I trust this website's recipes absolutely; I've had a serious hankering to visit their store/factory in Vermont for several years now...and come back with my car bursting with their flours and other awesome products!

Or these divine Meyer Lemon Thyme Pots de Creme with Lemon Sugar, from the TasteFood blog?
A pot de creme is the closest I will ever come to consuming pudding; the texture of pudding usually makes me want to hurl, but there's something about the silky lusciousness of a well-made PDC that short-circuits that part of my brain from forming the word NO, and allows me to enjoy it!

Or this AMAZING looking Meyer Lemon Parfait from the Lark cookbook blog? This cooking/baking team really have professional plating down to a science; as humans usually "eat with their eyes" first (meaning if it doesn't look delicious, it's harder to convince our brains that it's safe to consume), these incredible food pictures practically encourage me to lick the computer monitor!

Or maybe a delicious Meyer Lemon Poppyseed Pound Cake with a Citrus Vanilla glaze is the way to go, from the blog, Spoonforkbacon?

This recipe looks so homey and country-style, I want to make some tea to go with this cake, and then invite a bunch of women over for a quilting bee or something.

Maybe I should just go for the simple yet lip-smacking tastiness that are these Meyer Lemon Crinkle Cookies, from the food/photography/travel blog, White On Rice Couple.

These cookies look like they're crispy on the outside, yet maybe a tad chewy on the inside, and full of Meyer Lemon tartness.  I could probably inhale a dozen of these in one sitting and not even notice I'd eaten so many...

...though I *am* leaning towards these scrumptious looking Meyer Lemon Brown Butter Cookies with a Cream Cheese glaze/frosting, from the food blog, Bake at 350...

While I'm not a "soft" cookie fan (as opposed to a chewy cookie fan, of which I definitely am!), these cakey cookies look and sound delicious, especially with the inclusion of brown butter.  Brown butter is supposed to be super-bad for us, but a little is probably ok...and I'm willing to risk the arteriosclerosis just to try one of these!




So I guess what I've learned here is that one bag of Meyer Lemons is Not. Nearly. Enough.

...but it's better than ZERO bags of Meyer Lemons.

Whatever I decide to make, I'll be sure to post the recipe and pictures! Wish me luck!

Blast from the Past: Under the Sea Baby Shower Cake

Almost exactly a year ago, a friend and I made a lovely baby shower cake for my little sister's first baby shower.

As the theme was "Under the Sea", so the cake theme was as well.  We expected around 40 people to the shower, and boy, did they all come!  It was quite the event; obviously my sister is very much loved for some reason....heh heh...

In any case, the cake was 4 layers, 4 different flavours, and awesome all over! I had to personally transport the cake from Toronto to Ottawa the day prior to the shower (of which I was also the Kitchen Lead for all of the food for the party - eek!), so I made sure to box each layer separately to minimize the chance of a gravity-hates-you cakey disaster on the way.

The fondant figures were not made by me; I concentrated on baking off the cakes, making the fillings/frostings, and torting, filling, and crumb-coating each cake. I also tinted each ball of fondant to the exact colours we were looking for (not an easy task, letmetellyou...).

The cake flavours were:

• Bottom Layer: Bourbon Vanilla Bean with Strawberry-Vanilla Buttercream filling
• Lower Middle: Deep Chocolate with Chocolate buttercream filling
• Upper Middle: Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream filling
• Top Layer: Tropical Carrot Cake with Pineapple Cream Cheese Buttercream filling

Some close-up pics of the little fondant sea creatures:

I just love this little goldfish!

Great little seashells and starfish

Crabby Dude sez "hi!"

Crabby dude's brother

Our work station during production, with the inspiration cake pic

Well, a cake that could easily have fed 80 people ended up with only a few pieces left at the end of the day...not that I'm complaining! Everyone raved about the cake, and I was gratified to have been able to deliver on a daunting commission -- it just *had* to be right.

This is what the serving table looked like when the cakes had been cut and plated (this was only about 1/2 of the cake cut at this point):

Holy gigantic servings, Batman!

A last little note to all; don’t be disappointed if your cake doesn’t turn out *exactly* like your inspiration cake; after all, you're supposed to take your inspiration from the original image, not make a carbon copy! We made some small errors with this cake, ’tis true, but we learned some things and also improved a few things, too. 

All in all, we’re proud of our little cake, and we’re glad we had the opportunity to make it.

Blast From the Past: Baby Block Baby Shower Cake

Since I've discontinued writing in my former blog, I thought for a continual series I would bring over some of my previous blog posts and discuss past cake commissions as appropriate.

One of my favourite cakes I've made in the recent past (March of last year, to be exact), was a baby block "Welcome the the Family Little One!" cake. I made and decorated it with a fellow pastry chef, and we had a lot of fun with it!

We were given a picture of an inspiration cake, plus a napkin with the baby shower theme (jungle/safari animals), and were asked to "glom" them together.  As I remember, each "baby block" was a different, premium cake flavour as well.

 

Inspiration picture plus themed napkin

Our final design concept

We also made a metric butt-ton of cupcakes in the shower colours too

This little fishie in a tiny bowl (seen here on a palette knife) is my personal favourite

Little Tigers make me happy

Both of them

And who could hate this adorable little blue monkey? What's that on his tail?

Why, it's the fishing lure/bobber for the little fishie!

All in all, a great, fun cake to make, and we absolutely thrilled the clients, who have been faithful customers ever since.

And that's really what it's all about, isn't it? *wink*

Commission Tales: So many little'uns, so many birthday cakes...

Right after I had completed the birthday cake commission mentioned in the previous post, I had to start work on the next one due only a few days later.

Also a vanilla funfetti flavour (totally a coincidence, whodathunk...) for the bottom tier, and deep chocolate for the top tier, this cake was a gift to an amazing couple I've known for a while now.   The dad, A, and I met back in 2009 while working part-time at my college's bookstore while I was going through pastry school, and I met his lady love, K, in 2011 when they started dating. Now they have an adorable little boy with a *kick-ass* name, and I wanted to give them a special gift of the cake for his first birthday party. 

This cake was to be safari animal themed; a friend and I had made a jungle/safari themed baby block cake back in early 2012 for another client, and I was interested to tackle it a little differently this time around.

This time, the cake was to be two-tier, with zebra stripes on the bottom tier, and a jungle/safari theme (my design discretion) on the top tier. Unfortunately, I had managed to fillet my right index finger quite messily the evening before I was to do a dry-brush edible paint technique along the sides of the top tier, emulating tall grasses, trees, birds and swinging monkeys, so I sadly had to leave that off the final cake. At least I had already made the fondant figures for the top, so they were good to go...with one exception..dun dun DUNNN!

I had made a sweet articulated fondant monkey figure for the top tier that was to hang off the side of the cake, like he was playing in the (to be) painted trees, but as I was boxing the cake up the morning it was due, he suffered a fatal fall and shattered.  Creepily, the few pieces to survive the fall were both of its wee front paws, which I must say looked super-disturbingly realistic, and reminded me uncomfortably of the novel, "The Monkey's Paw".  No monkey-related pictures were taken prior to the accident, and I was just too disappointed after the fall to document the tragedy, so nobody but myself, my friend Miss Kitty, and the Hubster will ever know how cute he was going to be.  *sniff*

Moving on...!

Of the other fondant figures, I made an elephant and a python, as well as two golden fishies for a small pond circled by stones.  My technique continues to improve; I'm hard on myself, but I know there's nowhere to go but up!

In any event, here's the final cake in all its (unpainted) glory:

  

Zebra stripes hand-cut and layered. First time for me, and I think I know how to do it even better next time (thinner pieces, more slight curves, fewer white spaces).

Yes, I know you can see the layers through the fondant in the top, but that would have been covered over by the brush technique mentioned above. Shuzbut.

 

My next challenge looks like it's going to be a monster-themed cake for Hallowe'en. Miss Kitty and I have some ideas of auctioning off the cake for fundraising purposes for our local Scouts Canada group, of which we are both active volunteers.  Watch this space!

Commission Tales: Elmo says,"Tee hee, that tickles!"...or something.

Pulled myself through a bad case of the flu in order to complete this cake commission last week.  One of two commissions, actually. Ah well, illness never arrives in the right time anyway, so we must soldier on regardless!

Of course, I made scrupulously sure that all of my baking surfaces were cleaned and disinfected, and that I was appropriately masked and aproned, not to mention I washed my hands frequently. I figured that, after five days of illness, I was no longer contagious, so most of these precautions were a bit paranoid and over the top...but I don't take chances with other people's health, especially when I make a cake for a child.

In any case, my commission was for a delightful little girl who was turning one year old. Being a big fan of Sesame Street Elmo, it only made sense that her birthday cake would feature the giggling, furry creature.  Working on an inspiration picture gleaned from the internet, this cake was a delightful vanilla-lemon funfetti five-layer round cake, with vanilla lemon buttercream and homemade raspberry jam filling between each layer, vanilla lemon buttercream frosting in that characteristic Sesame Street bright yellow, and Elmo's face piped in bright red buttercream on the top with "Happy birthday" greetings surrounding it.

I had originally attempted to pipe the Elmo character using the "pinhole" technique, where you cut out a simplified picture of your intended design and place it on your cake, then use a sharp pin to delineate the outline that you then pipe over with frosting. This technique works very well on fondant-covered cakes, but the buttercream came to temp too quickly to be effective. So, I just hand-drew it from the reference picture.

Not bad for never having drawn an Elmo before, eh? *winks*

Angel Food Cake

In the midst of prep for my wedding at the end of this month (did I mention I'm making my own wedding cake AND the entire dessert table? Yes, I am just that crazy), I also agreed to make a birthday cake for a close friend's awesome mom, who dearly loves my baking. 

Because once again, yes, I am just that crazy.

After the mom and I had an Inigo Montoya-style chat about what historically constitutes a "strawberry shortcake", versus what people tend to think it means today, I did some thinking, some questioning my friend as to what cake flavours, textures, and densities her mum likes the best, and some good-old google-fu. I decided that what would probably be most appreciated was a vanilla angel food cake, torted and filled with sliced fresh market strawberries and a stabilized Chantilly cream for both filling and frosting.

Now, the last time I made an angel food cake from scratch, I was in pastry school, and the recipe made four at a time. So, it was time to research a good quality, foolproof recipe from a chef I could trust, since I really didn't want to waste so much product on an iffy recipe.

There are few TV personality chefs I trust more than Alton Brown, and this time was no exception. Brown's extremely well-researched Angel Food Cake recipe turned out perfectly; so well, in fact, that my notorious habit of tweaking every recipe I use to personalize it more to my tastes was quiescent...I simply could not think of a single change to his AFC recipe that would have improved it an iota, it's just that good.

So without further ado, here is the recipe for the best angel food cake out there. My only recommendation is that you follow it TO THE LETTER, as this cake can be incredibly persnickety and will likely fail on you if you deviate from the recipe! (No pressure).

Angel Food Cake

Source: Good Eats; Episode "Let Them Eat Foam (Angel Food Cake)"; host Alton Brown

Yield: 10 servings

• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cake flour, sifted
• 12 egg whites (the closer to room temperature the better)
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 teaspoon orange extract, or extract of your choice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a food processor spin sugar about 2 minutes until it is superfine. Sift half of the sugar with the salt and the cake flour, setting the remaining sugar aside.

In a large bowl, use a balloon whisk to thoroughly combine egg whites, water, orange extract, and cream of tartar. After 2 minutes, switch to a hand mixer. Slowly sift the reserved sugar, beating continuously at medium speed. 

Once you have achieved medium peaks, sift enough of the flour mixture in to dust the top of the foam. Using a spatula fold in gently. Continue until all of the flour mixture is incorporated.

Carefully spoon mixture into an ungreased tube pan. 

Bake for 35 minutes before checking for doneness with a wooden skewer. (When inserted halfway between the inner and outer wall, the skewer should come out dry).

Cool upside down on cooling rack for at least an hour before removing from pan.

Cook's Note: Since they're easier to separate use the freshest eggs you can get.

Per Serving (based on 10 servings): Calories: 208; Total Fat: 0 grams; Saturated Fat: 0 grams; Protein: 5 grams; Total carbohydrates: 47 grams; Sugar: 36 grams; Fiber: 0 grams; Cholesterol: 0 milligrams; Sodium: 115 milligrams