Aloha Bakers - Lemon Icebox Cake

This week's bake was light and frothy, except for one bit, which was hard and knotty. First, let it be said, that this is my kind of cake. Billed as an icebox cake, a term I usually associate with wafer cookies and whipped cream, but which really applies to any cake that is as much cream as cake and needs some refrigerator time to truly come into its destiny.
This little beauty started out with a light lemony sponge/angel food, baked in a tube pan. Mine came out slightly wet and salty, but very workable. Next, a lemon curd is mixed into whipped cream is mixed into a gelatinized meringue. All went well until the gelatinization process, which was also around where I shorted out my scale with some spillage. Since it was clear that everything did not weigh 57555@#@$@ grams, I had to go on back into volume measures, which always makes me grumpy. Then, the gelatin just seemed...too stiff. I added a bit more water, and heated it up some more, but in the end what I ended up with were many knotty rubbery lumps and a bit too much water in the whole, which leaked out over the next few days as it rested in the refrigerator. If you look carefully at the photo of the completed cake, you can see a gelatin lump (slightly browner) discoloring the lower right hand quadrant.

I certainly wouldn't have sold it at a bakery, but I would certainly make it again and not screw it up so much. It was much admired at my workplace, lumps and all.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Apple Caramel Charlotte

I signed up for this because I like heavily involved, ridiculously detailed baking projects, right? Yeah, make that sometimes. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy most steps of making the Apple Caramel Charlotte from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I did. I like eating sponge cake and freezing cake layers and whipping cream just fine.

The final dessert was also good, and I should know as I have eaten far too much of it, but not really quite at the payoff level that it should have been for so much input. It might just be the competition--fall's first apples are just starting to take off in New York, and there is simply no way of cooking them that does them justice. Baldwins! Russets! Macouns!

And what is Trader Joe's selling? Mushy-looking Fujis, Galas, and Granny Smiths from New Zealand and Chile. How does that even work? Isn't it only spring down under? Are those seriously storage apples from last year's crop? Unpleasant thought.

As usual, I made some small changes to the recipe (honestly, I usually alter recipes without even really thinking about it or noticing, and don't even consider my tweaks noteworthy unless I substitute a major protein or switch chiles in for kumquats, or something). I didn't have apricot jam, so I used cherry, which I didn't strain. I also didn't have Calvados in which to poach the apples, so I improvised with some rose wine, some cider vinegar, and a little cranberry shrub.

Here is the recipe in short, for those of you not yoked to the book this weekend: Make sponge cake, cut into geometric patterns. Layer with jam, and the layered stack. Poach apples in various liquids with vanilla bean. Incorporate poaching liquid into yolky custard. Chill. Make Italian meringue. Chill. Whip cream. Blend the previous three steps. Line cake mold. Pour in cream. Arrange poached apples in a rose formation on top. Chill.
And that's the short version. I really don't mind finicky steps, I promise. But Bavarian cream? Pastry cream or whipped cream would have been just as good. Truth is, though, I didn't make exactly the Bavarian cream I meant to, as I ran out of gelatin. I only used about 1/5 of the gelatin called for in the recipe, which meant that my Bavarian lost its main useful characteristic, setting firmly enough to cut slices from. It was creamy and good, though. The cake didn't so much slice as gloop, but no one seemed to mind. When I say no one, I mean mostly me. Lucky I only made a seven inch version. I am only eating it because it is cheaper than buying ice cream, anyway.

I skipped the final glaze on the poached apple rose, which was to be made from leftover poaching liquid. I honestly just forgot, but I'm devoutly grateful that I did, because the poaching liquid was better than any other component of the cake. Mixed with a little selzer, it became my new favorite home-made soda mix, a slightly fruity, vanilla-scented cream soda. There was only enough for a few glasses, and I hope to make more soon.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Sour Cherry Blanc-Manger

I thought I'd wind up liking this week's TWD a bit more. It was good, but not wonderful, and anything that can be full of whipped cream and sour cherries and not be wonderful had better just give up and top a sundae, pronto.

Blanc-manger is an old school dessert, ground almonds, sugar, milk and whipped cream stiffened a bit with gelatin and permeated with frozen sour cherries, then chilled. It tastes exactly like you might think, and Sophie and I ate it from the container with a spoon (I made a half recpe), eating around creamy expanses to get at the cherries. Matt didn't really go near it.