Alpha Bakers -- Ganache City

I like living with messy people. In fact, I like messy people in general.

That's not to say I'm in love with clothes strewn all over the floor, or dirty dishes under the bed, although those things don't bother me as much as they do some people. What I like is people who are unafraid of the odd impulses, weird tics, and dark holes that live inside them. People who embrace their bizarre habits without too much normalizing commentary and are able to allow their lives to have untucked corners.
Every time a kid starts a question with...'Is this weird...?' my heart breaks a little. Who cares? The only thing that's interesting about anyone is the weird things that they do. There's barely a point to life if all your interesting edges are rubbed off. Sometimes I find that theater people are better at just not caring about small social observances, but sometimes they just find other ones to conform to. We are all so afraid of each other sometimes. It's...weird.

Which is to say, I like to hang out with two and three year olds, who are unabashedly strange. And I have a few strange habits of my own, like obsessive baking. Lately my schedule has been a little thrown off, due to all sorts of business and the arrival of a new person in my life, a person who doesn't even care about sweets. How in the name of all that is holy did I get matched up with a person who can ignore freshly baked cupcakes? At least I know he likes me for me?

Luckily, everyone else in my life is still cupcake-mad, and so after plying my workplace with last week's Praline Tart (made, in my case, with almonds), I whipped up this week's Coconut Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache for one of my sacred weekly institutions, Nacho Friday. These cupcakes are based on one of Rose's coconut cakes, already a huge favorite in my circles, and the only changes I made were to make them gluten free (using Thomas Keller's Cup4Cup flour) for my friend who has celiac disease and, due to my general messiness and failure to retrieve the muffin pan I left at a friend's house three months ago, to minimize them. As I was having dinner with toddlers, mini-cupcakes seemed like a good way to go, although the decision was not without its own fraught moments, as you'll see.

The cupcakes, with a milk chocolate ganache, that Rose-typically was not just made with milk chocolate but with a mix of white and bittersweet, were delicious and a huge hit. Anais, one of the two and a half year olds in question, ate one excitedly and then asked for another. One cupcake for each of us, she was told, whereupon she dissolved into tears and said, 'But I like two cupcakes....'

Everyone has a fold in their smooth surface. Some of us re-use bathwater or teabags with our spouses. Some of us hang out with our exes even though it hurts. Some of us embrace the things that make us broken. Some of us chant weird lines from children's books and love Maurice Sendak and eat odd things at odd times or do whatever it is we need to stay alive. Some of us like two cupcakes.

After Anais went to bed, several of us had a few more cupcakes. Because we're grown-ass women who can do as we please. 

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Chocolate Feather Bed

I think this is my first recipe repeat from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. The first time I tackled the chocolate featherbed, a flourless alteration of eggy cake and whipped ganache, was for the second night of Passover. I was flipping through the book just looking for a Passover cake, of which Rose provides several options, and came across this one. I noticed that it was not only Passover-friendly but actually gluten-free, which has become a recent necessity for some of my family members. It seemed, at the time, with about five hours to go before leaving for New Jersey, somewhat complicated, but I made a half recipe and managed to get it out there, where it was devoured despite the presence of about 15 other desserts (and around 20 guests).

Versatile and delicate, yet easy to travel with, the chocolate featherbed immediately became my cake-of-choice for seders, Passover birthdays, and gluten-free events. But, such is the rotation that when I first made it again, last Thursday, there was no event at all, other than my sister visiting, so she had to cut it up and take it to her friends.

On the natural assumption that no time crunch means more time to mess up, I immediately messed up my second attempt by misreading the directions. Rose directs the baker to bake two batches of batter, on two half-sheet pans. Possessing only one half-sheet pan and no occasion, I planned to halve the recipe, but somehow misunderstood and thought that two batches of batter would be used for each half. I made the correct amount of batter, (the recipe printed, which Rose instructs doubling) but in halves, and spread the first half onto the whole half-sheet pan. It came out OK, but a bit thin and dry. I made the second half on a smaller pan, and the cake the size of 1/4 the half-sheet pan. Got it?

On my first attempt, I had made the chocolate-gelatinized whipped cream option. This time, I went with the whipped ganache, which I thought was good, but also dried the cake a bit. Next time I am going to follow the example of several Heavenly Bakers and omit chocolate in the filling, using gelatin-stabilized plain whipped cream. I love whipped cream, and I think the color contrast would please me. Unless you cut it just right, and shave chocolate artistically, this cake's simple appearance belies its somewhat complicated making. With some nonpareils sprinkled on, it resembled a cafeteria sheet cake.

I usually don't include recipes for Heavenly Cakes, as this bake-along is also a promotion for the book, but if anyone wants this one, email me, it's easier than it looks.