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.

Alpha Bakers - Renee Fleming Chiffon

The Renee Fleming chiffon. Just a very good sponge. Made it one day, served it for tea the next. Squishy and pleasing. 

We discovered that a chiffon cake has one unanticipated advantage when you invite toddlers to tea. Very few crumbs.

Alpha Bakers -- The Polish Princess

The Polish Princess. Sounds like a cruise ship, doesn't it? Or a jewelry display. 

But no, it is a cake. Under its fancy veneer, it is actually quite a humble and homebody cake. Just because a girl wears two layers of buttercream doesn't mean she's stuck-up. Also, doesn't she have a right to some honest pride when she's a righteous sponge soaked in a tea and rum syrup, topped with two smooth and creamy and eggy layers of pastry cream buttercream, one filled with cocoa and walnuts, the other with raisins and chocolate? 

The Polish Princess, or the Ambassador as it is apparently known in Poland, is a bakery cake--the kind you ogle in the pastry case that often doesn't punch its weight in taste outside the cage. This lady, however, holds up, especially at room temperature, where all the layers soften into a creamy blend.

 

The creation of the Princess happened over a few days, in slow stages. First, the sponge was baked and syrup-ed. The syrup, in Polish fashion, was meant to be a strong tea steeped spiked with vodka. Having no vodka, I used rum, which was delicious if not culturally appropriate. According to the recipe headnote, the cake was developed after the fall of the USSR, when new quality ingredients came to Poland, so perhaps it's just an appropriate cultural cross-pollination.

Then came the buttercream--one recipe divided at the end for flavorings. It starts with a goopy pastry cream, into which a LOT of butter is blended. I mean a LOT--about three sticks worth. Because I was making the recipe in stages, I had some trouble with the buttercream--it broke badly and became a cottage cheese looking wet mess. I waited for everything to come to a warm room temperature, added a few more tablespoons of butter, and came out at last with a creamy fluff. 

The Princess had a warm reception at work, as I made sure she was served at a cool room temperature, the spongy buttercream was a great success. One of our young shelvers (who have just been temporarily almost laid off due to budget constraints--call your city councilors!) told me it was a brand new cake experience for him--he had never eaten anything like it. 

The last few weeks have been stressful. Some of the stress is personal, a result of something very wonderful that I have the privilege to do, that is none the less...stressful. Also, a few mountains have been falling and a few cities have been burning, and that's not without its impact too, however far away it may be. Many of my friends seem to be finding themselves in a slightly ragged place as we straggle into spring. The reasons vary, from the personal to the professional, from life to love to happiness to sadness, but regardless, most of us need a heavy dose of cake and flowers and soup. 

Last Sunday I had a few dear ones over and made this soup--quick and simple and rich, a basic potato soup raised up with prosciutto and saffron and garlicky ground almonds, from my new cookbook, Food52 Genius Recipes. More from this cookbook soon. I'm going through my cookbook back catalogue and trying not to buy many more, but this one was a printed version of about half the recipes I have already bookmarked and printed out, and it seemed prudent to pick up the bound version.

Alpha Bakers - Lemon Posset Sponge

A quick and easy recipe this week--or at least easy. One sponge cake (let's not kill ourselves and call it shortcake), covered in a quick lemon cream. Right up my street. A few special things:

1. The sponge included brown butter. Brown butter is a very good idea. Deb over at Smitten Kitchen tends to suggest brown butter even when it isn't called for. Since I have some leftover, I will probably take her advice soon.

2. The sponge is brushed with lemon syrup and then with apple jelly. There was no apple jelly to be had at the approximately 17 gourmet stores and delis near me, so I settled for pear. Pear jelly is also a very good idea.

The recipe was for individual sponges, but my Maryann pan is a single, and I was taking it to work anyway, so I just made the one. I had a few flour balls in the bottom but just picked them out with a knife tip.

3. Posset is fun. Posset is all of the medieval children's books I used to read. Posset is nursery sponge and jam and mysterious things people in books eat that I never really knew were things. Posset is just cream thickened with, in this case, sugar and Meyer lemon juice. Posset posset posset. Drink your posset. Posset is fun. My posset was creamy and nice, and a little mild for my taste. Regular lemons next time.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Chocolate Bulls-Eye Cakes

Photo by Matt Korahais

Six little sponge cakes all in a row...

Photo by Matt Korahais.

Hollowed out, glazed with Kahlua simple syrup AND strawberry-rhubarb glaze, filled with chocolate and drizzled with same. These were intense. Good party treats, but a bit too sweet for my taste. Still, there was sponge cake, so no danger of them going uneaten.

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.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Blueberry Sponge

This cake didn't start life as a blueberry sponge. It was meant to be a marionberry shortcake. However, I don't call it a shortcake unless it's a biscuit, contradictory as that may be, I reserve the right. This is a sponge cake, soft, sweet, delicious, and not a shortcake base. It was, however, just lovely with tiny Maine blueberries drizzled over it. The whipped cream, sadly, was sour, so didn't make it to the table.

The little sponges, made in cupcake wrappers, came along to dinner at Libby & Rob's where they were light finish to an amazing dinner. I love sponge cake always, and I hear that Whole Foods carries marionberries. I'll have to try them soon.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Genoise Bavarian

The Genoise Rose cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes is a genoise designed to be strong enough to bake in a moulded shape. As you might guess from the name, Rose herself likes to make this cake in a florally designed bundt pan. I used my Bavarian bundt pan. Marie, the host of the Heavenly Cake Bakers, mentioned that this cake really could be on the 'quick and easy' list, despite the additional steps of browning butter and the long beating times.  Maybe after all this cake baking we're just improving t the point where more and more previously intimidating activities seem quick and easy.

The one place that I failed a bit was in mixing in the flour--I was too timid, and left some flour/cornstarch lumps in the finished cake. These didn't impair its flavor or texture, which, due to the use of whole eggs, was moist for a genoise, but they weren't pretty. The cake sank a bit as well, so it looks mildly squished in the picture.

The final step of the recipe is the application of a syrup (Rose directs the use of one made from Grand Marnier). I think that a syrup would have added to the elegance and longevity of the cake, but I don't really like liquor syrups, and I just loved the cake plain, so that went by the wayside. Unsyrup-ed, the cake tasted oddly and exactly like my family's Passover sponge cake recipe, and indeed the ingredient list and method is pretty comparable. I enjoyed this cake but I don't think I developed it to its full potential. Since it is quick, and easy, perhaps there'll be a next time.