Happy (Extremely Belated) St. Patrick's Day!

Here I am, 2 weeks late with another entry. I'm so bad at this. Although I'm 90% certain no one reads this anymore anyway, so I suppose it doesn't much matter.

Grumpiness aside...

Randy was in town last weekend, and it was St. Patrick's Day, so there were many festivities. Tim was corning a beef, and I was craving my mom's special cabbage recipe, a St. Patrick's Day staple in our house for years, so as part of our celebration, we decided to have an authentic Irish dinner. (Well, as authentic as we Americans can get, I suppose.) Tim prepared the corned beef and potatoes, Chris brought Irish variety beer, and we brought the cabbage, Irish soda bread (a baking adventure itself), and, of course, cake.

The cake was Sacher Torte, which is apparently the most famous chocolate cake in the world. Of course, I've never heard of it, so how famous can it really be? Then again, I don't - wait, didn't - like chocolate cake, so I'm probably not the chocolate cake expert, hence my ignorance. Anyway, the cake is two thin layers of dense bittersweet chocolate cake filled with apricot jam and covered in a dark chocolate glaze. The most traumatic part of the cake was trying to half the single thin chocolate cake (well, that and opening the rum to go in the apricot filling... I can't smell rum now without flashbacks to fruitcake...), but it was overall a cake that looked more impressive than the work that went into it. Randy was a fantastic photographer, conducting a rather intense photo shoot of the cake making process. Sadly, there's just not enough room for all the pictures.

Dinner was delicious... we really outdid ourselves in a fine showcase of our culinary talents. The book clearly states that whipped cream is an important part of Sacher Torte, so after plenty of Irish fare, we dolloped generous helpings of homemade whipped cream on top of our slices of cake, and enjoyed the excellent finale to our meal. Most of us had second helpings, leaving little room for the enjoyment of Irish beverages later in the night, but it was a worthy trade.

I'm honestly not usually a huge St. Patrick's Day fan. Too many people pretending to like Irish punk bands and getting sloppy drunk early in the morning for my taste. But this year may have changed my attitude a bit. Good friends, good food, good beer, time with my sweetie, and fabulous chocolate cake... sounds like a great holiday to me!

Cake vs Pie

An age-old battle. Which is better? I remember having unnecessarily lengthy discussions with a dear friend from college about how we wished we could have pie at our weddings instead of cake. I was never particularly fond of cake, actually; frosting was the only draw for me, and I was very particular about the type of frosting worth the pursuit of cake. Pie was far more appealing, because there was less "bread" and more goodness: apples, pumpkin, pecans, the chocolate cream of French Silk pie. I was determined that if I ever got married, I would find a way to replace the expected giant, tiered, white (boring) cake with pie. Preferably my grandmother's pecan. This cake adventure and my (re)discovery of cupcakes, however, has since changed my tune. I would be willing to accept a cake... but only if it was the red velvet or the New Orleans chocolate or THE white cake from this book. My intense love for cupcakes would also make tiers of cupcakes an option. Although I haven't completely given up on pie. Mini pies perhaps? If tiers of mini cakes in the form of cupcakes work, surely tiers of mini pies would be just as good.

The cake from two weeks ago (I'm so behind, again) might just provide a truce in the cake vs pie battle. A recipe from one of Dr. Robinson's good friends, Val's Boston Apple Cake is essentially an apple pie in cake's clothing. It's delightfully simple, one of those throw everything in a bowl, mix, pour in pan/pie plate, and bake kind of cakes. There's just enough dough to be considered a cake, but it's full all the way through with apple slices, nuts, and raisins, providing enough filling to appease the pie lovers. Tastes like apple pie, with a texture more like cake or a quick bread. And, most importantly, delicious.

The chapter containing this recipe is all about friendship, family, and spending time with people we truly want to spend time with. In that spirit, I took the cake over to Tim and Maureen's, and Chris joined us for an evening of chatting, Bones watching, and cake eating. We ate almost the entire thing... there were two small pieces (or one large, I suppose) left by the time I went home.

Perhaps the wedding pastry plan should be Boston Apple Cake cupcakes. Sounds like the best way to please cake eaters, pie eaters, and cupcake lovers alike!

Happy Birthday, Chris!

I love when there are actual occasions for cake. I get to show off my cake baking skills, and it's like an instant gift! Plus it's way more impressive and appreciated than a store bought cake.

The title of the chapter containing last week's cake recipe is "Science Is Not a Cake Walk." Truer words have never been spoken. We've been subject to some bad science karma in the lab lately, and right now, when all I want in the world is to graduate and move on with my life, failed experiments and unnecessary delays seem even more frustrating.

Thankfully, we can find reasons to celebrate. Chris' birthday was last week, and in observance, we went out for Mexican and margaritas. This week's cake was not a tower of magnificence, but was easy to transport and easy to eat, and it was impressive all done up with candles.

The recipe was Chocolate-Pecan cake, inspired by New Orleans pralines, confections full of pecans, chocolate and caramel. It was supposed to be simple, the "cake walk" that the past week's science had not been. The cake itself actually was; it was essentially a glorified cookie, and making the batter was as easy as whipping up a batch of slightly fancy chocolate chip cookies. The caramel sauce, however, proved to be a challenge. I'd never made caramel before, and apparently there are all sorts of rules, the most important being: once the sugar is dissolved, DO NOT TOUCH IT!!! So while I stirred and waited for my sugar to turn "a medium-amber color," my sugar water slowly boiled away, and I ended up with... sugar. Who would have guessed that when you dissolve sugar in water and then boil off all the water you end up right back where you started? I was, of course, out of sugar after that, so I had to run to the store to buy more sugar, and after extensive research on caramel-making, my second attempt yielded a much better result. Slightly darker than it should have been, resulting in a nuttier flavor instead of just sweet, but it worked on the cookie cake, and everyone enjoyed it, no complaints. And now I'm an expert caramel maker. Or something like that.

Mexican, margaritas, company, and cake made for a fun birthday celebration and a welcome way to forget a long week.

I hope there's cake in Heaven

Last week's cake was angel food cake. I was obviously panicked. Angel food cake? Do you know how hard that is? Do you know how many eggs that is? It's 14. 14 EGGS! 14 eggs whites dumped into a bowl and brought to room temperature and beat into magic. I enlisted Maureen's help to prevent any nervous breakdowns.



It turns out that an angel food cake is actually entirely egg whites. A little sugar, a little flour, but seriously... mostly egg whites. I guess that means it's healthy? Lots of protein, low calorie, low fat... it's like a dieting cake lover's dream. Anyway... beating all those egg whites made a giant, fluffy "dough" which was really more like foam with a life of its own. Even my biggest mixing bowl was barely big enough to contain it. The pan also had some issues... I didn't have a tube pan, but a bundt pan is pretty similar, and I bought that bundt pan for that darn Tunnel of Fudge cake, so I was determined to put it to good use, and decided it would be close enough. Like the bowl, it barely held the batter, but we made it work. It was slightly terrifying to watch the cake slowly rise in the oven, threatening to spill over the sides and overtake the entire inside of the oven like The Blob or something, but the cake came out intact and the oven unscathed. Balancing the cake on a bottle to cool was a whole other adventure... and equally nerve wracking because at any minute Frye could jump on the counter, knock it over, and devour half of it. I had a fitful night of sleep, imagining noises signifying the destruction of our hard work, but thankfully the cake made it through the night.

It did not, however, make it out of the pan. The directions said to use an ungreased pan, and my bundt pan is super nonstick and super new, so I thought it wouldn't be a problem. But, as you can tell from the picture, it was. It would not come out of that pan. After much wriggling and prying with spoons, forks, knives, etc., I finally got the cake out, but it wasn't pretty. Usually, that's ok, because frosting hides all kinds of sins, but this cake was not meant to be frosted. Certainly it could be; Dr. Robinson mentions making a fudge frosting for hers since her guests at the time were chocolate lovers, and my grandma uses a cream cheese frosting on hers, but this cake was art, and I wanted it's true flavor and texture to be unobstructed. Sadly, this meant I had to present an ugly cake at lab meeting.

It actually didn't matter, though, because that cake was gone faster than anything I've ever brought in. I didn't even get a picture of the cut cake, and I was lucky to snag a couple pieces for Tim and Maureen as a thank you for their help with it. It got outstanding reviews, and for good reason. It was so soft and fluffy and light and just perfectly sweet enough... I want a bed made out of that cake. This was one troublesome cake that was worth it. If only I can figure out how to make it pretty next time...

I didn't read the chapter containing this recipe before I made the cake, but reading it now brings a little tear to my eye. Dr. Robinson made this cake the week of the anniversary of her mother's death, in honor of the horrendous angel food cake her mother once made for a student council luncheon. That cake was also ugly, and resulted in a mortifying cake debacle for the 3rd grade Dr. R. My cake is thus a fitting tribute: same cake, same disaster. I hope that angels really get to eat angel food cake, and that in heaven, all angel food cakes come out perfectly--golden, even, soft, pillowy, sweet and delicious. I hope Dr. R's mom is enjoying a perfect piece of angel food cake right now, smiling over the cake debacle and her daughter's efforts to honor her memory. And I definitely hope she saves a piece or two of that cake for us when we get there.