Recent Cake Orders
The weekend of June 26th was pretty busy, which was exciting and a bit overwhelming. Just thought I’d share some pics:
A fun bachelorette party cake. Italian Buttercream with fondant accents.
A construction vehicle cake for a child's second birthday.
I also did cupcakes for a bridal shower, but unfortunately, I neglected to get a picture. It’s too bad, because they turned out pretty well. On top of that, I did a cake tasting for a wedding taking place next July, which was a fun experience. They seemed to enjoy, so hopefully I will get the business. This is from this past weekend:
A bridal shower cake. Marble cake with light chocolate buttercream.
Strawberries & Dillinger
I’ve finally finished it. It only took me 4 months. And no, it’s not a 2000-page book; I’m just a slow reader. Thank you, Free Library, for allowing me to renew it 3 or 4 times. (By the way, aren’t libraries great?? They let you borrow books for FREE!! Now that hardbacks cost about $30 a pop, libraries are definitely the way to go. They are green (hundreds os people can read the same copy of a book), promote community, responsibility and again, FREE!! Awesome. Okay, I didn’t mean to ramble on…)
I’ve always been very interested in the outlaws of the 1920’s and 30’s (along with those of the proverbial “wild west.”) I don’t know why that is. Perhaps it is that most books and film tend to portray these “characters” in a very romantic, Robin Hood-esque sort of light. In most cases, these characterizations are very far from the truth. That is what I loved (and hated) about Bryan Burrough’s book. The man did his research. The information is very cut and dry; mostly facts with minimal speculation. He has whittled out all the exaggerations and falsehoods created by previous authors on the subjects and by those who were involved first-hand (or claimed to be) and may have fudged a little in their telling of it. In short, he has sucked the romance right out of it and left his readers with the cold, hard truth: that these people were mostly cold-blooded murderers and thieves.
About two of the worst, Bonnie & Clyde, and the strange phenomenon of their elevation to heroic status, he writes this: “Art has now done for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow something they could never achieve in life: it has taken a shark-eyed multiple murderer and his deluded girlfriend and transformed them into sympathetic characters, imbuing them with a cuddly likability they did not possess, and a cultural significance they do not deserve.” Very well put.
One thing I really liked about this book is that, unlike books that are just about Bonnie and Clyde or just about Dillinger, this books gives you context. Bonnie & Clyde, Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, etc. were all kidnapping, robbing, murdering and running from the law at the same time, just as the FBI was discovering it’s own identity. This covers everything. The downside is that it’s easy to lose track of all the names, dates and events, with the narrative changing subjects from page to page. At times, it was hard to follow.
The film, Public Enemies, starts tomorrow and I am very excited to see it. Much of it was filmed in our area, including our Capitol Square and a place just up the road from us: Carandale, where we pick strawberries every June. I just love picking strawberries. There is something about a strawberry that is freshly picked and still warm from the sun. It has a taste unlike anything you can buy at the local grocery store that has travelled and been refrigerated and seems far removed from the earth. And it just so happens that this is the place where Michael Mann chose to film Pretty Boy Floyd’s death scene for Public Enemies. Pretty cool, I’d say.
Cake Order: Daisy Birthday Cake
Wow, I have got quite a few cake orders coming up. Two showers and one bachelorette party, a birthday and possibly a sample session with a couple getting married in July 2010. Is it weird that I get really excited on days when I have to make a cake? I guess it just means that I’m in the right “career field.” The latest is a cake I did for my MIL’s friends. It is moist yellow cake with raspberry mousse filling and Italian buttercream. I’ve been working on getting my cakes to be 4-inches tall, because that’s what I’m going to want my wedding cake tiers to be. This one is 4 layers of cake and 3 (generous) layers of filling. It came out at exactly 4 inches! I don’t think all my cakes will need to be this tall, but it’s nice to know I can get them there if need be. I chose to decorate it with gum paste daisies because mine are just about ready to bloom and I thought it was seasonal, just like the raspberries.
I finally figured out how to make Italian Buttercream. I think the problem I was running into was mainly a temperature problem. Adding the butter too soon, while the meringue is still too warm, causes the butter to melt and the mixture to become liquid-y. It can be fixed. however, by just cooling the mixture down a bit. In my case, I made it too warm and then I made it too cold, but if you just keep mixing, it will come together eventually. It just takes patience–which I don’t have a lot of, but I am learning.
Project Wedding Cake Begins…
Again, I am behind on posting, but we always seem to have lots going on in the summer. Serves us right for thinking we wanted a large yard. I’ve decided to put a hold on my TWD posting/baking. I just don’t need that many desserts sitting around, plus ingredients are expensive. I am sticking with BB, though, because I still have to eat!
But the project that’s taking up a lot of my time–baking and otherwise–is the wedding cake I’m doing in August. Since I’ve completed all my classes and I really enjoy cake decorating, I’ve decided to start my own at-home cake/dessert business. As a SAHM on a tight budget, it’s nice to bring home a little of the bacon myself once in a while, even if it’s just enough for a trip to the movies or poker night or more likely an oil change or surprise bill… And hopefully someday it will be much bigger than that.
DH’s cousin is getting married in August and he and his fiancee asked ME to make their wedding cake! They are having over 200 people and their only dessert will be my cake. It’s kind if nerve-wracking, but what I have on my side is that I am very much the planning ahead type. When it is something I am interested in, I can plan a thing to death. So far, I have:
met with the lovely couple to discuss what they want
compiled my recipes
made (several) lists of supplies and ingredients needed
priced everything out
started acquiring supplies
The basic plan is a 4-tier cake decorated with the basket-weave and dotted with their wedding flowers: gorgeous dark red Gerbera daisies like the ones in this pic:
I am also coming up with formal contracts and pricing for my business. Another of DH’s cousins, a very talented watercolor artist, is working on my logo for me so I can start making up business cards. I am not quite ready to jump into making 4 wedding cakes a week or anything, but if I could get 2, 3 or 4 projects a month, that would be excellent. More on this later…
BB: Outrageous Brownies
Sorry for all the BB posts in a row, but yay!–I’m catching up!! And I’m posting one on time for a change!! Normally, I make brownies from a box. I’ve tried a few from-scratch recipes, but I don’t remember being especially impressed by any of them. This was different. I really liked this recipe. DH said it was too chocolaty–I don’t think he’s a fan of the addition of chocolate chips–but he’s not much of a fan of sweets anyway. I don’t think a brownie is a brownie unless it contains nuts and I loved the chip addition. I don’t like coffee but the addition of coffee powder did not bother me at all. I could not taste it one bit. I could only taste chocolate…mmm… I wish I could have eaten the whole tray (I only made half the recipe, by the way), but I sent the majority of it to work with DH. Those people don’t know how lucky they were. ; ) Or maybe they did…
Recipe here.
BB: Bruschetta On a Budget
I don’t really understand why this was chosen as the “budget” recipe this month, as there aren’t any very expensive ingredients. I kept most of it the same as the original and served these at a recent cookout in our backyard. I think I got to eat maybe two and the rest were scarfed down by our guests. I took that as a good sign. I’ve never made bruschetta before but it was really quite simple and I would certainly make it again. One major thing I did do was to add tomatoes, because I just couldn’t imagine bruschetta without them. I’m glad I did. I also used crumbly gorgonzola, which I got in a large container from Trader Joe’s for $3.29. I used mozzarella, too, because I had it on hand. I left out the capers because I don’t understand the attraction. Here is the recipe after I tweaked it a bit:
Bruschetta with Sauteed Sweet Peppers and Creamy Gorgonzola
- Good olive oil
- 2 green bell peppers, seeded and sliced into thin strips (because they are cheaper than red or yellow)
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons julienned fresh basil leaves
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Baguette
- 3 oz. crumbly Gorgonzola
- 3 Roma tomatoes, diced
- 1/4 c. mozzarella cheese
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the peppers and cook until soft, about 12 to 15 minutes. Sprinkle with the sugar and continue cooking for 2 more minutes. Stir in the basil and tomatoes, and season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Slice the baguette crosswise into 18 thin round slices. Brush the bread rounds lightly with olive oil on 1 side. Arrange them in rows, oil side up, on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and toast in the oven until lightly browned, about 7 to 10 minutes.
Top each toast round with a teaspoonful of the pepper mixture. Place 2 small pieces of Gorgonzola and mozzarella on top. Return the toast to the oven for 1 to 2 minutes and warm through. Serve immediately.
The original recipe is here.
BB: Tuna Salad
Ina Garten’s Tuna Salad recipe was a conundrum. Luckily, I was able to purchase a $5 package of frozen Albacore Tuna Steaks at Trader Joe’s, but I don’t think this is what Ina had in mind when she made this recipe. They had Ahi Tuna Steaks for $9.99/lb at the grocery store, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend that on an experimental dish. And really, the Albacore ones worked out well. I did as Ina said and only cooked the steaks for a minute or so on each side, so the inside was raw. At first, I didn’t mind the idea of this. I love sushi, so raw fish doesn’t scare me, but this was the first time I had prepared it in my own kitchen. And it wasn’t sushi-grade or anything. I made most of the rest of the recipe as directed, but I saved the salt until last–knowing that Ina often lays heavily on the salt. Before adding the salt, I thought the concoction tasted like an oily mess. I realized I’m kind of weirded-out by oil-based recipes. When you realize that you are basically drinking oil–even if it’s good olive oil–it just doesn’t seem right. And that’s all this tasted like to me. So I added some salt…and nothing. So I added a little more salt…and then I realized that it takes a little while for kosher salt to dissolve and then–yikes!!–a salty, oily, yucky mess. So the mixture of the questionable raw tuna and the ruined dressing made for a not-so-enjoyable Tuna Salad. Too bad, because the tuna actually tasted quite good and had the dressing been edible, I could have been convinced to eat more than one small helping of it before sadly throwing the rest away. ; (
TWD: Tiramisu
Okay, so I’m a bit behind on TWD posts… Actually, way behind. But I’m really only behind on one TWD recipe. I made the Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding, but I didn’t really get it. I don’t know much about bread pudding. There wasn’t a great deal of chocolate taste. It mostly tasted like soggy bread. My mother-in-law liked it a lot, but neither DH or I cared for it much and sadly, most of it got trashed. Next I made the Chocolate Cream Tart, which was reviewed by most as “very chocolaty!” I didn’t get to make the cream for the top and ended up using cool whip. It was okay. It tasted like really chocolaty pudding pie. I guess I’m just not a big fan. I don’t have pics of either of these desserts.
I was getting kind of worried because thus far, I hadn’t really loved a Dorie recipe. While other people said they enjoyed them, it takes me loving it for it to become part of my repertoire. Then I made the Tiramisu. I do not like coffee, so I usually don’t even try the Tiramisu. I did try it once recently, though, at Papa Phil’s on Monroe Street in Madison and I loved it! The coffee taste was not overpowering. It was delicious! I was hoping this recipe would resemble that one.
I was not disappointed. I loved this cake. I was hesitant to use all of the espresso extract to soak my layers because I was afraid the coffee taste would be too strong, but next time I will definitely use all of it. I used regular-sized semi-sweet chocolate chips and they were perfect. My few improvements would be to slice the cake into 3 layers next time and double the filling/frosting recipe. The more frosting, the better. This is definitely something I will make again.
Wilton Course 2 – Class 3 & 4
I missed Class 3 of Course 2 because I was out of town, but thankfully my instructor went over the flowers she taught in that class with me and another student who’d missed it. Of course, since I didn’t practice the flowers myself and just watched her do them, I probably won’t be able to retain the information. Oh well, at least I still have the book to look at if I need to figure out how to make pansies or daisies or daffodils, etc.
I took a 6-inch iced cake (Found a new buttercream recipe! Woohoo! I love it!) to class. My instructor taught us how to do the basket weave, which–after you get the hang of it–is easier than I thought it would be. Then we learned the rope border, which I love. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my top border attached to my cake well enough and it collapsed when I walked away from it taking much of my basket weave with it. Luckily, that was the back of the cake and I was able to repair it reasonably well. It was actually a relaxing class because I had plenty of time to decorate my cake for a change.
This is the last of the Wilton Courses available for me to take. It was a nice way to get me through winter and I have a lot of new skills and a fun new hobby. Some people collect stamps and toy trains; I collect hobbies. ; ) I am slated to make my best friend’s groom’s cake in October and DH’s cousin’s wedding cake in August, which I am very excited about. I will also keep my eye out for more courses–maybe something on cake sculpting? But for now, I will just enjoy the warm weather.
A Day at the Zoo
Friday was somewhere near 80 degrees here in Madison, Wisconsin, and DH finally had a day off (He’s been traveling A LOT this month.). So, even though he was exhausted, he readily agreed to take DS and I to the zoo. I love the Henry Vilas Zoo for many reasons, including that it is free to enter and it is just the right size that it can be thoroughly visited in 1 – 2 hours. There is also a large play area for the kiddies, although not really for kiddies as young as DS.
This was our first trip to the zoo where DS actually noticed the animals. He is really into pointing right now, so there was a lot of that. Sadly, a lot of the normally active animals, like the penguins and otters, were sleeping while we were there but he did enjoy the prairie dogs and giraffes. He also got to take his first ride on the merry-go-round, during which he stared straight ahead, motionless and expressionless–which is a lot better than screaming his head off. I think he enjoyed himself.
