Cakes 99-100!

And so, like all things in life, this cake blog has reached the end. This is a bittersweet moment indeed; almost two years have been spent in the weekly pursuit of making cakes. Countless hours spent scouring store shelves looking for that one rare ingredient, and countless more hours thinking of new and interesting reflections on life that could be related to the cake of the week. Ted and I had many accomplishments during this time: we have successfully raised Evie into an almost three- going-on-thirty year old child who talks, walks, and acts in a way far more becoming of a little princess than a toddler. We had Liam. We have grown as a family in ways never imagined just a few years ago. On the other hand, there have been rough times as well. Shakespeare's tumor, constant money woes, and a house that at times doesn't want to cooperate being just a few of these difficulties. All the while, the blog marched on. At first this was an energetic pursuit, each week Ted and I eagerly picking through the recipe book looking for the perfect recipe for that week. The energy however wore off, as well as Ted's appetite for cake. At times the process became tedious and cakes were made in the late hours of the weekend, only because we had too. By the end, the blog became erratic, as life got in the way of writing. But it is December of 2012 and after two years and one hundred weeks, the blog is over. I really thought I was going to end with one long reminiscent blog of cakes past both good and bad, but honestly, I am just glad it is over.

The second to last cake was a Bumblebee Cake; probably the one cake more than others that inspired fear just in picture alone. The cake is a mound shaped cake that is icing to look like a bee hive and uses fondant to shape miniature bumble bees on the outside. The cake called for flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, butter, vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon rind.  The cake itself was easy to make (though long, clocking in at an hour and a half in the oven) but the decorating was difficult. My version ended up looking more flat than the books picture, but the effect was still adequate. The bees on the other hand were actually easy to make.

 

The final cake was actually a rehash of a cake that I had once started earlier. The Marbled Pastel Cake had been a previous disaster as it calls for fondant icing which at the time I had never used. The fondant I bought at Safeway ended up being stale, and unworkable, and the cake became ruined in the process. That time I moved onto a different cake, but this time around I was determined for success. The cake called for flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, butter, vanilla, and milk. Once the batter was completed, I was supposed to set some batter to the side to be dyed pink and then swirled in with the rest of the cake. In an effort to holiday this last cake up however, I dyed half pink and half green, giving the cake an almost marbled look. The fondant then too had to be dyed to give the marbled pink appearance. This time there were no glitches and the cake ended up looking fantastic. 

Though there is no cake next week, or any week to follow at any time soon, I say until next time (an inevitably there will be a next time of some sort) keep caking and Merry Christmas!

Cakes 94-98 !

Tis' the season to give thanks for all we have and I have a number of things to be thankful for. I have two of the most wonderful (and at times crazy) children a mother could ask for; see any picture or movie file uploaded on facebook over the past six months, and you too will agree that my children are the cutest you have ever seen. Along these lines, I am also thankful that this year, Evie is old enough to actually understand (at least to some degree) Christmas. She does not really understand the entire back story for the holiday, religious and commercial, and doesn't even comprehend that it has been a year since last Christmas, but she does know that something is happening. If you mention Christmas to her, she will scream something about Santa and how he is bringing her a princess castle. I cannot wait for Christmas morning when she opens that castle and truly buys into the magic that is Santa and Christmas morning.  

Finally, this year I am thankful that this damn blog is almost over. After two years of making cakes every week, shopping for ingredients, driving around the Baltimore metropolitan area looking for obscure ingredients not found on previous trips, delicately shaping each aspect of the cake to resemble the picture in the book, and then struggling to say something impactful about the experience in the blog, I am just done. This blog started in January of 2011, when Evie was just a little nine-month old infant who had just started eating solid foods and could not yet walk on her own; now, she is almost three, partially potty trained, and able to hold entire conversations and sing along to top 40 radio. Liam was a remote possibility in the future when this blog started, and now he is five month old reality, starting to eat solid foods and crawl. That being said, these amazing testaments to the passage of times   have also made free time a scarce commodity in the Childs' household. Because of this, I bring to you today, the story of five cakes that have been made, none of them I think on the previously accustomed to Saturday afternoon. 

#94 Prune and Port Cake

This cake was an easy cake that more importantly called for me to use Ted's favorite wine based spirit, Port, in the mix. A fortified red wine, port is super sweet and often served as a desert wine. He loves it and was tantalized by the prospect of including it in the cake. The cake itself called for flour, baking powder, butter, eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla extract, and had dried prunes, which had been boiled in a port/apple juice combination mixed into the batter. Once the cake was done, the port and apple juice reduction was then served over the cake, allowing that warm sweetness to works its way through the entire cake! Finally, because it just wasn't sweet enough, raw sugar was sprinkled on top of the cake as it came out of the oven, ensuring that this cake is a diabetic's worst nightmare.

#95 Silver Wedding Cake

A cake that we had been eyeing for quite a while, we made this the weekend before our twelve year dating anniversary on Halloween. It is hard to believe that we have actually been together for twelve years, and when I think back to what life was like then as opposed to now it is really quite amazing what can change in just a bit over a decade. This cake called for flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and milk. Once finished, the cake was then sprinkled with just a small amount of sherry to give it a sophisticated flavor, before being coated in cream cheese icing. The hardest part of this cake was making it two layered, but different sizes. Not having the correct pans, I tried to cut the second cake into shape, but after pouring the sherry on: the sherry ruined the integrity of the cake structure however, and the smaller top cake ended up deformed. No effect on taste, just looks. 

#96 Almond and Coconut Chocolate Ring

This cake was supposed to have a cranberry flavoring to it, and no chocolate was called for, but the thought of putting something looking strangely like cranberry relish on top of a cake looked hideous. As Ted would be the only one eating the cake, Ted convinced me to substitute Chocolate and slivered almonds for cranberries, and make a modified "Almond Joy" style cake. Much different in taste but still capturing the basic spirit of the original cake. The cake called for flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, almond extract, and chopped almonds. Once the cake was cooked, I then added melted chocolate chips, slivered almonds, and shredded coconut on top.  Ted said that while the cake did not quite taste as much like an almond joy as he had hoped, it was still a good cake.

#97 Chocolate Chip and Ginger Cake

Like our previous cake, this cake too called for ingredients that we did not put into the cake; unlike before however, this was not due to our own personal tastes, but on the supply of Rhubarb at our local Safeway: they did not have any. Not having rhubarb for the top crunch layer of this cake, we decided to once again improvise, adding chocolate chunks into the cake instead. Furthermore, as the rhubarb was supposed to add crunch to the top of the cake, we added sugar and butter onto the top before baking. The cake called for flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, ground ginger, and milk; as previously stated, once mixed, chocolate chunks were added to the mix, and butter and sugar placed on top. The icing was then homemade from vanilla, ginger, and powdered sugar.  Ted ate almost the entire cake in a weekend and admitted that this was his favorite cake since the first few cakes we made, almost two years ago. 

#98 Cherry Puff Desert

Finally, last week we made a cake that no one in the house will even touch - a cherry based puff desert. As neither I nor Ted like cherries, this cake has sat untouched so far and will probably be given to others who share a greater sympathy for cherries. The cake itself was simple, calling for flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, almond extract, and butter. Once mixed, egg whites had to beaten into a firm froth, and then folded into the desert before being placed in the pan. Finally, cherries were mixed into the top before baking. Once completed, the cake was sprinkled with more cherries, almond slivers, and powdered sugar. If this sounds good to anyone, please come pick up this orphan of a cake, because otherwise, it will be traded to a trash can near you!

And with that, there remain only two cakes to go: a bumblebee cake that is easy in baking but ridiculously hard in decorating (can anyone say three-dimensional fondant sculpting) and a marble pastel cake that we actually attempted last year but failed so miserably that we gave up and moved on. This means, with way our life has been lately, that we will combine this all into one blog and post at the end of the next week. For the remainder of this holiday we will be stringing lights, buying a Christmas Tree, wrapping presents, and trying not obsess over the passing of time and our children's milestones. If anyone is looking for me, I will be the person crouched in the corner of the bedroom, crying into a photo album of my kids when they were little. Until next time, the last next time actually, bye!

Cak # 93 Tropical Ring Cake

October, and thus Autumn, is upon us in Maryland, and like every fall, the weather has turned cold and nasty, and the ground soggier by the day. It seemed then a perfect time to introduce the last cake in the book that has a summer feel to it, the Tropical Fruit Cake. Eating this cake is like eating the last bit summer, sitting on a warm beach in Key West, watching the fading light of sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, smelling the salty mixture of humid air and seafood. This little slice of summer of heaven, coinciding nicely with the end of the Boy's of Summer season in New York, is a throwback to the great days of summer, with little to do but watch the kids get older and the days get longer. Now, the days are shorter, the nights colder, and schedule full of holiday related items. Last week, we took both kids to Weber's Farm to pick out pumpkins. This week, we will pick out their costumes. Next week... who knows?

The cake this week called for flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla, eggs, butter, and dried mixed fruit soaked in lime juice. The icing, an easy concoction to make, was just lime juice and powdered sugar, drizzled over the cake. The whole thing was garnished with some more dried fruit on top for decoration. Though the recipe called for fruit such as pineapple and mango, I went with a more regional approach including grapes, peaches, and apricot. A delicious cake to say the least!

My cake:

The book's Cake:

Check in next week to see what wonderful concoction we come up! Only a few cakes to go!

Cake #91 Lime Halva Cake and #92 Pear Cake

For a weekend that is steeped in baseball significance unseen in Baltimore for fifteen years, it seems apropos that this week's blog will be a double-header. Let me just say that I, like all Baltimore sports fans, am totally psyched that this weekend we have playoff baseball, as well as a still-dominant, if aging, Raven's team taking the field at 4-1 (oh boy ... Ted would be so proud at the theme of this blog so far). The reason why this week's blog is a double-header is because this week was spirit week in school, and between Baltimore sports and Edgewood sports, there was  just no time to get a blog written for last weekend's cake, so I am incorporating both cakes into this blog.

So this week was spirit week at a school and what a week it was. Just being back to school from maternity leave, I was overwhelmed to say the least, not even counting the added stress that teaching two nights at Towson adds. Ted had soccer two of the nights as well, which meant that on nights that I wasn't at Towson, I was with the kiddies after school until Ted got home; both of the kids were fantastic and I got lots of great times with them taking pictures and posing for the camera, but it was still stressful.  We had a great time dressing up for Manic Monday, Twin Tuesday, Nerd Wednesday, Superhero Thursday, and Spirit Friday ... special thanks goes out to all my A-side buddies who dressed up with me as well! The week was great, but of course, anytime you allow students to dress up, there is going to be some extra-special craziness in the classroom - kind of like a week long full moon! 

On Saturday night, Ted and I then chaperoned the homecoming dance. I feel like after five minutes on the dance floor, I could easily write a best-selling book entitled, "How to know when your dress is too short... and other life lessons learned at a High School Dance." The dance went really well, and I certainly do not mean to imply that every, or even most young ladies were dressed inappropriately, but it was enough to make me feel old. Only a decade removed from my own homecoming,  I on more than one occasion looked at Ted and made some comment that started with the line, "back in our day..." I think this is why I love teaching at Edgewood and at Towson, as well as why I love participating in things like spirit week; it keeps me in touch with the youthful moments in life that many people lose over time, and yet it always keeps me self-aware of the positive attributes of aging, like maturity and responsibility. Anyway, enough Dr. Phil-like speeches, on to the cake.

The first cake I made, last week, was a Lime Halva Cake, an interesting creation that would have seemed quite appropriate to eat in a swanky Cuban nightclub in 1950's Havana. Calling for semolina, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, ground almonds, lime juice and lime rind. Working with semolina was weird, as I had never actually seen it before, and assumed that it was really only used in pasta. It worked well though. The cake was topped with a homemade lime syrup made with sugar, lime juice, water, cinnamon.

My cake:

 The book's cake:

This week's cake was different than the Lime Halva cake, and yet brought it's own uniqueness. Aside from the standard ingredients of flour, brown sugar, pears, butter, eggs, baking powder,vanilla, and lemon rind, the cake also called for a mixture of rolled oats, sunflower kernels, and pumpkin seeds to mixed into the batter right before baking. As the cake was placed in the oven, I had to sprinkle raw brown sugar on top, in order to give the pears on top a crunchy, sweet crust. 

My cake and the book's cake:

Overall, both cakes were successful though Ted admitted that neither were to his real taste. I think that will be the status quo for these last few cakes, as they are all ones that we have saved for two years to bake (many for obvious reasons). Check in next week to see what crazy cake we have in the oven! Until then, happy baking!