#glee bakes

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Had a serano cake failure that left me with some leftover ingredients, so used them to throw together a small vanilla cake with French buttercream and chocolate ganache.

Only had 2 egg yolks so made a ganache so it’d be more “finished”. Probably should have left it as a naked cake; half dark/half semi-sweet chocolate really overwhelms the vanilla flavor, and the buttercream turned out really nice!

Ah, well. Live and learn.

[gleefully-macabre]

I made cookies again, but didn’t go in with an icing plan. I only have supplies for 3 colors and white. :/

Update: decided on secondary colors. Edgy.

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Had a couple more cake experiments I didn’t bother logging since the results were the same.

That said, I offered to make a cake for Mother’s Day dinner, and reduced the oven temp to 300 degrees F.

Still domed but not as much.

Anyway, going to try a purple to blue ombré look for decorating, since it’s low effort (relatively) and I’m out of practice with piping.

Also it’s ermine icing, so not great for piping decorations anyway. Though a few borders wouldn’t hurt.

EDIT: Could be worse.

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Cake Experiment #1

Batter: white cake with egg whites and canola oil

Pan: 6inch round, ungreased, bottom lined in parchment paper. Icing nail as heating core, greased with homemade cake release.

Oven: center rack, preheated to 315 degrees F

Time: 25 minutes + 15 minutes (heat increased to 325F)

Increasing the temperature was a mistake. Ended up causing a crust over the top.

Nothing that can’t be cut off!

Had therapy this morning, so took an extra hour to do a fast no-cook simple syrup (sugar dissolves in water without heat) to keep things moist, and topped it off with a fast n dirty chocolate ganache.

Very dirty. 6oz is WAY too much for a single 6 inch cake. Even 2oz would have been generous. The 3:2 chocolate to cream ratio seems a bit thin as well.

But screw it, it’s done! Have to taste it later (day job... ) but the chocolate seems to be setting okay.

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Cake Experiment II

Batter: sifted white cake mix with liquid egg whites and canola oil

Pan: 6inch round, ungreased, bottom lined in parchment paper. Wet quilting cotton as cake strips.

Oven: one rack below center, preheated to 315 degrees F

Time: 25 minutes + 10 + 5 + 2:30 (37.5 minutes)

Smaller dome (I think?). Nothing that can’t be leveled.

Only I forgot to put a cake board on the top while leveling, so it got all crumbly and awful. So I cut it into two layers so I could flip the messy one and hide it with icing.

Chocolate ermine icing, to be exact. Halved the original recipie I used previously, though boiled the sugar with the milk and flour, and added 2 Tbsps of cocoa.

It’s already warm in the kitchen so I stopped fixing the icing when it reached Acceptable before I could ruin it reaching for Perfect.

Doing another ganache, this time with semisweet chocolate chips (3oz) and 1oz heavy cream.

That turned out WAY too thick. I didn’t realize until I’d already started, so thinned it a bit and did my best to salvage things.

If anyone asks, I was going for Salvador Dali. >>

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The oven here in my new home is fussy. Haven’t figured it out yet. I think it’s smaller than the oven we used to have, because even after lowering the temperature and confirming it via oven thermometer, my cakes keep coming out over-done.

So, I figure I need tim bake a bunch of cakes.

Since my free time is limited due to this lousy day job, I’ll be using box mix (*pause for gasps of horror*) and liquid egg whites, since it’s hard to get half an egg from the shell.

I’ll also be using oil instead of my usual butter to save on costs until I get the temperatures and timings figured out.

This will also give me a chance to experiment with different methods of baking even layers, and to try out various icings, fillings, and flavor combos.

My goal will be one cake a week. I’ll be using a single, 6 inch round pan, which should give me a nice, modest cake with nice, snack size slices that won’t be too filling. A casual cake, if you will. And at around 2 inches deep, should allow for some torting practice when I want to try a filling.

Going to try and log my progress along with cake pics.

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My new food processor grinds up almonds lovely! I threw them in with the powdered sugar to catch any oils that might seep out. Glad I blanched a few extra almonds, though, because there were bits that would not cooperate.

I was worried about the texture as the batter seemed gritty, but everything looks to have come out okay. Though I may give the granulated sugar a ride next time.

I think I piped them too small, and quite a few are misshapen, oversized, undersized, and some have “hats” where I tried to make corrections after a skin had formed.

But the first sheet came out looking okay! They have feet.

Going to make French buttercream with the leftover egg yolks for filling. Not using any food coloring this time around so I can get a feel for the unalterated consistency and texture. The biggest challenge is going to be the piping, methinks.

Ate the hat one. Tastes nice! Little bit soft n ‘chewy in the middle, which is how they’re supposed to be.

Second batch is a little brown. I did those a full 14 minutes, so may be overcooked.

Honestly, though, not bad for a first attempt, if I do say so myself.

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