Trente Gâteaux: the 30 cake challenge

A silly, silly challenge I have set myself to produce 30 different kinds of cake in the next year.

[caremetocradock]

As I plan my recipes, I realize that some definitely have more terror involved than others. Therefore, I’m going to assign a threat level to each recipe, based on my feelings about it beforehand, using the most terrifying food of all as a barometer. I present for future use: the Aspic Scale....

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30. Le Glorieux

Happy 2015, everyone.

I planned the execution of my last cake for several weeks, ever since I realized that after the clementine cake there was only one to go, and that the end of the year was coincidentally close at hand. Handily, I stumbled upon a barely-used copy of Mastering The Art of French Cooking for $12 over the summer. Inside I found a most intriguing recipe for a chocolate cake, flavoured with orange liqueur, that contained no flour but instead substantial amount of cornstarch. This cake is called Le Glorieux ("The Glorious One"; UM YES) and I decided about a month ago that this would be my final instalment. New Year! Julia Child! Chocolate!

In time though, it all came together. The massive amount of batter looked the way I thought it should and even fit in the pan properly. Everything was great! And then my friends texted to say that their much-adored pet had had an accident and may not make it through the night, so they had to cancel. Holy crap.

There wasn't much else to do except turn the gathering of five into one of two, send good thoughts to the troubled fluffy friend and her owners, finish off the cake, snack, chat with various family members and then listen to the shouting and honking of horns once 2015 reached Victoria. A fitting end to a year of ups and downs, but also one that had more than its fair share of tasty treats along the way. 

So that was that. The cake was really nice. Decadent, yet light, just like Julia told me it would be. I think I overbaked it a touch, but I'd make it again. At least next time I'll know what to expect. It all worked out fine, as these things tend to do. 

Plus, now that the cake challenge is done, I can move on to my ridiculous food-based musings for 2015.

Happy new year, and thank you for joining me on this sugary journey. It's been a pleasure sharing my shortcomings and successes with you.

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29. Nigella's clementine cake

And lo, the penultimate cake was baked. And it was consumed, declared tasty, and consumed again.

I have to be dramatic about this cake because it has honestly been about a decade in the making, since I watched Nigella Lawson's Feast series on a much-younger Food Network and was completely entranced. I couldn't find that particular video on YouTube to share with you, but there are lots of others out there who have made it and have posted instructions. 

Basically, you boil oranges for 2 hours (nope, not a typo) until they become waterlogged and pretty much a uniform colour and consistency all the way through. Then you get out your food processor (something I didn't own 10 years ago and I wasn't about to attempt this cake without one), blend the oranges with some eggs, almond meal and sugar, and that's pretty much it. You bake it and serve it to your bewildered guests, or eat it by yourself in your apartment.

I did both.

My baking companion, ever the eloquent delight that she is, declared it "like, the best baby food you could possibly imagine." She wasn't wrong. The cake was moist and squidgy, and had a mouthfeel (MOUTHFEEL!) that I've never really experienced anywhere else. I was kind of awesome. Also, the picture I took wasn't total crap. 29 cakes in and I finally did something worth posting: 

I was very happy with the end result of this, even though boiling oranges feels weird and the peel did odd things to the inside of my Dutch oven. This is a perfect cake for afternoon tea, and I really want to experiment with other citrus fruits. Here's the recipe, if you're inclined to give it a bash yourself.

Before that though, one more cake to go!

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28. Carrot cake with cider and olive oil

If you would like to see beautifully composed and lit shots of this cake and its ingredients, head right on over to Smitten Kitchen, which is where I got the recipe from. I took a couple myself, but it looked pretty much the same as her cake, just less well-lit and composed.

I moved last month. It sort of happened all of a sudden, even though the place I was staying in before was never permanent and I knew I could be out of there at any time. That place was both a godsend and a burden, for reasons it would take a long time to get into. Ultimately though, I'm grateful to have lived in that house in the burbs, because it gave me time to get on my feet when I needed it and it taught me that I never want to own a house. Good lord. That is not for me.

September and October have been rough. I don't know if I'm more sensitive to the changing light, or if the quickening pace of fall is just a tough transition for me, but it's been unpleasant at times and I've been pretty down. One day around the middle of October, I wanted to make a cake in my new apartment that was comforting and just for me. I chose this because it looked pretty and I'm partial to anything that gets made in a loaf pan.

Putting glumness into a cake really only leads to good things, in my opinion. You distract yourself with the making of it, and then you get a little sugar rush as a reward, preferably while sitting on your very own couch, looking out your very own window at your new street (that actually sees passing traffic, praise Cheesus), with your very own mug of hot tea.

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27. Pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting

Fall, to a lot of people, means pumpkin. There's pie, scones, a certain latté from a certain distributor of coffeed goods that I refuse to acronymize, but when it comes to cake, you tend to see less of the splendid pumpkin. 

My cake collaborator and I both had a Monday off a while ago, so we put her Martha Stewart cake book to good use again and came up with this little bit of splendour:

I don't have a lot to say about it other than it was great. The cream cheese icing on top was perfect, too. Not too sweet; nice and tangy. The cake was moist and wonderful, and made a great lunch.

Yes. Cake is lunch in my world.

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26. Dobos torte

I very much enjoy cakes that look crazy difficult but are actually very easy to make. Who doesn’t, really?

I’ve been intrigued by this cake for a while, ever since I saw it on Smitten Kitchen’s blog (where else?), so I was thankful to have a very good excuse to make it. That excuse was a friend's birthday, and because I'm me I had to turn the cake a colour that I was informed she's fond of. (I have all those Wilton jars of food colouring, and I just can't help but use them. Someday I'll again make cakes that don't look like bits of muppet.) Then it turned out that she'd gotten engaged to my other friend the day before, so even more of an excuse for cake!

Despite having 9 layers, this was honestly one of the easiest cakes I have ever made. You actually bake the cake in thin sheets, so they cook in about 5 minutes and cool in about the same amount of time. For this one, I did 3 sheets of cake, then cut and trimmed each of those sheets into 3 rectangles, then piled them on top of each other with the positively silky icing (pretty much just chocolate and butter melted together) in thin layers in between.

I was pretty happy about it and I'll likely make it again. It looks very showy but also allows me to be somewhat lazy. The only change I really think I'd make it using unsalted butter for the icing. That's about it. This cake is quite wonderful.

And to my friends who have gotten married in the time between eating this cake and writing it up, I wish you a lifetime of delectable desserts together.

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25. Tender lemon cake

I co-made this ages ago but for some reason I'm only getting to the write-up now. No matter. It was worth the wait.

Let me say that firstly, when you have a friend who announces that she bought a Martha Stewart recipe book full of only cakes, it reinforces said friendship immensely, at least if you're me. 

Secondly, I've made many of Martha's recipes (see below re: strawberry shortcake) and she's only let me down once. We do not speak of that day. BEHOLD:

I would have to say that this may be the most successful cake so far. Perhaps more of these things should be collaborations. 

The deliciousness was born not only of the beautifully fluffy and light cake itself, but also of that fact that Martha makes you fill it with lemon curd. Only then are you allowed to put the lemon icing on top. I always forget how easy yet rewarding it is to make lemon curd. As someone loves all manners of citrusy tang, I would do well to remember my curdy friend. A puddingy mix of egg yolks, lemon juice and butter are exactly what this gorgeous cake needs. 

Thanks, friend! We should have another cake date soon. Fall is coming, after all, and it'll be time to fearlessly turn our ovens on yet again.

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24. Salvaged vanilla pudding chocolate cake

When life gives one lemons? Lemonade. When life gives one a cake that doesn’t come cleanly out of the pan? Pudding.

What I meant to do was make a set of chocolate/peanut butter cupcakes for my friend's birthday, thanks to a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. What actually happened was this mess:

The cake was so incredibly moist that it wouldn't come out of the silicone cupcake mold properly, so I just had to scrape everything out into a bowl. Harkening back to the Safeway pudding rings (or "pity rings," as they were called then due to my buying them when feeling particularly sorry for myself) of my youth, I figured why not salvage the heap and try out Smitten's vanilla pudding recipe as well?

It was alright, but I wouldn't call this a win. I'm sure the cake goes really well with the peanut butter icing from the original recipe, but on its own this cake needs some coffee in it to balance things out. The pudding, while lovely and light, was a bit too much for this application. There's also a chance that this dessert made me violently ill the next day, although I hesitate to blame cake for any malady. Cake wouldn't do that to me, would it?

Next time I'll oil my pans and use peanut butter. Hrmph.

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23. Oyster Fanta cake

A plan was hatched around Christmastime do an oyster crawl of Victoria. Long story short, we started with tacones at Red Fish Blue Fish (delicious!), made a stop at Ferris' Downstairs (also delicious!) ended with a cake that looked like the sea, and was made with Fanta:

I was inspired by talk of a Sprite cake, so I looked up a recipe for one and substituted the Sprite with Fanta Orange and a little grated lemon peel. It doesn't really taste of Fanta, just a vague citrusy feel, but it was good and paired well with the fluffy marshmallow frosting (which, by the way, should not be made a day ahead of time; learn from my mistakes).

And thank goodness for Bulk Barn and their coloured sugar.

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22. Fellowship Snickers Cake

When someone receives a fellowship for their hard work, you get that person a cake. Behold:

I really love my 6-inch springform pan. 3-layer cakes look so much more majestic (and they use up way less batter), or in this case: precarious. The Fellowship cake wasn't the prettiest thing, because the cream cheese icing wasn't terribly thick, so the whole thing was a bit wobbly. I finally tried freezing the cake layers before assembly though, and that helped quite a bit.

This cake (recipe came from over this way) made me think "Oh yeah, I can make cakes." A few of my previous entries were a bit on the brickish side, I feel, but I was really happy with the results of this one. It's a dense crumb, but still moist and tender. And while I thought I put too much espresso in (2 shots plus enough water to make up a full cup), it was the perfect amount. Even if it did give me a slight panic when I realized that one of my dinner guests is alarmingly susceptible to caffeine. As far as I know though, there were no mishaps on the way home. There ain't no party like a Fiona party cuz a Fiona party tries to kill off the guests.

 Plus, any cake that's made of chocolate and still has chopped up chocolate bars mashed onto its outside is bound to be a winner. And hopefully a decent symbol of achievement, for it was very much deserved.

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21. Sleepover root beer cupcakes

Root beer is, I think, my favourite soda. There's a really big chance I might be wrong, but it could be my favourite. I'll try any brand of it, and last time I got a haircut that started with a scalp massage I chose the oil that smelled like "wintergreen" because "wintergreen" is actually root beer in disguise.

I came across a recipe for cherry coke cupcakes a while ago, and because cherry coke shouldn't go in your mouth, I thought it'd be good to sub in root beer. Obviously, they were a perfect project for a girly sleepover that somehow manifested in my house recently. Cake, fresh raspberry and strawberry margaritas and Audrey Hepburn movies were had. It was awesome.

In an attempt to concentrate the root beer deliciousness in the cakes, I boiled down some pop to make into a thicker syrup for the batter. I now believe this to be a mistake and if I try the recipe again, I'll just follow the directions and put in the soda as-is. Maybe the heat takes out some of the root beery flavour I was after, maybe the cakes wouldn't have turned out any differently anyway, but whatever the reason, the cupcakes were good but didn't taste like my beloved root beer. They were really moist and tasted of vanilla for sure, but not root beer.

Doesn't matter; had cake.

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20. Nearly-didn't-make-it Pound Cake

I'm not sure what it was about this week, but I just didn't have any energy. It's been warm, nay, hot, in Victoria lately. A couple of days have reminded me of hot prairie summer days, what with the near insta-burn. Luckily, I haven't attempt to scald my flesh off so far this year. There's still time though.

Anyway, this leads to a definite reluctance to turn on my oven. It hasn't stopped me from doing it mind you, but it's definitely less tempting to add heat to my house when 5 minutes outside pondering the ant farm in my zucchini pot makes me feel like I'm roasting. I nearly didn't make a cake for dinner with friends this week, but at the last minute I figured I'd check and see if I could come up with anything without having to go out to the shop for ingredients.

As luck would have it, pound cake fit the bill (I LOVE YOU, MARTHA STEWART). I've never made pound cake before, but it was easy and came out looking...classic.

It was dense, but very even and had an attractive crack along the top. (Attractive crack is a thing now.) Not too sweet; good for after a simple dinner of falafel and salad.

I halved the recipe, by the way. 9 eggs is too many eggs for anything.

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19. Zebra cake

Another Pinterest find, combined with a little improvisation.

This was meant to be a full-on zebra-looking cake, which is achieved (supposedly) by pouring two different colours of batter into a cake pan in alternating layers so that they form what looks like concentric circles. It then distorts a bit as it rises while baking, thus forming a glorious visual feast that is displayed when sliced.

I almost got there. I made just a plain white cake batter, then added a little cocoa powder and black icing into half of it. As it was a birthday cake for a friend, I made a simple cream cheese icing (cream cheese, butter, icing sugar) that I figured would be to her liking (spoiler: it was).

I was decently happy with this. I'm discovering that my cakes are always more dense than I like them to be. I want some light fluffiness and I haven't quite gotten there yet. Still more work to do.

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18. Green tea chiffon cake

Well this was a delightful little afternoon snacking cake.

I think I overbaked it, since it didn't come out as satisfyingly green as the picture in the recipe did, but I suppose when one attempts to imitate something one saw on Pinterest, one can expect to be disappointed.

Still tasted good though, and I think I'm getting decent at chiffon-style cakes. I just need to keep a closer eye on them while they're baking.

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17. Chocolate cupcakes with Oreo butter and strawberries

Hang on cake; I'mma let you finish.

First though, I made these cupcakes for my best friend, who I sort of found by accident, left behind when I moved to Victoria, and then found again when she moved out here a little while later. I don't know what I'd do without her. Although I like anyone who commits to a Paleo diet but scoffs at the thought of giving up cheese or cake, so maybe I just have odd standards. 

Anyway, these wee cakes are a riff on her childhood birthday cake, which is pretty much just crushed Oreo cookies frozen with whipped cream, and then topped with strawberries. After discovering Biscoff a couple of months ago, I was toying with the idea of trying to make Oreo butter anyway, and then May came around and it was birthday cake-making time again. A mixture of cream cheese blended with butter and Oreo cookies was the perfect thing to perch atop a delightful cake of moist chocolatey goodness.

The icing wasn't anywhere near as smooth as Biscoff, which is as sublime in texture as creamy peanut butter, but it was delicious nonetheless. I actually wouldn't change anything about this recipe, and I'm thinking that it's going to be my go-to chocolate cake. The strawberries on top just added the perfect punch of colour and freshness.

A perfect accompaniment to a whole lot of cute Jim Halpert on Netflix with a dear friend.

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16. Mini molten chocolate lava cakes

This is a cake. I swear it.

I wanted to show my friend how easy it is to make a tiny dessert that's cake on the outside and delicious warm gooey chocolate in the middle. I've made the recipe many times and have rarely had trouble with it, but such was not the case last week. I think I'm still getting used to my new(ish) oven and need to add a couple of minutes to my baking times.

I'll stand by it being an easy dessert though. The actual recipe I used seems to have disappeared, but I'll be trying David Leibovitz' Nutella version next. Partly because I trust Mr. Leibovitz and partly because Nutella.

In the end, my friends and I had puddles of warm, slightly cakey chocolate for dessert after eating homemade chicken fingers and cactus leaves for dinner. Still a win, in my opinion.

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15. Earl Grey cake with rhubarb cream cheese glaze

Here's where my lack of photography skills becomes apparent:

Seriously. That looks like a corgi's tongue.

With that out of the way, this cake was lovely. You start by making a little bit of strong tea for the cake batter, and you add the leaves along with the liquid. The glaze is just some cooked rhubarb combined with icing sugar and cream cheese. The result is a really nice light cake that definitely tastes of Earl Grey, but also has the tang of the rhubarb and cream cheese. 

It's pretty girly-looking, and if I make it again (which I probably will), it'll be for a tea party with fancy teacups and plates of dainties.