Birthday Cake in Lethbridge!

My niece turned one this week.  By far, this was my favourite cake that I've had the opportunity to make for someone.  Lucie's mom is half Moroccan and has a sweet spot for orange blossom, so I made an orange blossom chiffon cake filled with orange cream and citrus fruits.  The cake was an especial hit with my niece.  She even refused her lunch and demanded a taste of the tester cake.  It's nice to have an appreciative audience.

It was pretty fun making this cake.  I had very little equipment, so I had to improvise a bit.  I built a cake frame out of a shoebox and instead of lining the box with acetate, I used plain old saran wrap.  The frame came off easily, but the sides of the cake looked a bit messy.  I ended up masking them with the cream.

About the whip cream:  Baking Illustrated by Cook's Illustrated has a great recipe for super stabilized whip cream.   I used it when I made my Mom and Dad's black forest cake for their retirement.  The recipe is simple.

For one litre of whipped cream:

In a small saucepan:
mix 1 Tablespoon cornstarch and 2 Tablespoons of sugar with 1 cup of the heavy cream.  Make sure there are no lumps.  Then cook the mixture on medium heat until it thickens into a pudding like consistency.  Cool the mix thoroughly.

When it is time for the cream, in a big bowl or a stand mixer, add the cream to the pudding mix.  Again make sure there are no lumps.  Then whip it all up per usual.  Add sugar and flavours to taste.

This cream is so stable that it can sit at room temp for a couple hours with no weeping or melting.  Also, it pipes like a dream!

I made one more cake this season.

My Mom and her twin sister turned 60!  I made a special two in one twin themed cake that consisted of a spiced cheesecake sandwiched by fat layers of carrot cake.  I covered the whole thing in white chocolate cream cheese frosting.  The cake was monster sized and super delicious.  Here is a picture of the birthday girls on their special day.

Wedding Cakes!

This is the first summer in a couple of years that I do not have to make a wedding cake for anyone. The lack of responsibility has left me with a curious carefree feeling.  Here are some glamour shots of the wedding cakes I made last year.  The first was for a former student.  Hers is a yellow butter cake with lemon curd filling and vanilla buttercream.

I also made a cake for my friends Seamus and Anna.  I went to culinary school with Seamus so it was super awesome to get make his wedding cake.  Anna wanted a carrot cake, so I made her one with white chocolate cream cheese frosting.  Also, I found a really great platter at Value Village and my neighbour who is an amazing artist, customized it with their wedding date, names, and the words fidelity and strength.

Ponderosa Cake aka U-nbelivable B-anana C-ake

I just finished taking a Library Studies course at UBC.  My class was in Ponderosa Annex which is, in my mind, famous for the super delicious ponderosa cake.  I ate a piece of this cake almost every other day when I was doing my undergrad.  I alternated it with the awesome blueberry streusel cake from Blue Chip.  It just so happens that my Grandfather clipped a copy of the Ponderosa Cake Recipe out of the Vancouver Sun twenty years ago.  Here is the recipe broken down.

Tools

• Mixer hand or stand
• three mixing bowls (two if using stand mixer)
• liquid measure cup
• dry measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• spatula
• 9 x 11 baking pan
• parchment paper

1. Preheat Oven to 350 degrees
2. measure out all ingredients
3. Grease baking pan line with parchment, grease parchment (I use cooking spray)
4. Follow method

Ingredients - Must be at Room Temperature

Part A - Wet Ingredients I

1 cup butter (soft!)
2 cups sugar ( I only use 1 & 1/2 cups)
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups mashed ripe banana (they don't have to be super ripe.  The riper the bananas, the denser the cake)

Part B - Dry Ingredients

3 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

Part C - Wet Ingredients 2

1 cup sour cream (I have substituted yogurt or buttermilk when I didn't have sour cream)

Part D - Streusel

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips ( I use 2 cups!!!)

Method

In a stand mixer fixed with a paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer:

• from A cream together butter and sugar
• beat in eggs one at a time
• beat in vanilla
• beat in banana

In a separate bowl

• from B mix together dry ingredients
• Have sour cream in a glass measure
• In yet another bowl mix together Streusel

1. Add 1/3 of sour cream  to mix.  Blend for 30 seconds. Scrape
2. Add 1/2 of dry (B) to banana/butter mixture.  Blend for 30 seconds.  Scrape down sides of bowl/mixer.
3. Repeat 1 and 2 - Add final third of sour cream last and blend.

Pour half batter into tray.  Use spatula to spread it out.  Sprinkle 1/2 of streusel over batter.  Spoon the rest of the batter into the tray and spread it out.  Sprinkle the rest of the streusel over the cake.

Bake in pre-heated 350 degree over for 55 to 60 minutes.

A wooden skewer will come out clean when the cake is done.  Also when  a cake is cooked, it will pull  away from the sides of the pan as it cools.

Try not to eat all of the cake in one day.

A note there are only three reasons a baking recipe doesn't work

1. Failure to follow the method.
2. Leaveners (baking soda/powder or yeast) are dead or expired.
3. Oven calibration is off.  Temp doesn't match what is on the dial.

1980's Sweater Nightmare Redemption

This was an horrible 80's sweater.  It had awesome shoulder pads.  The styling was pretty yucky, but the angora, the cable knit, and the gunmetal beading seemed worth saving.

More Hats!

Turquoise Angora Button

Fairisle Rose

Boiled Wool Flowers and Feathers

Eastside Culture Crawl

The Eastside Culture Crawl is nearly here. I've been busy up-cycling and crafting for the big event. The hat I'm wearing used to be an old wool sweater that was accidently thrown in the wash. Now it's high fashion.

If you've never been, now is the time. There will be over 300 artists opening their studios to the public on November 18th - 20th. Save your money to buy some art!

Oh Maman!

It was Mother's Day a couple of weeks ago and nobody had planned a thing. Under Mum's instruction we were all told to save our money and not splash out on anything she didn't need. However, Mum did want to have a brunch and since she is the best organizer in the house, she planned it herself (I did most of the cooking).

My Brother and his lovely wife, had just flown in from France, so we were all pretty excited to be together. I picked a bouquet of flowers from my garden, and then Mom and I went up the Drive to get the groceries. We picked up some italian sausages from our local deli and then with the eggs and fruit we had in the fridge we managed to make the following

A beautiful kale salad with pumpkin and sesame seeds, a strawberry mango fruit salad, a fennel orange salad, sausages, and I managed to poach ten eggs perfectly and put them all out at the same time and they were hot. Oh! I also had a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in the back of my fridge, so we had Mimosas too.

Our little downstairs neighbour heard all the commotion and she invited herself up for some Mother's Day time with our Mum. My sister brought over a small bowl of chocolates from Chocolate Arts . . . so there was one gift. Well there was actually more than one gift. Mom and Dad had just come back from England, so Mom gave presents to everyone. It was pretty funny.

It was so easy and it turned out perfect.