Week 5: Linzer Torte

This week's cake was a very traditional Austrian cake, a Linzer Torte, that is known to be the oldest cake in the world!

The torte, which we made in a regular 9" cake pan, is like a crumbly dense spice cake with jam sandwiched in the middle.  I didn't think I would enjoy it from the description the instructor provided, but it was quite yummy.

The linzer torte can be expensive to make since it contains a lot of ground nuts, but we made it a little more affordable by substituting some of the nuts with graham cracker crumbs.  I couldn't taste the difference, but not sure if that means anything, since I've never tasted a Linzer torte before tasting the one I made :p

I found the spices to be a little strong for my liking, so if I was to make this again, I would reduce the amount of spices from 3g each to maybe 1-2g each of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

For the filling, we used an off the shelf raspberry jam.  I found this worked well to give moisture to the slightly dry consistency of the cake.

The batter for this cake is pretty traditional in terms of the way its made, it's butter/shortening creamed with sugar, eggs mixed in gradually and then dry ingredients gently mixed in.  The batter was spread on the bottom of the greased and lined pan, then the thin layer of jam evenly spread on the top.  The remaining batter was piped onto the top to form the lattice.  Since I only had a #6 tip for the piping, when the cake batter baked, it expanded and closed in some of the lattice top.  The lattice would come out much nicer with a #3 or #4 tip.  For decoration, we put a few almonds around the border.

This is an interesting method to make a cake, with putting jam in the middle and piping the lattice top on.  I'm interested to see if it would work on another type of cake batter.

Week 4: Orange Chiffon Cake

Yay! Orange Chiffon Cake! A first for me :)  I've never made this type of cake before, so it was nice to learn something new.  We started the class with a demo on how to make Angel food cake followed by making the Orange Chiffon cake.

Angel food cake seems simple to make, but doesn't have much flavour.  I think if I was to serve it, I'd plate it with a raspberry or strawberry sauce and whipped cream.  It needs to be served with something since the batter is not really flavoured with anything, it's just egg whites, sugar, flour and a little bit of vanilla.  The texture is nice though, its very light and airy.

It gets its airiness from whipping the egg whites to soft peaks, whipping in the sugar and then gently folding in the dry ingredients.  Keeping lots of air in the batter allows for the cake to be very light.  

Orange chiffon cake is similar to angel food cake, but it also has egg yolks, oil and obviously, orange zest :)  Adding the extra fat with the egg yolks and oil makes the cake richer, but it is still light from the whipped egg whites.  When the instructor made it, she admitted that she over whipped the egg whites, until they were dry stiff peaks.  This resulted in a chewy porous cake.  When you make this, you have to be very careful with the egg whites since their texture can drastically change the cake's texture.

I learned some new tips in this class :)  If you need to whip egg whites and you don't have enough time to let your eggs come to room temperature, place them in hot tap water for a few minutes to warm them up.  Also, to make sure your bowl is clean and has no trace of oils before you whip the egg whites, rub the bowl with a little lemon juice.  A clean non-plastic bowl and room temperature eggs will make sure the egg whites whip up well.

For the glaze, we juiced the orange which we previously zested for the cake and added icing sugar...super simple! I drizzled it over the cake and voila!

     

Week 3: Banana Cake with German Icing

For week 3 of Cakes 1, we made Banana Layer Cake with a German Icing.  Not sure I can call it a layer cake since I didn't really layer it...I guess I could've torted the cake and placed the icing in the middle, but I thought this looked nicer.

This cake was fairly light but the instructor recommended not layering 2 banana cakes together as it would become too heavy.  She said if you wanted a taller or layered cake, to sandwich this cake between two layers of chocolate cake or vice versa.  I think I might try that next time I use this recipe.

The recipe for this cake is similar to the carrot cake from week 2, in that it doesn't have any traditional fat, like butter or oil.  The fat used for the carrot cake was eggs and here we used eggs and shortening.  I usually start cakes by creaming butter and sugar together, but here we creamed shortening and flour first, which is interesting because I always thought to add the flour last to make sure it wasn't over mixed.  Although the flour was mixed quite a bit here, I found the cake to be light and fluffy and not tough as you'd expect when over mixing flour...I guess this is a result of add
shortening.

The German icing was a nice complement to this cake.  It's a cooked icing which contains milk, egg yolks, butter, sugar, vanilla, coconut and walnuts.  I think traditional German icing contains pecans, but the walnuts work well also.

The assembly of the cake was quite rustic, I simply spread the German icing on the top of the cake with the back of a spoon. 


Here's a fun fact: contrary to popular belief, German icing, often used on German chocolate cake, did not actually originate in Germany but from an American chocolate maker named Sam German!




Overall, I'm not sure if I'm completely sold on a butterless banana cake, but it was definitely yummy enough to make again :)

   

Baptism Bible Cake

I made a cake for my niece a few weeks ago :)   It was a bible cake made with the Wilton's book pan that her parents provided for me.

They requested a traditional butter cake.  I had some issues with cracking on the top during baking.  I think it was because I had the oven temperature too high (350) when I should really have done it at 325 or even 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  The 350 degrees would usually be okay for a butter cake, but since this pan is so large, I should've reduced the temperature to make sure the middle was baked before the outsides started burning.  The cracking wasn't too big of an issue though since it went on the bottom, so I just trimmed it to make it level and flipped it over.

I crumb coated the cake in a simple buttercream icing, just  butter and icing sugar and made it as smooth as possible.  I left that to set in the fridge while I made the LMF fondant.  LMF is really easy to make and ready for use right after it is made which makes it quite convenient.  So as soon as I made the fondant, I rolled it out and covered the cake.  To make the crease in the book more visible, I used the ball tool from my gumpaste tool set to push into the crease. 



 After tinting some fondant pink, I used a mold to make the border and a strip of rolled fondant to make the book mark.  The silicon molds are very convenient for making borders and other decorations.  The key to using them is to brush it with cornstarch or powdered sugar first, so the fondant/gum paste pops out easily and to push the fondant/gum paste in level with the back of the mold so that the decoration sits flat on the cake when its done.

I formed the cross out of strips of fondant mixed with some tylose powder to stiffen it up.  The cross was a little tricky and took me some time to get right, as it was hard to free form all the pieces and make them symmetrical.  The letters were made with tappits.  The detail above the date was made using the same mold as the border.   




This cake ended up getting completed all in one day, from baking to completion.  This is a big accomplishment for me since usually I take days to get a cake done!

Winter Topsy Turvy Birthday Cake

I was asked to make one of my closest friend's son's first birthday cake!  She wasn't picky, just wanted a topsy turvy cake with a wintery theme.  So, I got to work watching videos and reading tutorials on how to make a topsy turvy cake.

As it was around the holidays and I had lots of other baking to do, I baked the cakes 2 weeks in advance and placed them in the freezer.  This not only helps me be less stressed closer to delivery, but also makes for a moist cake that is easy to carve with less crumbs.  I also made the LMF (fondant) about a week in advance and tinted it the colours needed.

The bottom tier started out with 3 layers of 9" round confetti cake (I doubled this recipe).  After a week, I thought that the 3 layers were not tall enough and made another 2 - 9" rounds from cake mix.  The middle tier was made out of 4 layers of 6" round chocolate cake (the only change I made to the recipe was adding some instant coffee to the boiling water, to enhance the chocolate flavour).  The top tier was rice krispie treats cut into a cube. 


I filled and stacked both cakes with Italian meringue buttercream (IMBC).  With the confetti cake, I alternated the scratch cake with the mix cake.  This was important to do as the cakes had very different consistencies and colours, so not alternating would make it look very odd.

Then came the carving...this part was kind of stressful for me, as I was worried about the angles and accidentally cutting off too much, but the cake was very forgiving.  I cut on an angle from the top corner down and then took the trianglular piece of cake off, inverted it and stuck it back on with icing to steepen the top angle.  I also tappered the sides of the cake slightly to exaggerate the topsy turvy look.  For the bottom tier, I made a flat area in the middle to fit the middle tier snugly.  I put bubble tea straws vertically in this area to support the weight of the middle tier.  (sorry I didn't take the picture after the straws were inserted)  

I then crumb coated the bottom tier with more IMBC and covered the middle tier with chocolate ganache.  I realized at this point that both of these tiers were much too tall and removed 2 layers from the confetti cake and 1 layer from the chocolate.  I started thinking what was the point of baking the extra 2 mix cakes, but realized I wouldn't have had the same height with just the 3 layers of scratch cake, so it wasn't a complete waste of time :)




It was probably past midnight, into the day of delivery and it was time for fondant :)  There are some flaws in the fondant, but most of that was all covered with decorations.  :) 




 A few days before delivery, I made the royal icing snow flakes.  I drew snow flakes out on paper, covered it with wax paper and piped over it with a small icing tip.  These dried for a few days to made sure they were hard.  I made lots of extra snow flakes because they are super fragile and break easily when trying to attach to the cake with royal icing.



The top tier was done 2 days before delivery, I covered it in red fondant and white fondant ribbon.  For the bow on the top, I made the small loops separately and let them dry over night before sticking it all together with royal icing.  The 'tissue paper' for inside the box was rolled fondant, left to dry on an uneven surface.  This tier was stuck to the middle tier with more royal icing.   







The cake drum was covered in a thin layer of fondant (I did this last minute, but if I was to do it again, I'd do it in advance so the fondant wouldn't be so soft when putting the cake on).  I cut out various sizes of red fondant circles and attached them to the middle tier with water.  The snowman was made out of a 50:50 mix of fondant and gumpaste.  I used tappits to make all of the letters.

After many many hours in the kitchen, the cake was ready for the box :)
   





They had a really nice set up and I think the cake fit nicely in it :)  Happy First Birthday Zac!

Week 2: Carrot Cake

So I've signed up for another baking course at George Brown College...I'm taking Cakes 1 :)

I missed the first week, where they learned how to make pound cake.  That would've been good to
learn, since I don't really know the difference between pound cake and butter cake, but oh well, at least I have a new recipe to try.

This week was carrot cake.  It was interesting to learn how to make it in a new way.  I've always made carrot cake using butter and/or oil and adding pineapple for moistness but this recipe didn't call for either.  This recipe called for heating eggs and sugar over a water bath, then whipping them to soft peaks.  Then gently folding in the grated carrots and flour by hand.  We had to be very careful not to over mix, since it is really easy to lose volume at this point.

The icing was a cream cheese icing made with quark folded into whipped cream.  I'd never heard of quark before, but apparently it's a pure form of cheese, unlike the usual cream cheese we buy from the grocery store.  We had to beat the quark until it was smooth before folding in the cream and this took quite a while.  We had to be really patient with it to make sure we got a creamy smooth icing, free from any quark lumps.  

To decorate, I tinted marzipan orange, then rolled it by hand to look like mini carrots.  Using the dull side of a knife, I made lines on the marzipan to make it look more real, then piped green piping gel on the tips. :)

Using an icing comb, I made ridges on the side  of the cake and then added a small almond border to the bottom.

The end result was quite tasty and light for a carrot cake.  I will definitely use this recipe again.