Mmmm Mmmm mmmm. This weekend I was deliciously inspired!
Inspiration #1 - it was my friend's birthday and no one loves cake more than her. You'd never know it because she is so thin, but she has cake every morning for breakfast. She once bought a cake from me...and ate the whole thing herself. Over the course of a week, but still. That is impressive. So it was a no brainer - she'd love a cake for her birthday. (Also an ego boost for me because someone recently thought salted caramel cake was "interesting" - and not in a good way. I think they were more of a plain vanilla person.)
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| Whipped Egg Yolks & Sugar! |
Inspiration #2 - I saw a blog post for caramelize pineapple. Thinking through the process of caramelizing pineapple I kept picturing a pineapple version of a banana fosters. Mmm!
Inspiration #3 - I got this amazing cookbook for Christmas: The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry, by Bo Friberg. I was reading a very detailed and scientific description of the various ways to make sponge cakes and I was really excited to play with the "recipes." The tricky part about this book is that it is written for...well...professional pastry chefs...who own bakeries...and are cooking for the masses. So a cookie recipe doesn't make a dozen cookies...it makes 4 dozen. I love this book!
Inspiration #4 - I have a lot of supplies (coconut, fun-colored cupcake papers, etc.) which i probably don't want to move with; so I need to find recipes to use them up.
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I wish you could smell this picture! Delicious
pineapplesweetness with a touch of ginger,
bubbling up to create a sweet sweet syrup
and wonderful little surprises! |
Caramelized Pineapple
1 medium pineapple, diced into bite-sized cubes
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp freshly shaved ginger
Simmer. The sugar will pull the juices out of the pineapple and when these cook down you'll have a delicious syrup to incorporate into your cake and frosting. The pineapple will turn a lovely color which is just so full of life and deliciousness! Keep simmering on low, stirring occasionally, until you have the color of pineapple and thickness of syrup you'd like. Strain and separate the two.
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Toasted Coconut
This one doesn't really have a recipe. I put the shaved coconut on a piece of parchment paper just to be safe, you might not have to do that part. My only tip is to keep your eye on it! The top part turned beautifully golden brown very quickly, at which point I pulled it out, stirred, and popped it back in.
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| Toasted Coconut |
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Caramelized Pineapple Génoise cake
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My favorite: Eggs and sugar!
Watch the magic... |
No recipe here. This experiment was a result of reading my wonderful cookbook mentioned above. The cake is equal parts flour, sugar and egg...with a touch of flavoring (in this case the caramelized pineapple syrup) and melted butter added at the end. Clearly from the ingredient list you can tell this is more about style than ingredients.
Step one was my favorite process: mixing eggs and sugar. It is magical! The results vary so much based on the part of the egg, the quantity of sugar, what temperature, and for how long you mix them. This take was equal parts (by weight) of egg and sugar heated up to 110* F over a pot of simmering water whisking the whole time. Geeze was my arm tired from whisking. Once you hit that magic temperature you remove from heat and whisk even faster until the mixture is cooled and fluffy. This is the base of the cake.
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Cake, Frosting, Cake, Frosting,
Pineapple goodness, Cake! |
My favorite part was next - but no photo for obvious reasons. I gently folded the flour into my cake base...with my hands :) It was fun and fluffy and the most wonderfully soft delicate substance you could possibly submerge your hands into. Doing it by hand (as opposed to with the beater) meant that fewer of my precious little air bubbles were popped and the cake was fluffier. After this is just mixed (not pockets of flour) I added and carefully mixed in the butter and the caramelized pineapple syrup. Finally, you have to transfer this to the prepared pans and to the oven quickly. This cake is built (literally) upon the air that you whip into it. Those precious little air pockets can only hold up the flour and egg for so long before they fall. If you wait you'll get a flat cake (notice the bottom layer of the cake).
Because this made WAY more batter than I thought it would, I made some cupcakes too. And my beautiful...handsome assistant helped me drop in the little surprises right before we popped them in the oven. Isn't he great!
Note the little bubbles in the batter on the right - those are the little air pockets which hold the cake up. They should be there. Also to note - the cake and cupcakes will shrink slightly when you pull them out of the oven. These cupcake papers look a little full now, but the final cupcakes are nice and flat across the top.
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| My wonderful assistant! |
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| Dropping in little surprises! |
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Not-so-sweet Frosting
1 cup milk
5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (two sticks) softened butter
1 cup (granulated) sugar and 1/4 cup powder sugar
To start - this is not my recipe. Here is the source. It is a little weird, but the taste is good. I just wouldn't want to tell people it has flour in it. I feel like I've made a processed unhealthy fake food product. But the people liked it. So here it is...
First, cream the butter in your mixed until it is light and fluffy. Add the sugar and mix until they are combined and almost smooth (about 3 minutes. The almost is because they won't be smooth, but you should get as close as possible.) Then, in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan bring the milk to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, add the flour and whisk like crazy. Keep whisking until it is smooth. Remove from heat and KEEP WHISKING! (This was my mistake.) Keep whisking until it is cooled. Add to the butter and sugar mixture and beat until it is light and fluffy. Just keep beating...it will get there. Add the vanilla and mix. Add the powdered sugar. Cool in the refrigerator slightly before you try to use it.
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| Birthday box - this is how you know I like you :) |
Vadalia Onion - This one, like all of them, is so simple. In fact, it sounds too simple and not all that great if you read the ingredients. Soft loaf of sliced white bread, a large vadalia onion sliced (this is your run-of-the-mill large white onion...it just sounds fancy when you use its full name), butter and salt. Butter the bread, sprinkle (or crack) salt over the butter, put on a layer of sliced vadalia onions, put another piece of buttered bread on top; trim the crusts and cut into fourths. Ta-dah! Ok, so there are a few things you can do to make it better or worse - use butter, use good butter, make sure it is a room temperature so it spreads and doesn't tear the bread, use good bread, slice the onions a while before you plan on eating the sandwiches (they lose their power the longer they sit).
