On birthdays and crazy squirrels

Warning: This is a long post so I'd get some snacks before you start reading if I were you.

So, think the picture above and the one below have nothing to do with each other? Well you'd be right, and you'd be wrong, let me explain.  
Today is A.'s birthday and though this isn't "the" cake I made for him for today, it gives you a good idea of the ones I did make that you will see a bit later on this blog. This cake is a birthday cake too, so I thought I'd show it to you. I made it a while ago for a friend's birthday party and was given free rein to choose the recipe as long as it included chocolate; I chose a Charlotte Cecile because that is one of my favorite cakes ever and there's nothing I like better than to make a cake I love to eat for someone else.

But what does this have to do with squirrels? The thing is that this little guy would only have his picture taken in this way when A. was with me in the park. Without A. well... that's the crazy squirrel story.

In fact the whole squirrel thing is due to A., from beginning to end, and coincides with this birthday cake "thing".
The day I started making this cake, A. decided to take Baby Saffron out to the park for a walk and, being in and out of the kitchen and quite tired, he took her without me. A short while later, he called me from the park so I could hear my little girl giggle to no end. Apparently, he'd chanced upon a French couple giving nuts to a bunch of very enterprising (read crazily comfortable with humans) squirrels who were climbing up on them to take the nuts, and these charming people had given him some nuts to lure the squirrels, thus causing my little girl's giggle fit. Well, needless to say, I immediately regretted not having gone with them but it was too late, so I resolved to take her back to that same area of the park as soon as the weather would allow it.

Now, the pictures below presumably portray what happened on that day, taken when I made A. come with me the second time I went to the park to show Baby Saffron the squirrels.
They *look* harmless, don't they....

Oh yes, the cute little squirrel on the ground.


Uh-huh, the cute little squirrel on A.'s leg.


Umm, the really big (but ok cute) squirrel on A.'s coat!

Let me tell you what happened the first time I went on the squirrel adventure.
Oh yes, I was young and naive then, and they knew it.
A. had purchased a big bag of peanuts in their shell specifically for the squirrels, but when the weather wasn't quite so miserable again a few days later, he couldn't go out and Baby Saffron and I ventured forth by ourselves with aforementioned bag.

keep reading >>

Back to Regularly Scheduled Programming with A Gâteau à l'Orange

It's been a bit of a whirlwind around here these last few days. I feel like I'm doing eight things at once all online. It's a good feeling even though I don't think I have enough of a sleep reserve for it; this manifests itself in the fact that usually the more things I have to do, the more efficient I become, and right now I'm not being as efficient as I could be.
I want to thank everyone who's contributed to the Haiti Relief Effort so far both on this blog and through the Twitter campaign. Every comment helps more than you can imagine so thank you to everyone who left at least one comment here to help us out. So far, nearly $14K have been raised here and almost $5K on Twitter so I'm very pleased. Remember that every comment you leave until January 31st counts toward the total.

And for those of you who have been patient enough to wait for me to get back to the more regular pursuits of this blog, here's a cake for you. This cake has been blogged about elsewhere already as a result of my disseminating the recipe I'd found, but if you've seen this cake on another blog, probably Deeba's, you can see that my version of it is Cinderella at her stepmother's house, and her version is Cinderella at the ball. Either way, it's delicious and if you love citrus a fraction as much as I do, you should definitely try it.

It's winter and with winter comes revelry (and its remains), snow (sometimes), and above all citrus.
Let me be perfectly clear about this: I'm ethnically Iranian folks, and if any of you know any Persian people, you know we love our citrus. As I said to Deeba and she quoted me back on her blog: We're a bit obsessive and weird about our citrus fruit. We hoard it, display it, eat it, drink it, preserve it, dry it, cook it, and I'm sure we'd bake it too if there were a tradition like that of Western baking in Iran, heck we'd probably wear oranges and lemons if we could find a way to. When my father was a three year-old boy in Tehran, he would sneak into the pantry to drink the freshly squeezed and bottled lemon juice. Did you catch the part about his being three years old?

Nowadays, he will eat a whole 2Kg (4lb) bag of oranges at one sitting while reading the newspaper or working at his computer. And while my obsession at the age of seven lay with sipping red wine vinegar I'd have snuck in a cup back to my bedroom rather than lemon juice, I think you get the point that my family and tart and acidic foods, citrus being a prime group of these, are a tight-knit bunch. So the first time I had an orange cake that really tasted like it had orange in it, albeit not that much, but more than an orange pound cake, I became obsessed with finding a truly orange-tasting recipe.

keep reading >>

Apple and Olive Oil Cake with Maple Icing & the Winner of the Ottolenghi Cookbook

My apologies for posting this a little late, it's been very exciting and tiring at the same time around here between Baby Saffron saying her first words (Dada and Yaya -the best way she can say her own name right now) and her first two teeth imminently about to burst through, resulting in rather rough patches.

The days are distinctly colder now, it's time to cover up, the fall colors are out and putting on their best show (well not necessarily here but I know in a lot of other places they are) and it's time to start eating comfort foods and waging war on our waistlines, but such sweet war it is. While I love going on a picnic on a hot summer day, wearing a sundress and maybe, if we are so lucky, having some place to swim after we eat, I really do prefer early fall days when the sun still beats strongly enough to overcome the crisp, somewhat biting air but the atmosphere has already been cleansed of the polluted haze left behind by the unblinking heat of summer.
You know those days, right after the rain, when the sky is an unfaltering deep blue, the breeze nips gently at your face and hands and the air smells fresh.

On such days, it is possible to feel invincible as a child does when he is let out of school and can run free through the park with his scooter, his nanny running wildly after him.

On such days, it is possible to be brought to tears by some of the comments you left me to be eligible for the giveaway in the last post. This is where I have to tell you that I want to give each one of you an Ottolenghi Cookbook so that no one is left out, particularly when you gave me such precious or delicate gifts. Alas, that cannot be, but I want you all to know that in my head I'm giving you each a book. The actual book will travel to Mumbai (Bombay), India to Shaheen of Purple Foodie. Congratulations Shaheen, please send me your address so I can dispatch it to you! I hope you will let me know how you like it when you've tried some of the recipes in there.

In the giveaway post, I promised to give you the recipe for Ottolenghi's apple and olive oil cake with maple icing because it is sinfully good for such a hearty cake, particularly the icing. It is the perfect cake to take with you on a picnic to a nearby park on a gorgeous fall day, or to simply bake to have with tea or coffee on a grey, rainy day best spent at home. I like to think it's the sort of cake that my grandmother would have baked for me as an after school treat, had there been a Persian tradition of baking such cakes.

keep reading >>

Old Hobbies and Upside Down Banana Cake

La Seine at the Pont-Neuf, Paris

Sometimes, when you've stopped an activity for a while, it's easy to forget that a long time ago you may have been good at it.

Back right after college, I was a mad photographer, taking pictures of everything all the time. Digital SLRs weren't around back then, at least not in any sense I could afford, and I so enjoyed shooting film, feeling that I was learning immeasurably with every roll, that it wouldn't really have mattered if I could have afforded a dSLR anyway. Then, oh the irony, I went to graduate film school and never had a minute to shoot still photographs unless it was for an assignment. Later, working 14 to sometimes 16 hour days, there was only just time to eat and sleep.

In due course, everyone moved from film to digital and I, still skeptical and attached to the Minolta I'd had since I was 12, started very slowly with a little Canon Elf that I purchased to take on a solo trip to New Zealand. That was a complete blast and I loved this little foray I was making into digital photography (in fact, if you go back on this blog, all the pictures were taken with that Canon Elf for over a year).
Then life happened and I completely forgot about photography for a while. Good and mostly bad things overshadowed the need for hobbies, until just recently.

The biggest catalyst was probably Baby Saffron. I take pictures of her all the time because I know she's changing every day and I don't always notice since she and I are never truly apart.

When she's older, I want her to be able to see herself as we see her now. I want her to have a treasure trove of pictures to choose from, if she wants to, for any occasion as an adult. If she has children I want them to see pictures of her as a baby and child. And, let's face it, she's just adorable, so it doesn't hurt to look at pictures of her anyway.
I know that back then I had an eye for it, and looking at the pictures I take now, I realize it will take some time to get that back. I still think I take better pictures with film, that somehow the camera and I get along better in the analog format, but I'm sure that with a lot of practice I can acquire my eye back on the digital format. It will be fun trying anyway. And I think this blog is going to become a little less about food and a little more about a lot of other things, primarily photography. I hope you'll stay with me as I go on this little adventure. Right now I'm just having fun digging through my old photographs. Very few of my film photographs have been scanned like the black and white pictures above and below, but I plan on rectifying that when I have the time to go through old boxes of negative and scan the ones I don't want to forget.

St. Patrick's Day, New York

As with the lemon bars, what does that have to do with upside down caramelized banana cake? Well, actually I saw a picture of this cake somewhere and had to follow the link because 1) I love bananas and 2) it looked so intriguing. When I read the post about it over at The Wicked Noodle, and realized we were talking about bananas + caramel, I had to try it. Besides, it was time to do something different from yet another banana bread recipe.

Apparently this is a popular cake in Brazil and can be found in every bakery there. You'll notice in the pictures that the crumb is a bit dense, that's just the fault of yours truly overbeating the egg whites. It tasted wonderful anyway, the most delightful thing about it being that as the caramel is truly just caramelized sugar (there's hardly any butter in this cake), the bananas release juices as they cook which blend with the caramel below them, creating little pools of banana-flavored soft caramel between the slices of fruit. I had a little difficulty with the caramel as I've never made any in a thin-bottom pan before, so it was interesting to say the least.

While I love the look and flavor of this cake, I will say that if I want a cake with a really strong banana flavor I'd stick to a banana-bread type of recipe because this, as the look and name indicate, is another cake with caramelized fruit on top. If you love bananas and want a cake that will start a conversation, particularly if you're not in Brazil, this is the cake for you.
And by the way, if you haven't been to Paula Cinini's blog The Cookie Shop yet, run! don't walk, over there right now.


Banana Upside Down Cake
adapted from Paula Cinini at The Cookie Shop as posted on The Wicked Noodle

For a 10" or 26cm circular pan
For the caramel banana layer:
- 1 1/2 cup (170g) sugar
- 4-5 ripe bananas (must be ripe or they will become hard)

For the cake:
- 2 cups (240g) all purpose flour
- 1 cup (90g) cornstarch
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 4 large eggs, divided, at room temperature for best results
- 4 tbsp (50g) unsalted butter
- 1.5 cups (150g) sugar
- 1 cup (200ml) whole milk

For the banana layer:
- Put the sugar in the pan you will be baking the cake in and heat it on medium heat to make a dry caramel (no water). Once it's fluid and light amber in color, with a wooden spoon, as best you can try to distribute the caramel evenly all over the pan (bottom and sides sides). Keep in mind that the caramel will set quickly so you may not be able to coat everything, don't worry about it. Set aside.
- For the cake to look like the pictures here or at the Wicked Noodle, split the bananas lengthwise and distribute them with the cut side down, over the caramel. Alternatively, you could cut the bananas in thick slices and pack them over the caramel. Either way, try to place them as close to the pan sides as you can (they will shrink a bit) as this may make taking the cake out easier afterward.

For the cake:
- Heat the oven to 350° F (180°C).
- In a bowl, sift the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch and baking powder). Set aside.
- In a dry, clean bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form. Set aside.
- Beat the butter, sugar and egg yolks until very light and creamy. This is most easily done with an electric mixer, stand or hand.
- Use the dry/wet method, adding the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the milk. Beat only just until the flour is incorporated.
- Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter carefully by hand, preferably with a spatula.
- Pour the batter over the banana layer, distributing evenly.
- Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted in the
center of the cake comes out clean.
- Let the cake rest for a bit so that it cools slightly and the caramel sets to some extent, but try to unmold it while it's still warm for ease.

Assam Mandarine Cheesecake with Caramel Sauce for the DBs

Apparently, April is cheesecake month for the DBs since last year we made cheesecake lollipops. The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.
As soon as this went up, I decided I was going to make a saffron and honey cheesecake because I wanted to make something that reminded me of Persian food and growing up in an Iranian household, but by the time I was up against the deadline we were out of saffron (something which rarely but evidently does happen and, with a little one around, getting to the store isn't what it used to be) so I turned to other flavors from my childhood.
Iranians consume several things without moderation, one of them being tea and another citrus fruit. The caramel sauce, while seeming odd, actually came out of the fact that at the end of Iranian meals, one will often be presented with tea and little pieces of caramel to finish the meal. In this instance, the caramel is simply sugar cooked to hard-stage caramel. One is meant to put the piece of caramel in his/her mouth (usually holding it between the teeth) and drink the tea which melts the caramel as it washes over it. Since hard caramel is a little hard to incorporate in a cake of any kind, I chose to go with a caramel sauce instead.
Major Variation: There was only one 200g (7 oz.) container of cream cheese left at the market so I used one container of light cream cheese and a container of mascarpone cheese to balance the fat content and ensure that the cheesecake wouldn't be too thin. It turned out just fine.
The flavor was very subtle so I might try using more tea bags next time and/or letting them steep longer in the cream. The slight mandarine flavor was lovely.

Unfortunately, now that the picture of the whole cheesecake is posted (you should see the time acrobatics involved just to get these pictures up), I'm not sure I have time to do a picture of a slice with the caramel sauce, but I will try. The caramel sauce is in a rather unphotogenic container at the moment so I won't bother taking a picture of that just to have a picture of it.

I'll definitely make the saffron-honey cheesecake, just not right now. Recipe with my variations below. Big thanks to Jenny for choosing something I could somehow manage with my mini-me.

Mes excuses aux lecteurs Français qui ne lisent pas l'Anglais couramment mais j'ai tout juste le temps de publier des billets en une seule langue. Si vous avez des questions sur la recette, n'hésitez pas à m'envoyer un message.

Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake (original recipe - my variations in blue):

Crust:
2 cups / 180 g graham cracker crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz / 115g butter, melted
2 tbsp. / 24 g sugar (Omitted)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (Omitted)

Cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz or 680g) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar (I used about 190g instead)
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz / 250ml heavy cream
4 good quality Assam Tea bags to infuse the cream
3 tbsp. Mandarine juice
Zest of 1 Mandarine
1 tbsp. lemon juice (Omitted)
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean) (Omitted)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake (Omitted)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served. Please plan accordingly!

Caramel Me a Daring Baker - November

This month the Daring Bakers made a Caramel Cake created by Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater. You can see the original recipe here: http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/
Our hostesses were Dolores of Culinary Curiosity, Alex of Blondie and Brownie (she's Brownie), and Jenny of Foray into Food.
This was a pretty straightforward cake, I'm just sad to say that I couldn't eat any of it because my pregnancy hormones don't like me and have been causing me to have gallbladder attacks if I eat anything with more than a smidgen of butter or other fats in it such as cream. This isn't stopping me from being the hostess for December along with my friend Marion of Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux, but I have to say it's hard to make pastries when you can't even taste the batter.
I actually had to have A. do the final taste test for me when I added salt to the caramel buttercream because I fear the attacks (they're very painful) enough not to tempt fate. Of course A. didn't mind being a tester so at least there was one happy person in the kitchen.
Both the cake and the buttercream smell fabulous which I think means they taste fabulous too. Of note, we were supposed to make a light caramel syrup to include in the cake batter and the buttercream, but I actually let my caramel cook past dark amber so that there would be a real smoky caramel taste to both elements. I don't know if it worked in the cake because the recipe only calls for a little addition of caramel syrup in the batter, but I know it worked for the buttercream because I could smell the caramel while beating it.
Everything is packed as we've been moving so I didn't have my pastry bag to decorate the cake (woe is me), so I improvised...hope it looks ok (my obsessive compulsive tendencies say it doesn't, but the rational part of my brain knows it does).
EN FRANCAIS:

Ce mois-ci les Pâtissiers Téméraires ont fait un Gâteau au Caramel concocté par Shuna Fish Lydon du blog Eggbeater. Vous pouvez voir la recette originale là: http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/
Nos hôtesses étaient were Dolores de Culinary Curiosity, Alex de Blondie and Brownie (elle est Brownie), et Jenny de Foray into Food.
Ce gâteau était très simple à faire, je suis juste désolée de n'avoir pas pu en manger du tout car mes hormones de grossesse ne m'aimant pas, elle déclenchent des crises de ma vésicule biliaire dès que je mange plus d'un chouia de beurre ou autre forme de graisse telle de la crème. Ca ne m'empêchera pas d'être l'hôtesse du prochain défi en Décembre avec mon amie Marion de Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux, mais je dois dire que c'est dur de faire des pâtisseries quand on ne peut même pas goûter à l'appareil.
J'ai du demander à A. de goûter la crème au beurre au caramel plusieurs fois pour moi quand j'ajoutais le sel à la fin parce que j'ai trop peur des crises (qui font très mal) pour tenter ma chance. Evidemment il était ravi donc au moins une personne était heureuse dans la cuisine.
Le gâteau et sa crème au beurre sentent divinement bon donc je pense qu'ils doivent avoir bon goût aussi. A noter, nous étions sensés faire un sirop léger au caramel à inclure dans le gâteau et dans la crème au beurre, mais j'ai laissé mon caramel cuire bien plus longtemps qu'indiqué pour que les deux choses aient un vrai goût un peu fumé de caramel. Je ne sais pas si ça a marché pour le gâteau car la recette n'indique qu'une légère addition de sirop au caramel de toute manière, mais je sais que ça a marché pour la crème au beurre car je sentais le caramel en la battant.
Tout est dans des boîtes en ce moment car nous déménageons donc je n'ai pas ma poche à douille pour décorer le gâteau (tragédie), donc j'ai improvisé...j'espère que c'est assez convenable (mes tendances obsessives compulsives me disent que non mais la partie rationelle de mon cerveau me dit que oui).

Filbert (ahem Pecan) Gâteau from The July Daring Bakers

OK ok, so it doesn't look that pretty, it tastes pretty good though. What is it? It's a Pecan variation on Filbert Gateau (which means cake in French) with Praline Buttercream from Great Cakes by Carol Walter, courtesy of our hostess Chris at Mele Cotte (you can find the recipe on her blog). But let me tell you this story in pictures people, pictures because they speak a lot more words than I do.

FR: Bon d'accord, ce n'est pas très joli, mais c'est plutôt bon. Qu'est-ce? C'est une variation sur un Gâteau aux noisettes avec de la crème au beurre pralinée que j'ai fait moi aux noix de pécans et qui vient du livre Great Cakes de Carol Walter, par le biais de notre hôtesse Chris de Mele Cotte (vous pouvez trouver la recette sur son blog). Mais laissez-moi vous raconter cette histoire en images bonnes gens, en images car elles en disent beaucoup plus que moi.

First, we skip the making of the sugar syrup, I mean seriously, water, sugar and some alcohol (I used mead because we had a half bottle left of it that we weren't drinking). So what you see above is the making of the caramel for the pecan praline to come.

FR: D'abord je ne vous impose pas la confection du sirop. C'est de l'eau, du sucre et de l'alcohol non mais (j'ai utilisé de l'hydromel car il nous en restait une demi-bouteille que nous ne buvions pas). Donc ce que vous voyez là est la confection du caramel pour le praliné aux pécans à venir.

"Then onto the parchment lined sheet and spread as evenly as possible." Umm, not so much on the evenly part...

FR: "Puis sur le papier cuisson et étalez aussi également que possible." Moouais, également également, facile à dire hein...

Here the picture speaketh for itself.

FR: Ici la photo parle pour elle-même.

That took a bit of opening the processor, scraping the paste from underneath the blade, and mixing with the unprocessed nuts above the blade. But I got there in the end. The hard part was not eating it before using it in the recipe.

FR: Ca a requis un peu de boulot d'ouvrir le mixer, d'extraire la pâte d'en dessous de la lame et de la mélanger avec les noix encore entières au dessus de la lame. Mais j'en suis arrivée à bout. La vraie difficulté étant de ne pas manger le praliné avant de l'inclure dans la recette.

AHA! This picture is entitled "How I am different." I was talking to A. about what fruits go well with pecans and chocolate, and we both thought bananas might work, so I made a banana jam with this recipe. It may not look very good but if you like bananas as much as I do, I recommend it. It's de-li-cious.

FR: AHA! (bah oui, c'est la même chose en Anglais) cette photo s'intitule "Comment je diffère." Je parlais a A. de quels fruits vont bien avec les noix de pécans et le chocolat, et nous avons tous deux pensés que les bananes se marient bien avec, alors j'ai fait de la confiture de banane avec cette recette. Ca n'a peut-être pas l'air très bon mais si vous aimez les bananes autant que moi, je vous la recommande. C'est dé-li-cieux.

Well, so it's buttercream. First it's Swiss meringue, then it's buttercream. So get over it. (oh, I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe).

FR: Bon, bah c'est de la crème au beurre. D'abord c'est de la meringue suisse, puis c'est de la crème au beurre. Passons. (ah oui, recette de Dorie Greenspan).

Buttercream + Praline = Praline Buttercream = Very yummy.

FR: Crème au Beurre + Praliné = Crème au Beurre Pralinée (ça s'accorde et tout!) = Très bon.

See above.

FR: Voir plus haut.

OK people, I've put the necessary information ON the picture. You figure it out.

FR: Bon, allez hein, explications SUR la photo. Débrouillez-vous.

Crossing the fingers it will cook properly in the crazy oven that doesn't hold any specific temperature. I actually turned it on and off and to different temps and then turned it off the last 15 minutes it was cooking because the oven thermometer was telling me it was holding at 350F and would overheat if I left it on.

FR: Je croise les doigts que ça cuira convenablement dans le four qui n'a pas de sens et ne garde aucune température spécifique. En fait j'ai allumé, éteint et tourne le four à des températures différentes, puis je l'ai éteint les 15 dernières minutes où ça cuisait parce que le thermomètre du four me disait que ça restait à 175C et que ça surchaufferait si je le laissais allumé.

It worked it worked!! And I flipped it upside down to cool and glazed it, and then I stopped paying attention and didn't flip it back right side up to cut it, and that's when it all fell apart.
So I'm not taking you through the last steps because it wasn't pretty to say the least.
-There was the soaking of the cake with syrup which led to the bottom layer falling apart, probably because it should have been the top layer and was not as dense as the actual bottom layer.
-Then the edges coming apart over the cardboard cut out that was slightly smaller than the cake to glaze it.
-Then the figuring out of how to do the further layers because something had to hold the cake together at the bottom.
-Then the buttercream being so soft because it was so hot in the kitchen that it wasn't holding the layers together.
-At least the whipped cream was fine and held fine, so that's one good thing right?
-Then the abandoning of further syrup soaking of the other two layers.
-Then the cutting of the edges coming off resulting in a not very smooth on the outside cake.
-Then the glazing with further banana jam to make it smoother which didn't really work.
The ganache worked out fine and was very good because I used honey instead of corn syrup and mead again instead of some other alcohol. It actually reminded me of the taste of the hot chocolate sauce you get over profiteroles in France.
But then the buttercream was so soft I couldn't get it to pipe out of the piping bag decently, so I just improvised a pecan tree on my cake, with pecans of course to denote a pecan tree. I'm good like that.

A. had two pieces of the cake. I admit that I was so sick of the whole thing by then I just had a taste of it and didn't eat any, but it did taste good. He took the rest of the cake over to the Horse Guards Regiment here where he knows guys and usually takes anything I've baked that's too much for us, and since he'd told them he was coming with cake, there were about 8 or 9 guys waiting for him when he got there, so he decided to time its demise. Apparently it was gone in 3 minutes and 46 seconds. The base commander came by and said he'd heard there was cake, but was about 3 minutes too late. That made me feel good because most of those guys just came back from an extended tour of duty in Afghanistan. It's a good incentive to keep making more stuff for them.

*********************

FR: Ca a marché Ca a marché!! Et je l'ai retourné pour qu'il refroidisse et couvert d'une fine couche de confiture de banane, et puis c'est à ce moment-là que j'ai arrêté de faire attention et je ne l'ai pas retourné avant de le couper, et donc tout le procédé s'est effondré. Alors je ne vous montre pas les dernières étapes parce que ce n'était vraiment pas beau à voir.
-Il y a eu la couche du bas qui s'est disloquée quand je l'ai enduit de sirop, probablement parce que la couche du bas n'était pas aussi dense que celle du haut qui aurait du être la couche du bas.
-Puis les bords se disloquant là où ils n'étaient pas soutenus par le cercle en carton un peu plus petit que le gâteau pour que je puisse couvrir le gâteau de ganache.
-Puis essayer de trouver un moyen de mettre des couches successives par dessus en sachant que la couche du bas ne tenait pas grand chose.
-Puis la crème au beurre n'étant pas assez ferme pour tenir quoi que ce soit parce qu'il faisait tellement chaud dans la cuisine.
-Au moins la crème fouettée était correcte et se tenait bien, donc il y avait au moins ça...
-Puis l'abandon d'enduire les autres couches avec du sirop.
-Puis devoir couper les bords qui se disloquaient, le résultat étant des bords pas lisses du tout.
-Puis essayer de couvrir le gâteau de confiture de banane pour le rendre plus lisse ce qui n'a pas vraiment marché.
La ganache, elle, était très bonne parce que j'ai utilisé du miel plutot que du sirop de mais et de l'hydromel à nouveau plutôt qu'un autre alcool. D'ailleurs cette combinaison m'a rappelé le goût de la sauce au chocolat qu'on verse sur les profiteroles en France.
Mais ensuite comme la crème au beurre était presque liquide, je n'arrivais pas à la faire sortir de ma poche à douille en la contrôlant, donc finalement j'ai improvisé une décoration du genre voilà un arbre à pécan. Ouais je sais, j'suis douée là.

A. a mangé deux morceaux du gâteau. J'avoue que j'en avais marre de tout le truc donc j'en ai juste goûté une fois mais je n'en ai pas mangé, mais c'était bon. Il a emmené le reste du gâteau au régiment des Horse Guards à côté, où il connait des gars et emmène souvent les desserts que je fais que nous ne pouvons pas finir. Comme il leur avait dit qu'il venait avec du gâteau, il y avait 8 ou 9 gars qui l'attendaient, le décidant à chronométrer la vie du gâteau. Apparemment il a disparu en 3 minutes 46 secondes. Le commandant de la base est arrivé, disant qu'il avait entendu dire qu'il y avait du gâteau, mais il avait à peu près 3 minutes de retard. Ca m'a fait plaisir parce que la plupart de ces hommes viennent de rentrer d'une tournée tres longue en Afghanistan. C'est une bonne raison de leur pâtisser plus de choses.

=) Check it out...

Apparently, the folks over at Key Ingredient liked my version of the March Daring Bakers' Challenge which was Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake, making me a featured blogger yesterday.
Thank you Dorie Greenspan for your awesome recipe, and our gracious hostess for March, Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts, for choosing this recipe:

http://blog.keyingredient.com/2008/07/28/dorie-greenspans-perfect-party-cake/

I Shall Return... Date Cake - Gâteau aux Dattes

Hello hello, I have not fallen off the face of the earth, I got married, which is pretty much the same thing for most people, but not for me oh no. There was just a very dynamic set of events leading up to it and following it, along with a definite measure of uncertainty as to whether it was actually going to happen all the way until a couple of days before it did happen...(I'd tell you all about it, but really, you don't want to know). But it's all done now, and I have eighty million new things to deal with at the moment, still between continents, countries, houses, etc... but I wanted to come back here -my little interwebs home- and say hello, and tell you all that I miss you and that I miss baking (and cooking too, but really I'm just a closet baker, and luckily for me, A. aka the hubby, loves to cook every day, and even more luckily, is a really good cook) and to let you know that I will be around a little more from now on, at least I hope, in between every other thing.

For now I'll just leave you with this date cake recipe because I love dates, and I love cake, and this is actually a very light cake because it's basically a yogurt cake with dates and a honey coulis. It's gone pretty quickly every time I make it because it feels totally guilt-free.

Françaises, Français -Cette recette est une fiche-cuisine de ELLE (numéro 3193), honteusement arrachée dans la salle d'attente du médecin, mais je n'ai aucun remords... (Titre de la fiche - biscuit dattes et sésame, coulis de miel).

Pour le Gateau/For the Cake:
- 100g de dattes moelleuse/ 3.5oz fresh dates
Les dattes peuvent être remplacées par des cranberries ou des raisins secs / cranberries or raisins can be substituted for the dates
- 3 oeufs / 3 eggs
- 150g de sucre semoule / 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 yaourt au lais de brebis / 1 ewe's milk yogurt (or whatever you want to use)
- 200g de farine / 1 2/3 cup flour
- 1 sachet de levure chimique / 1 packet baking powder (usually this is 11g in France meaning it would be just a little less than 2 1/2 tsp or just over 3/4 tbsp)
- 2 cuillerées à soupe de graines de sésame noir et blanc / 2 tbsp black and white sesame seeds
- 4 cuillerées à soupe d'huile d'olive peu fruitée / 4 tbsp lightly flavored olive oil

Pour le Coulis/For the Coulis:
- 100g de miel / 1/3 cup honey
- 5cl de jus de citron / 3 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
- 5cl d'eau / 3 1/2 tbsp water
- 1 cuillerée à soupe de graines de sésame doré / 1 tbsp golden sesame seeds

1. Allumez le four à 175°C (th. 5). Beurrez un moule à manqué de 22cm de diamètre. Dénoyautez les dattes et coupez-les en petits morceaux.
Turn the oven on to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan. Remove the pits from the dates and chop the dates into little pieces.
2. Cassez les oeufs dans une terrine et ajoutez le sucre. Battez rapidement au fouet à main afin que le mélange blanchisse. Ajoutez l'huile et le yaourt, sans cessez de fouetter.
Break the eggs into a bowl and add the sugar. Beat quickly with a hand beater so that the batter whitens and thickens. Add the olive oil and the yogurt while beating.
3. Tamisez la farine et la levure au-dessus de la terrine. Mélangez, puis ajouter les dattes et les graines de sésame noir et blanc.
Sift the flour and baking powder into the batter. Mix together, then add the dates and the black and white sesame seeds.
4. Versez la préparation dans le moule. Glissez au four et laissez cuire 30-35mn, jusqu'à ce que le biscuit soit blond.
Pour the batter into the pan. Put in the oven and let bake for 30-35mn, until the cake is golden.
5. Préparez le coulis: versez le miel dans une casserole, laissez-le légèrement caraméliser, puis ajoutez le jus de citron et autant d'eau. Mélangez et ajoutez les graines de sésame doré.
Prepare the coulis: pour the honey into a small saucepan, let it slightly caramelize, then add the lemon juice and the water. Mix together and add the golden sesame seeds.
6. Laissez reposer le biscuit 5mn, puis démoulez-le. Servez-le tiède ou froid, nappé de coulis.
Let the cake rest for 5mn out of the oven, then unmold it. Serve lukewarm or cold, drizzled with coulis.

Perfect Party Cake - Le Parfait Gâteau de Fête

Hello hello, I know I am absent these days, but one thing still entices me enough to come out of my hiding place, and that would of course be the monthly Daring Bakers' Challenge. This month it was Dorie Greenspan's (I am not worthy) Perfect Party Cake from her book Baking: From my Home to Yours and was hosted by Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts (you can see the full recipe on her website). I have to say I'm very grateful to Morven because she allowed us to pick whatever flavors we wanted this cake to be. The original recipe calls for it to be a lemon-raspberry cake and for a while I toyed with the idea of making it a chocolate-orange cake, but in the end, if you say lemon to me, I say blueberry. (This will come as no surprise to those of you who have read this blog before).

FR: Bonjour Bonjour, je sais que je suis absente ces jours-ci, mais quelque chose arrive encore à me faire sortir de ma tannière, et cela évidemment est le Défi mensuel des Pâtissiers Téméraires. Ce mois-ci c'était le Parfait Gâteau de Fête du livre Baking: From my Home to Yours de Dorie Greenspan et nôtre hôtesse était Morven du blog Food Art and Random Thoughts (Vous pouvez voir la recette entière sur son site). Je suis très reconnaissante à Morven de nous avoir laissé libre de choisir les parfums que nous voulions donner au gâteau. La recette originale fait appel à un gâteau au citron et à la framboise, et pendant un petit moment j'ai pensé à faire un gâteau au chocolat et à l'orange, mais en fin de compte, si on me dit citron, je réponds myrtille. (Ceci ne surprendra pas ceux d'entre vous qui ont déjà lu ce blog).

It's fairly straightforward. You make cake. You slice the cake horizontally. You make buttercream. You layer cake, preserves, buttercream, and finish it all off with more buttercream for the frosting (you can add chopped coconut on top of the frosting but I opted not to). Since the ever so wonderful Dorie talks about adding fresh fruit and substituting whipped cream for buttercream in the Playing Around section of the recipe, I decided to layer lemon cake with blueberry preserves, whipped cream instead of buttercream, and fresh blueberries, then frost the whole thing with her lemon buttercream, which is a brilliant recipe by the way, my favorite so far and lighter somehow than the buttercream recipe for the Yule Log we did in December.

FR: C'est assez simple. On fait du gâteau. On coupe le gâteau en tranches horizontales. On fait de la crème au beurre. On superpose des couches de gâteau, de confiture, et de crème au beurre, et on finit le tout en glaçant le gâteau avec de la crème au beurre (on peut ajouter de la noix de coco sur la crème au beurre mais j'ai décidé de ne pas le faire). Puisque la merveilleuse Dorie suggère d'ajouter des fruits frais et de remplacer la crème au beurre par de la crème fouettée dans sa section sur comment jouer avec la confection de ce gâteau, j'ai décidé de superposer du gâteau au citron avec de la confiture de myrtilles, de la crème fouettée plutôt que de la crème au beurre, des myrtilles fraîches, et de glacer le tout avec de la crème au beurre parfumée au citron, dont la recette est brillante d'ailleurs, et que je préfère à la recette de crème au beurre que nous avons utilisé dans nôtre bûche de Noël.

Hitches: For those of you who know my crazy oven saga from the French Bread we made last month, well it turns out that this time the oven was too hot and my cake did not rise as much as it should have but domed and cracked a little at the top. Although I beat the batter quite sufficiently for it to be as light and airy as it should have been, since it was not, I think perhaps next time I might try beating the egg whites until they are quite fluffy before folding in the buttermilk, which should hopefully help to attain the sponge-cake like texture I was seeking (this time I just had to make twice the batter). No matter, A. said he actually preferred the crumb the way it was, that is quite a bit denser than it should have been.

Problèmes: Pour ceux d'entre vous qui connaissez l'histoire de mon four farfelu durant le dernier défi du pain à la Française, et bien ce mois-ci mon four a décidé d'être trop chaud et mes gâteaux n'ont pas gonflé autant qu'ils auraient du et étaient craquelés à la surface. En dépit du fait que j'ai battu l'appareil bien suffisamment pour qu'il soit léger et mousseux, puisque les gâteaux n'étaient pas très légers, je crois que la prochaine fois je battrais les blancs en neige pas ferme avant d'ajouter le babeurre, ce qui devrait je l'espère rendre le gâteau prôche de la texture d'une génoise (cette fois-ci j'ai fait deux fois plus de pâte). Ce n'était pas grave, A. m'a dit qu'il préférait le gâteau un peu plus dense comme celui-ci l'était.

I cut the cake in half before taking pictures of it so that the layers would be apparent. Anyway my decoration was so simple that it's quite easy to imagine what the whole cake looked like. The little sugar lion was an Easter gift from a dear friend and seemed appropriate to denote the lemon flavor in the cake.

FR: J'ai coupé le gâteau en deux avant de prendre des photos pour que les couches soient apparentes. D'ailleurs ma décoration était tellement simple que c'est très facile d'imaginer l'apparence du gâteau entier. Le petit lion en sucre était un cadeau de Pâques d'une très bonne amie et était de la bonne couleur pour noter le parfum citronné du gâteau.

If any of you know how to slather buttercream on a cake so that it is perfectly smooth-looking (I'm looking at some of your cakes, OTHER DARING BAKERS), would you give me tips on how to achieve that?

For more Perfect Party Cake Deliciousness, visit the other Daring Bakers here.

FR: Si l'un d'entre vous sait comment étaler la crème au beurre pour qu'elle ait une apparence parfaitement lisse (je regarde certains de vos gâteaux, VOUS AUTRES PATISSIERS TEMERAIRES), pourriez-vous me donner des astuces pour cela?

Pour d'autres Parfait Gâteau de Fête, allez voir les autres Pâtissiers Téméraires ici.

DB Challenge October - Bostini Cream Pie

I'm sick with a nasty bout of the flu so this is going to be very short and only in English. The October Daring Bakers' Challenge was hosted by the lovely Mary of Alpineberry, who threw down the gauntlet with something I had never heard of before, a Bostini Cream Pie (you can find the recipe on Mary's blog). Basically, it's a montage of custard cream, orange-flavored chiffon cake (I used blood oranges) and chocolate sauce. Since I knew I was going to be busy planning out this little cake for most of the month and as there were a number of other things in my life that needed my immediate attention, I made the Bostini Cream Pie the very first weekend of the month and then forgot about it. The whole process was pretty straightforward for once as I've made custard cream before (although admittedly never one that required 10 eggs), but if I were to make it again, I would probably change the flavor of the cake to something other than orange, which I found to be mostly overpowered by the other two flavors, and alter the recipe for the chocolate sauce, which felt too thick. Nevertheless, it was quite delicious (as you can see from the picture below, it was very popular with everyone who tried it) and I'd like to thank Mary of Alpineberry for introducing me to a dessert I'd never heard of before. You can see other Daring Bakers' tasty treats by clicking through the Daring Baker Blogroll. Bring on November!

A Wedding Cake - Un Gâteau de Mariage

The title being self-explanatory, I wanted to show you why I'd been neglecting the blog this past week and a half. My friend Rachel* got married yesterday, and knowing that it would be a very small wedding and that I love to bake, she asked me many months ago if I would make her wedding cake for her because she preferred to have it made by someone she knew. Of course I said yes, she's a lovely friend and I love to bake, why would I say no?
I decided a while ago that I would make the autumn leaf cake that is often attributed to Pierre Hermé (and I confess that I used his recipe) but that I have seen for years at Lenôtre, and which consists of layers of meringue and chocolate mousse covered with a chocolate ganache. They purchased lego wedding figurines and soon after, she decided that she wanted lego to be a running theme where possible, so I offered to make the cake look like a bunch of lego pieces put together. She preferred to have the little lego nobs be their normal marzipan colors on top of the ganache rather than covered by it, and I think the result was really cute that way. I wish I'd done an even better job, but she loved it in the end, which was all that mattered to me.
You can find the recipe here (in French, if you're desperate for it I will translate it for you).

*I strongly urge you to go visit her website. She sings beautifully and is really talented.

Le French...

Le titre ne s'expliquant pas, je voulais vous montrer pourquoi j'ai délaissé ce blog durant ces dix derniers jours. Mon amie Rachel* s'est mariée hier, et il y a plusieurs mois de cela, sachant que ce serait un mariage de petite taille et que j'aime beaucoup pâtisser, elle m'a demandé si je voulais bien faire son gâteau de mariage parce qu'elle préférait qu'il soit fait par quelqu'un qu'elle connaissait. J'ai évidemment accepté, c'est une amie charmante et j'aime faire de la pâtisserie, pourquoi refuserais-je?
J'ai décidé de faire le gâteau feuille d'automne qui est souvent attribué à Pierre Hermé (et j'avoue avoir utilisé sa recette) mais que je vois chez Lenôtre depuis des années, et qui consiste de couches de meringue et de mousse au chocolat recouverte de ganache au chocolat. Ils ont acheté des figurines de mariage en lego, et peu après, elle a décidé qu'elle voulait que les lego soient un thème, donc j'ai proposé de faire le gâteau en forme de pièces de lego assemblées ensemble. Elle a préféré que les petits plots "lego" soient juste de la pâte d'amande sur la ganache au lieu de les couvrir de ganache, et je pense que le résultat est très mignon. J'aurai aimé le faire encore mieux, mais elle l'a adoré en fin de compte, ce qui était la seule chose qui comptait pour moi. Vous pouvez trouver la recette ici chez Guillemette ou encore chez Sandra du Pétrin.

*Je vous suggère de visiter son site. Elle chante admirablement bien et est très talentueuse.

What's even funnier is that the figurines look like them too...

En plus ce qui est encore plus drôle, c'es que les figurines leur ressemblent...

Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread - Cake à la Banane et aux Pépites de Chocolat

I didn't start to cook a lot until we moved to the U.S. when I was ten, and one of the first things I learned to bake after clafoutis and crepes was banana bread, as it is a staple of most American kitchens and so easy to make. I've tried out many different banana bread recipes, but this one turned out to be my favorite after all these years, not too bready and delightfully moist. I've changed it a little bit, cutting the amount of sugar as usual, switching brown sugar for white where possible, increasing the quantity of banana, and adding some cinnamon, which to me brings out the flavor of the bananas even more.
This bread is a total comfort food for me, and gets made quite a bit when the weather starts to get chilly as it is now in France (finally). And I don't know about you, but I like chocolate chunks in my banana bread.


The Recipe – Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread
Adapted from this recipe by Diana Rattray

12/3 cup brown sugar
4 ounces butter, softened
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Cream sugar and butter; beat in the mashed bananas, eggs, and vanilla.
Combine dry ingredients and stir into the first mixture just until moistened Fold in chocolate chunks until well incorporated. Pour batter into greased and floured 9x5x3-inch loaf pan.
Cover loosely with a tent of aluminum foil. Bake at 325° for 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for 3o to 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted tests done. Cool for 10 minutes, remove from pan and cool banana bread completely before slicing.



Speak French!


Je n'ai pas vraiment commencé à faire de la cuisine toute seule avant l'âge de dix ans quand nous avons déménagé aux U.S., et une des premières choses que j'ai appris à faire après le clafoutis et les crêpes était le cake à la banane, qui est chose commune dans la plupart des cuisines américaines et tellement simple à faire. J'ai essayé plein de recettes différentes au fil des années, et celle-ci s'est avérée être ma préférée en fin de compte, pas trop dense et moelleuse à souhait. Je l'ai évidemment changé un petit peu, en diminuant la quantité de sucre, en remplaçant le sucre blanc par du sucre brun, en augmentant la quantité de banane, et en ajoutant de la cannelle, qui pour moi fait ressortir encore plus le goût de la banane.
Ce cake est tout à fait quelque chose que je mange pour me réconforter, et je le fais fréquemment quand il se met à faire froid, ce qui est le cas chez nous (enfin). Je ne sais pas quel est vôtre cas, mais moi j'aime mon cake à la banane avec des pépites de chocolat.


La Recette – Cake à la banane et aux pépites de chocolat
Adapté de cette recette par Diana Rattray

160g sucre brun
120g beurre ramolli
450g bananes écrasées
2 gros oeufs
2 cuillères à café de vanille
250g farine
1 1/2 cuillères à café de levure
1 cuillère à café de bicarbonate de soude
1/2 cuillère à café de sel
125g-250g chocolat haché ou pépites de chocolat (selon vos envies)

Dans un grand bol, fouettez le sucre et le beurre jusqu'à ce qu'ils blanchissent (ou avec du sucre brun, jusqu'à ce qu'ils deviennent plus clair); ajoutez les bananes écrasées, les oeufs, et la vanille.
Dans un bol séparé, mélangez les ingrédients secs (farine, levure, bicarbonate de soude, sel), puis ajoutez ceci au premier mélange. Incorporez juste assez pour que le tout soit humide. Ajoutez le chocolat haché (ou les pépites de chocolat) et mélangez bien. Beurrez et farinez un grand moule à cake et versez la pâte dedans.
Couvrez légèrement d'une tente d'aluminium (ne pas serrer). Faîtes cuire à 160-170° pendant 30mn. Puis retirez l'aluminium et continuez de cuire pendant 30 à 40mn ou jusqu'à ce que la lame d'un couteau insérée sorte propre. Laissez refroidir, puis démoulez.