16/99: Whipped Cream Cake

The whipped cream was great for two reasons:

1. The entire batter was prepared and in the pan within 5 minutes of the oven preheating.

2.  What a great, light summer cake!

The unique feature of this cake is.. get ready for this... it has NO BUTTER or OIL! What kind of cake doesn't have butter or oil?   Instead, this cake (as you can see from the title) has lots of heavy cream.  Rose says that "the butterfat contained in the cream was more than equal to the usual amount of butter added."  See, there's a reason she's so brilliant.

15/99: Sticky Toffee "Pudding"

Meet the Sticky Toffee "Pudding."

This week I am at the beach with my friends and therefore EXTREMELY limited on what I can make. There is no stand mixer and no food processor. And there are no ingredients just laying around in the fridge, waiting on me to pick them for the next cake.

14/99: Chocolate Banana Stud Cake

The Chocolate Banana Stud cake was a wonderful breather for me after that génoise. It was a pretty easy cake and I love making butter cakes. They feel like they are fool proof. All you do is make a chocolate mixture from water and cocoa, mix it into pureed bananas and a few other things, then add them to the dry ingredients.  Put it in the oven for about 40 minutes and out comes a delicious, wonderful smelling chocolate banana cake. 

Then to the ganache- 62% chocolate and heavy cream with a little vanilla and kahlua (I had it so i thought that i'd use it). You really can't go wrong with it.  It took a few hours for the ganache to set so I made it last night and then completed the cake this morning.

But the best part about this cake is that

13/99: Génoise Très Café

Hello again faithful readers. As you have probably noticed, it is Monday and there have been zero posts this week and, as you know, there are supposed to be TWO. What's going on?

Basically a bad baking week. First I moved from Chattanooga to Oxford, MS which took a few days and then I came back home to my parent's house for a few days and cooking in a different kitchen just throws me off. But as I am home, I had lots of time so I decided to be overly ambitious and make a croquembouche.  Fellow bakers online gave me warnings. They said get ready to cry. Get ready to cuss. Get ready to burn your fingers with the caramel and have blisters all over your hands. Of course my head was too big and I tried it anyway.  It's not in the book but let's just say that I'm not going to post any pictures of it.  I blame the Mississippi humidity.

11/99: White Velvet Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Ganache and 12/99 Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

For graduation this weekend, I got hired to make the cake and cupcakes for a friend for her graduation party!

First, I made the hats and diplomas from gum paste. They were pretty easy. For the diplomas, you just roll out the gum paste, cut them into slivers and then roll them up. Once they dried, I tied some gold ribbon around them to have a nice little effect. For the hats, I dyed them blue, cut long rectangles and then pushed the ends together to make them stand up. Then I cut out squares and once they dried, I attached them to the circles using some blue icing. They turned out kind of cute.

For the Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake:

10/99 Zach's La Bomba

I'm eating a slice of this cake (I need to be careful or it will be the whole cake) while I am writing this and I am getting goosebumps with every bite that I eat.  One of my roommates and I just stared at each other and shook our heads and then stared at the cake.  Totally speechless. In trying to describe it, the following video is the only way that I can show you what goes through my head with this cake in my mouth. Maybe I've been watching too much friends, or maybe the cake is that good.