Week 27, February 21, 2011: Pusties

I was so spoiled with good food and great pastries growing up.

Admiring the magnificence of the first pustie out of the tray... maybe the next batch will be prettier.

Every big event was centered around a menu.  I remember trays of cannoli, napoleons, cream puffs, eclairs, pusties, macaroons, and biscotti cookies.  Ang and I were talking about my party and the first big topic was, what are we going to eat?  My only stipulation was I needed tomato pie and I'd like to make my cakes.  (Tomato pie, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure is a pizza made with sweeter sauce and topped with a sprinkling of romano or parmesan cheese instead of drowned in mozzarella.  It's heaven in slice form)

When people think of Italian families and the hubs of good Italian cooking and baking, our area always comes up.
For example:
http://stateofthereunion.com/a-land-of-riggies-and-pusties

Pasticciotti, aka pusties are my favorite Italian pastry.  They're like a little brown-sugar cookie crusted pie filled with chocolate or vanilla pudding.  Simple, but amazing.  They aren't like cannoli, where everyone and their aunt tries to make them and they run the gamut of melt in your mouth to "what did I just put in my mouth?"  With pusties, few places make them, even fewer people and they're always good.  The fact is, I've never had a bad pustie.  So, armed with one of our staff member's family recipes and the gift of pustie tins, I set out to make something delicious.

The recipe seemed easy enough: flour, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, milk, eggs and shortening.


  Mix together and pat 3/4 of mix into tins.

This part actually took FOREVER!
Then, make pudding (I did stovetop pudding for all--there's something so delicious about it).

 Spoon pudding into doughed tins and pat a little top for each... brush with some egg and bake for 25ish mins and voila! Pusties.

So, issue with the first batch of pusties was that there was wayyyy too much dough.  They seemed to soften up after a day or two in the fridge- Nan informed us that her dessert pustie last night and breakfast one today were good.  I must concur-- I've had four or five and each day they were better.  But, for the second and third runs, I made 15 pusties as opposed to twelve and wound up needing more pudding.

Issue with this with batch two, was that they weren't as sturdy.  So, when I trayed them up to bring to a party this afternoon and it tipped, three smooshed.  Not cool.

I'm letting batch three cool longer- and I'll let you know if I found the magic formula.

In other news, caramel and I haven't reached an agreement yet, but we will... I'm hoping by the next post.

Have a good week!

In between baking

Or maybe baking in between... I don't know.  Either way, I've spent a lot of time in the kitchen this week.  I promised the kids and some friends cake this week, so I baked nine cakes (2 tres leches, 2 chocolate cakes and 5 devil's food cakes) total between Wednesday and Thursday nights.  I probably would have made so many, but I'm really trying to figure out caramel sauce.

lots of ugly, but delicious chocolate cake

I charred the bottom of these guys- surgery was necessary

To say that I have a bad relationship with trying to boil sugar is the understatement of the century- it's like heading into a tsunami wearing floaties.  The stove and I have a bad relationship in general: there was that towel and my eyebrows in college and those weren't even from molten sugar.  There was the peppermint hard candy that we made growing up that sliced tongues and don't even get me into that Spanish project from el infierno.  The cauldron has taken it's share of victims, so I approached caramel sauce with respect and awe.

I got free organic eggs from our chem teacher-- they're blue!

I also should mention that caramel makes my top three of favorite sauces ever... I can't keep the jarred stuff in the house- it's like sweetened condensed milk for me: I'll add it to my coffee (or should I say add my coffee to it), put it on crackers or eat spoonfuls.  In other words, it's my crack.... wait that didn't sound right.

So like I said, I made some Wednesday and some Thursday.  I should mention that the tres leches recipe is the same from before.  The chocolate cake came from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.  He has a section on cake in the 910s and caramel and frostings in the late 9-teens/early 20s.  On Wednesday, I did a classic buttercream frosting from his book and on Thursday, I tried the caramel.  His recipe called for 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup of water and a pinch of salt.  I was tripling the recipe- and instead of asking around or checking online, I just tripled each ingredient.  Not the brightest thing I've ever done.  The recipe said 3-5 minutes for the sugar to incorporate and 15 minutes until soft ball stage (345 F on the candy thermometer- which I have).

 It took an hour and a half.  I took the first pic at 9:54 and turned the stove off at 11:20.  A fudging hour and a half for this sludge to remotely resemble anything like caramel.  I cleaned the counter and did all the dishes while I waited for the thermometer to go up--note, you should never leave caramel unattended, but since this was sugar water and I didn't leave the kitchen, no harm done.

 The kids commented on how it tasted caramel/ sugary, but soaked into the cake and made it all sticky.  I caught Lisa on the way out and begged for advice- she explained that it needed to be like wet sand.  I'd done far too much water and told me not to walk away from the stove.  I did the second pass last night to make caramel frosting- it took me twenty-seven minutes... not perfect, it seemed gritty, so I will try again tomorrow- if I don't have it by the week's end, I'm going to bring in an apron and have Lisa show me.

It's been a couple of late nights with the baking and the early morning class today.  I've felt a little like this:

But now it's Saturday night, so I'm feeling more like this:

And now you know what outfit I'm wearing out tonight! Don't you love the shoes!

I'm taking a break from cake this week.  I have grad work to do, but I will be making three kinds of pusties tonight and tomorrow and posting on those early this week.

The cake grand total is up to 31 types of cake and 68 cakes made... no worries, I'm not calling it quits yet.  I have molten chocolate, hummingbird, marble cake with bavarian creme, black forest cake and lemon marshmallow fondant left to conquer... as well as creme brulee and tiramisu and only 5 weeks left!  It should be exciting.

Have a good one!

Week 26, February 14, 2011: Chocolate Heart Cake

Happy Valentine's Day.

I won't call it Single Awareness Day because that's 1, too pessimistic, 2, lacks creativity and 3, is incredibly ungrateful.  I don't think that Valentine's Day is just about amorous love anymore, so no matter what state your left ring finger is in, you should be able to tell someone that you love them.

I was going to make this post about all of the things that I'm grateful for, but besides the fact that I did something similar just a few weeks ago, I realized that it's not the things that make my life wonderful, it's the people behind them.

I'll give you some instances:

I'm grateful for rain boots.  They're fun and they allow me to trudge through puddles and skip around the garden- but the real reason that I love them is because I love my family:  I love the handful of times my cousins helped me in the garden and we wound up soaked from the hose.  I love hanging out with Nana and making sauce from the tomatoes that Ang, Lau and I grew.  Also, I love the conversation piece they become when I wear them to school-such as this morning when the tech guy asked me where I got my boots from.

I'm grateful for my blackberry- because I get to send and receive pictures, like these:

Aunt Mart, this rice cereal no es bueno!  I told dad that I wanted Lucky Charms!
-Don't worry, pumpkin, I've got your back!

Will you be my Valentine?
Who can refuse a smile like that!

Thank you, Miss for always sending me these incredible pictures!  And thanks Em for spitting up on Ker when we were on the phone yesterday.  I can't wait to see you do raspberries!

I'm grateful for Billy Madison and other Adam Sandler movies.  I love to laugh.  We must have watched his better movies dozens of times each in college, but what's extraordinary is looking at my phone and finding a message from a friend with "stop looking at me swan!" or one of the other fantastic quips from our history.  It's something that we share and that makes it fabulous.

A valentine from one of the seniors- I gave them all fun dip and sent them off to class- don't worry faculty, you're welcome!  Also a great inside joke between two of my best friends from college!

I'm grateful for cake.  When it's good, I get compliments and asked about recipes, etc.  When it's bad (like last week), we laugh like h*ll.  It's not the thing that makes the experience, it's sharing it with other people.

This was that Pavlova I mentioned.  Ang ranked it #1 and Nan enjoyed it too.  I stacked the pieces with homemade whipped cream and pineapple.  The outside is crisp, the inside is marshmallow.  I think it's heaven- I apologize to my faculty guinea pigs for not sharing it, but I apparently have less qualms about giving my family salmonella.

So, I'll finish off the love-fest with my favorite love quote: "What if I could speak all languages of humans and of angels? If I did not love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal... Love is kind and patient, never jealous, or rude.  Love isn't selfish or quick tempered.  It doesn't keep a record of wrongs that others do.  Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting.  Love never fails!" From Corinthians 1:13

I love you!

Chocolate heart cake with chocolate whipped cream filling and topped with ganache and raspberries.
Nothing says "I love you" like a chocolate coma!

Now, onto the cake.

Chocolate Heart Cake, recipe from joyofbaking.com

We were back in Muppet Labs this week- Chiffon cakes remind me of those pills that you put in water and then they grow into foam people and reptiles- creeeeeepy.

The recipe called for using one nine inch heart pan that was two inches deep.  Me being the brain surgeon that I am, didn't measure the cake pan until after this happened:

A half an inch shouldn't make this much of a mess!  Mom and Lisa, just be proud I remembered the baking sheet.

After that, I realized I needed to do this:

I won't regale you with the story behind this mess either:

Ganache and I are only friends when I pay close attention to it.

The cake was a classic chiffon.  I'm realizing that chiffon cakes are a lot more work than I originally thought, besides the needing to be cognizant of the overflowing in the oven.  1, they need 3 bowls + a liquid mixing cup- lots of dishes :(

 2, we need to play with my friends, egg whites.  I'm going to thank Ang and Aunt Ro again for the egg white tutorials, but they take a bit of time, and I can't hear my jams over the mixer.

3, there really is no three, but I always seem to have one, so here it is with the folding of the egg whites into the batter.

Each ganache required 8 oz of semisweet or bittersweet.  I used 7 semi and one bitter each (it's what I had in the casa).  Another fun fact: the cake took regular (non-dutch processed) cocoa, the whipped cream took dutch processed cocoa and the frosting took squares- so this cake is a tres chocolates cake.

 I love pictures where I'm threatening the chocolate.  Creepy, I know, but it makes the arduous cutting chocolate task much more enjoyable when I envision it as part of a horror movie.

 Chocolate whipped cream= heaven in a bowl.

 The two pan version of the cake- pre frosting.

I didn't actually get a piece.  It was gone in the faculty room before I got at it and my parents are saving the last piece for my grandma (I know, what the fudge? happy valentine's day to me), but don't worry about me.  I had left over frosting and fresh raspberries for dessert tonight.  Delicioso!

Cupcake ranked it in the top 3, Ang called it decadent, but is still over the moon on the Pavlova.  The faculty response was positive- physics loved the chocolate whipped cream and thick/ hard frosting, bio loved the chocolate frosting and raspberries and English just said it was good.

I'm taking a break from cakes next week and trying my hand at pusties- I may have my faculty and/or family guinea pigs over for cafe and tastings, either way, I'll let you know!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Week 25, February 7, 2011: Yellow Cake

Howdy!

It has been a super delightful week here at cake30- the baking's been a little sketchy/ random, so I'll jump right in to fill you in.



For this week's cake, I did Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting- recipe from joyofbaking.com.

The recipe was simple, but required a lot of yolks and a lot of butter.  There were like two sticks of butter + for each cake and frosting combo.  What I enjoyed though, was that it was a one bowl kind of recipe and my motto is the less dishes, the better.

Joy of baking said that one of the keys to this recipe was keeping the gluten formation low by mixing the the butter and some milk to coat the flour.  This was supposed to keep the cake moist with a decent crumb.


Then I was supposed to add in the yolk mixture and combine.
I did as told.


The first round came out a little flat, the second didn't, but the cake was so dry and tough.

The frosting was a cooked job- simple and tasty.  The only complaint is that it needed to cool for a couple of hours before spreading and I have the patience of a toddler.

I'll take a fail on this one- I don't have time to revisit it and I did well enough on white cake and on chocolate cake that I can afford to not have this or pound cake in my repertoire.

And I burnt my finger.  Lame.



Now, what did I do with all of those egg whites, you ask...
I made PAVLOVA!
It's a meringue cake and it's the national cake of those lovely countries down under.
And any time baking requires a tape measure, I'm in.

It had like five ingredients and just required a lot of beating... so I was in.

 That's what it looked like pre-oven.  I'll post the after oven pictures and the general response once I have the family try it.  I didn't bring it into work because I'm still afraid of giving people I'm not related to salmonella.

In other news:

Attempting to run is still interesting.

This is me on the mean streets of the big pineapple, trying not to fall on my butt and then being attacked by the neighbor's "vicious" fur-balls.

 Notice how much happier I look setting out than I do when I'm actually running.

And of course, I'm at the library today, but just got off the phone with my bro, who was up to his elbows in someone's stinky diaper.

Good job, Em!  I love that her hair is getting long enough for a bath-time faux-hawk.

This week is chocolate heart cake- the last chocolate frosting, thank goodness (I never thought I'd get sick of chocolate frosting, but I'm pretty over it).

Happy baking!