Dolce + Decadence

Hellooooo Hello Kitty!

2012-04-29T17:30:00.001-05:00

Another milestone completed: a shaped cake order. A character cake, to be precise. When Wendy first asked me to make her daughter Zoe's third birthday cake a few months ago, I was nervous. She had always ordered her kids detailed character cakes from renowned Deerfield Bakery for their birthdays. Actually, at the time she asked, she was serving her son Cal's Percy 3-D tank engine cake (from the cartoon Thomas and Friends, duh). Just looking at Percy was somewhat mind-boggling - how did Deerfield bend, curve, and stack cake to look like a tank engine? However, I stopped sweating when Wendy said Zoe loves Hello Kitty, which happens to be the simplest cartoon face currently popular among children. Thank god Japanese anime decided characters should be missing either a mouth, nose, or eyes on their single-plane faces.

Regardless, I had never made a cake like this before, so it was pretty fun to figure out exactly how to do it. It just took a little planning, such as where to find her facial features, how to make the bow, etc. I decided to bake the cake in two 12" rounds; Wendy requested a light flavor, so I decided upon an orange-zested white cake. I then blew up a printed picture of Hello Kitty, laid it on top of the stacked layers, and carved her out. I filled the cake with vanilla buttercream and a thin layer of raspberry preserves, then gave Hello Kitty a crumb coat so that her final coat would be extra clean and white, like the actual character. I made her bow with the scraps from the outer edges. Because none were wide enough to form the entire bow, I had to divide it into 8 separate pieces and put it together like a puzzle, using frosting as the glue. I lightly frosted the surface of the bow and then dipped it into a bowl of sparkly pink sprinkles to meet Wendy's one request - "Can her bow be sparkly pink?" Sure, Wendy. I then gave the cake a final coat of frosting, added her licorice pinwheel whiskers, licorice disc eyes, and gummy candy nose, and then laid the bow carefully in place. Ta-da! Hello Kitty!

I suddenly got a stab of regret that the cake did not say "Happy Birthday, Zoe!" anywhere, as I feel this is usually important to children - mostly to signal ownership to other siblings that this is NOT their cake to pick at or stick their face into (ahem, Cal...). So, I piped a pink frosting "Happy Birthday Zoe!" onto the cake board. Another pang of ambition washed over, urging me to make the letters sparkly pink to match the bow. Big mistake - yet another example of me not knowing when to be done with a project. I sprinkled the pink glitter sprinkles over top, then looked at the mess and wondered how the hell I was going to get the glitter out from in between the loops, circles, and lines of the letters so that we could actually read "Happy Birthday Zoe!" again. I tried blowing but realized it was going to blow pink all over the pristine white cake sides. I tried scraping with a toothpick, then a toothpick covered with a bit of paper towel to create a wider, sweeping surface. Oh wait, don't they make things like that already, called Q-tips? Idiot. So I grabbed a few Q-tips, then figured the most effective way to get the sprinkles out of unwanted areas would be similar to how I wanted them to stay there - by sticking them with frosting. I dipped the Q-tip end in frosting, stuck some errant sprinkles, wiped them on a paper towel - and then repeated 78 more times. I got it to the best point I possibly could, wiped the foil as clean again, and then decided I was done - mostly because I now only had 15 minutes to get dressed to go to the party and was covered in pink glitter sprinkles.

Once the cake safely made the drive to Zoe's grandparents' condo and landed on the dining room table, I felt better. Hello Kitty was beautiful, and actually a lot more well done than I figured I was capable of - a similar feeling to Traci and Stephen's wedding cake. All the party-goers were similarly wowed, and Zoe made me happy when she actually knew what the cake was when it landed in front of her to blow out her candles (seriously, I may have cried if the three year-old was like, "I don't know what that is, Mommy"). Her little cousin Gus was also so impressed he asked to borrow his mommy's phone to take a picture.

The cake ceremony went something like this:

1. Wendy having a dilemma about where to place the candles so as not to mess up Hello Kitty's face. We settled on the left ear. Luckily she was only three so there weren't many candles to clutter it.

2. Zoe blowing out her candles three times. After each she would go, "Again!" Wendy said only three times since it was her third birthday. Her eighteenth should be fun...

3. Zoe grabbing the gummy nose and popping it into her mouth. After three seconds of sucking on it she decided she did not like it, and very thoughtfully placed it back in the center of the cake. Luckily it was all family so no one minded a little birthday girl slobber. That's good luck, right?

With Daddy (Chris, left) and Auntie Laura (right).

The first time she blew out her candles.

Laura probably explaining the nose in an enticing way that made Zoe think she would like eating it.

Zoe requested to eat the bow, so I was happy I made it entirely of cake and that it was edible. However, it had no filling and was covered in gritty sugar, but she still ate it - and didn't spit it out and put it back on the cake.

I also remembered to do what I forgot at the wedding - take a picture of the cake slice. The cake was well received, and Zoe's grandfather, who owns a cake baking company and used to own bakery industry magazines, said it had "good cell structure." I couldn't agree more (I think I know what that means?) - it was dense and moist, yet the flavor was extremely light. The raspberry provided a nice fruity contrast to the citrus in the cake, and the buttercream was silky smooth and complimented the cake nicely, rather than overpowered like sugary frostings on birthday cakes often do (such as Deerfield's character cakes). There were only about two pieces left after all was said and done, as compared to 85% of Percy that was leftover at Cal's birthday. Take that, Deerfield.

Looking forward to my next shaped cake!

An Ode to My Chocolate-Peanut Butter Love + Mix's Birthday

2012-03-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

Those of you who go way back with me can probably recall many a chocolate-peanut butter dessert that I have made. It is one of my absolute favorite combinations, one I experimented with many, many times in my early baking career and to which I often return. It's comfortable.

My high school friends probably remember receiving chocolate-peanut butter buckeyes in their Christmas cookie trays. My college friends probably remember that decadent Super Bowl when I made layer bars of 1. brownie, 2. caramel and pretzels, and 3. peanut butter filling and Reese's Puffs cereal, and 4. chocolate frosting. My old coworkers probably remember their mid-day sugar coma when I brought in a brownie torte layered with chocolate frosting, peanut butter filling, and Reese's candy. My roommate now probably remembers the moment when she first discovered my obsession, much to the dismay of her peanut allergy. My boyfriend probably remembers how he did not like chocolate-peanut butter desserts until he met me, after which I slowly converted him into a chocolate-peanut butter lover.

Despite this chocolate-peanut butter obsession, you have probably noticed that there have not been that many chocolate-peanut butter combinations featured in the posts of this blog. Yes, I have been trying to diversify in an attempt to be a well-rounded baker, not a chocolate-peanut butter baker. But I feel that has only turned me into a carrot cake baker....

Anyways, as it had been awhile since I had made something chocolate-peanut-buttery, I was elated when my friend Andrew commissioned a birthday cake for his boyfriend (Scott) Mix's birthday. "He loves chocolate and peanut butter." YESSSS, because I DO, TOO. I dug up old chocolate-peanut butter recipes from the vault and sent a few to Andrew, but also included one I had seen recently on the blog Sprinkle Bakes, which was the most ridiculous cake I had ever seen. The behemoth featured alternating layers of chocolate cake and Reese's-studded cheesecake, with caramel and peanuts in between the layers, all enrobed in whipped chocolate ganache and chocolate curls. I did not think Andrew would actually pick this cake as it was enormous and sounded like something off a "Man vs. Food" challenge (actually, it's a copy of a Cheesecake Factory cake - so not too off), but I figured I would give him options - like, maybe he'd only want the cheesecake OR the cake part. Plus I was kind of scared of the chocolate curls, so I secretly hoped he did not pick it.

Andrew replied that because it was Mix's 25th birthday, we may as well go all out with the most ridiculous cake either of us had ever seen - the one on Sprinkle Bakes. Well, crap.

I was thinking to myself that I could make it easier by just pushing chopped Reese's candy into the sides instead of doing the dreaded chocolate curls when I read the next line of Andrew's email: "I really like the chocolate curls." Well, crap again.

I can do this, I told myself. I actually looked at the recipe rather than allowing myself to intimidated by the sheer enormity of the project and realized it was not that hard - more so time consuming:

1. Bake a cheesecake. Check.

2. Bake a chocolate cake. Check.

3. Sub peanut butter filling for caramel filling to make it more peanut-buttery. Check.

4. Make chocolate ganache. Check.

5. Whip ganache into a frosting. (Never done it, but sounds easy.) Check.

6. Write "Happy Birthday Mix!" on top of cake, per Andrew's request. (Writing scares me as it usually takes me a couple tries, and I'll only get one chance with this cake since I can't disrupt the ganache. I will just concentrate VERY hard.) Check.

7. Make chocolate curls. (GAHHHH. But, after watching the video, it actually seemed really easy, giving me newfound hope). Check-ish.

I started first with the cheesecake. Her recipe was kind of weird (no idea what the pudding mix was there for), so I just used my own, which is wonderfully dense yet light in flavor. I added in some chopped Reese's. The batter divided between two pans still turned out what I would consider full-sized cheesecakes. I knew then this thing was going to be a monster. I topped those with peanut butter filling and peanuts and moved on.

Next, the chocolate cake. Her recipe is actually the same as mine, so that was consoling. Oftentimes I wonder how good bloggers' recipes are, as they are not usually professionals (then again, I blog and I'm not a professional either....), so it's comforting to see similar recipes to some of your own that you know are good - gives them a bit of credibility. Only thing I also do is add some shaved chocolate to make it even more dense and chocolate-y. So I made those, then layered them with the cheesecakes:

Altogether this probably weighed a good 10 lbs or more and was 9 inches tall. A veritable sugar and cream monster (but only about one stick of butter! Shocker!). I then made the ganache, which was pretty standard. I poured a little over top to make a shiny coat, then whipped the rest to make the frosting. I really liked this form of chocolate frosting and am glad I was pushed to try something new, as I definitely see myself incorporating it into my future decorating.

And now, the writing... I made some peanut butter frosting, loaded a pastry bag, and took a deep breath. I tried to visualize the writing already on the cake as I piped so I was basically tracing lines. It turned out a million times better on my first try than it ever has in the past, which was a blessing. Phew.

But there were still the chocolate curls. I watched Sprinkle Bakes' embedded video again as a refresher. Looks so easy, but I still suspected it was not. I melted the chocolate, poured it onto a baking sheet, and allowed it to cool. I got out my spatula, which was not quite the same as hers, and prayed it would work. And I scraped... and scraped... and scraped. At first they were not coming out very curly, and I got frustrated. Finally, a couple good curls emerged, and I got the feel for the spatula angle. I scraped and scraped and scraped until I had a huge bowl of curls ready for decoration. See, not so bad!

Pressing them into the sides of the cake was when it all became real and worthwhile. They looked so gorgeous and professional. Again, I was so happy I stepped outside my comfort zone and ended up adding a new skill to my repertoire.

Here are some pics once I finished in the kitchen:

The fun thing about this order was that I was also invited to the party and could therefore see the cake enjoyed, as well as finally taste the fruits of my labor. I brought one of my cake stands to make it pretty:

After some delicious homemade pizza and beer, it was time. Andrew and Ted lit the 25 candles:

Mix acted like he hated even more attention from his surprise party, when I secretly think he loved it ;)

He blew out quite the blaze:

And then the cake was ~~destroyed~~ enjoyed by all:

Some of the best parts where the giant crumbs that formed on the knife and plate.

So all in all, the second most enormous cake I've made (after the wedding cake), and one of the prettiest for sure (again, probably after the wedding cake). And one of the most delicious - so many tasty individual components that also came together nicely: the moist cake crumb, the zesty cheesecake, the crunchy peanuts, the sweet-and-salty filling, the silky ganache, the almost-bitter curls.... Mmmm, just typing that made me want to go find a chocolate peanut-buttery snack....

Mmmkay I think I am done writing - time to find that snack ;)

All the Personal Baking I Have Neglected to Write About

2012-03-11T20:57:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I have done quite a bit of personal baking the last few months that I'd like to share with you. These are fun because they are typically more experimental than my regular orders. However, regular orders, please note that you can order these as well ;)

1. Red Wine Red Velvet Cupcakes (late November): I had recently stumbled upon a recipe for red velvet cake that used red wine as the "red" part. I liked this idea infinitely better than using red food coloring, so I had to try it out. The cake was phenomenal. Not exactly red, but whatever - the red imparts no flavor anyway. This red did, though. The wine gave a slightly boozy flavor, which paired nicely with the cocoa, and the tangy cream cheese frosting smoothly rounded it out. The batch was enormous and made enough to give my yoga friend Colleen a going-away gift (which was appropriate since she was moving to Napa to sell wine), as well as birthday treats for my friends Maggie and Nicole.

2. Thanksgiving: This year I decided I wanted to be a big girl and host Thanksgiving for my family in Chicago. There were twelve of us total, which was quite the undertaking for a first timer. But, I pulled it off. We had maple-bacon roasted turkey; cornbread stuffing with bacon, sage, and caramelized onions; truffle macaroni and cheese; The Palm's creamed Spinach; green beans with candied bacon; and crumble-topped sweet potato casserole, which my mom made. Quite the spread.

Bacon-wrapping the turkey.

(From left) My cousin Courtney and brother Alex.

The maple and bacon-soaked stuffing was incredible.

For dessert, I made a Maple Cream Cheese-Glazed Pumpkin Carrot Bundt Cake and a Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie. My aunt also made a pumpkin roll and a delicious pumpkin dip with gingerbread chips.

3. Chocolate Cake with Orange-Zested Cream Cheese Frosting and Chocolate Shavings (early December): I made this cake for our CorePower graduation dinner at Uncommon Ground. I tried to make it look like the CorePower bullseye "O" and was fairly successful, until I closed the box top and the static cling picked up the chocolate shavings from the center and scattered them all over the top of the cake :( Regardless, it was enjoyed thoroughly by all, though I question our palates' judgments after so many bottles of celebratory wine. Yes, yogis party, too.

4. Buffalo Wing Cupcakes (late-January): These were a fun experiment for the Super Bowl. I had seen them on the blog Cupcake Project and was very intrigued. The cake struck right between sweet and spicy; it had Frank's Red Hot sauce and blue cheese baked in. The frosting was a blue cheese-cream cheese mixture, only lightly sweetened. And then there was a buffalo wing on top. The overall flavor was good, though somewhat strange to place within the flavor realms we are accustomed to. The balance between sweet, spicy, and salty placed them in the group of other food combinations I find difficult to categorize, such as chicken and waffles. So overall, quite good and interesting, but I don't know if the world needs this new food combination.

5. Blood Orange Ricotta-Mascarpone Cheesecake (early-February): My friends Andrew and Mix, the kings of dinner parties, threw a tapas party in January. Naturally I was really excited, as I had studied abroad in Spain and knew plenty of delicious tapas recipes. However, Andrew threw me a curve ball by asking me to also make dessert. If you are not aware, the Spanish are not well known for their desserts. My host family normally ate fruit for dessert after dinner. When they tried American treats I baked, they thought everything was extremely decadent, which was probably fair as I usually go big or go home, but I also found this indicative of their lack of good desserts as a culture. So I struggled to think of something to make. I wanted to take advantage of the seasonal citrus, and oranges grow in Spain, so I started there. The ricotta-mascarpone cheesecake is most definitely Italian, but whatever - if the Spaniards had their way we'd be eating just oranges or oranges on top of flan, which I absolutely hate.

Please excuse Ted's hand.

I also did some "healthy baking" in the last couple months, which I will post about soon. Don't worry, I was not trying to make unhealthy things, e.g., chocolate cake, healthy. More like I was trying to make things we presume to be healthy but are not, e.g., granola, healthy. So check for that soon.

But even sooner check back for a cake that is absolutely unhealthy and fantastic :)

All the Orders I Have Neglected to Write About

2012-03-04T10:46:00.002-06:00

As I was uploading pictures to my computer, I realized how many orders I have not posted about since Thanksgiving. I'm going to try to be better about that going forward, but things have been busy (more about that later). So, without further ado..

1. Brown Sugar-Glazed Crumble Apple Pie (early November): A friend Ben had approached me about baking him an apple pie (his favorite) just because, but never followed up. His girlfriend Jenny took matters into her own hands and ordered it for their anniversary.

2. Thanksgiving: Oh my. I think I have not posted about this because it was such an enormous undertaking that I just wanted to forget it for awhile afterward. I think I felt that way at the time as well, because I didn't really take any pictures. But, the count was the following:

2 Carrot Cakes
1 Gluten-free Carrot Cake
1 Flourless Chocolate Cake
1 Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
1 Brown Sugar Glazed Crumble Apple Pie
1 Gluten-free Pumpkin Roll
1 Loaf Pumpkin Bread

Table of goodies: carrot cakes, flourless chocolate, and pumpkin bread.

I also baked a Maple Cream Cheese-Glazed Pumpkin Carrot Cake and a Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie for my family as well. Oh, and made our entire Thanksgiving dinner.... So yeah, make sense now why I haven't posted? Even typing this now makes me slightly stressed.

3. Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd Filling, Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting and Berries (early January): My coworker Jackie ordered this for her boyfriend Justin's birthday. I was really pleased with how this turned out. The cake was really dense, almost like a pound cake. The curd was tart and refreshing. The whipped cream cheese gave a little bit of sweetness, along with the natural sugar in the berries. And it was pretty to boot. The exposed sides added a bit of elegance, so I may be trying that out more in the future. It works especially well with really moist, dense cakes that don't necessarily need frosting with every bite.

4. Red Velvet Cupcakes (mid-January): A "second-degree" order, if you will - a high school friend of my college friend Colleen asked me to make a dozen red velvet cupcakes for her and another friend's birthday. I totally forgot to take pictures, but they looked like ones I have made in the past.

5. Baby's First Birthday Chocolate Chip Cookies (late January): This one I was pretty pumped about, as it showed earlier marketing attempts had paid off. You may recall back in August I voluntarily catered the Irish Entrepreneur's Breakfast, and that a woman, Jennifer, emailed me after about making cookies for a baby shower, which I unfortunately had to decline. Well, she followed up in January about making those same chocolate chip cookies from the breakfast as favors for her daughter's first birthday party. I packaged them three to a goodie bag and wrapped them up with a pink bow and a Dolce + Decadence label. Jennifer loved them and said the cookies were a hit.

6. Carrot Cake Balls (mid-February): This may be a "fourth-degree" order. Because I was really busy back in September, I did not have time to make my friend Erin a birthday cake, and I promised her I would make one eventually. Well, eventually was early December. Erin loves cream cheese frosting, so I was thinking carrot cake, but at that point I was so tired of making carrot cake that I tried to think of ways to mix it up somehow. We discussed carrot cake balls, but Erin was concerned she wouldn't get her cream cheese frosting fix from this. I decided to try something different - rather than dipping the balls in chocolate as is normally done, what if I dipped them in frosting? I melted the frosting slightly until it was thin enough to dip and coat the ball, then rolled the ball in chopped pistachios and pecans. They turned out really great, and Erin loved them. She shared them with her boyfriend, who brought them into work and shared with his coworker, which led to this order...

Erin's boyfriend's coworker thought these were the best things he had ever eaten, and asked what was the minimum order he could place for himself. I figured I could make 15, so we did that. And thus he got his own plate of carrot cake balls.

So those are the orders from the past couple months. Look for my next post about some personal baking that I did in that time frame as well. Also, check back in the near future for a post about one of the most ridiculous cakes I have ever made. It will be pretty epic...

Caving to Food Porn: Pinterest Impulse Baking

2012-01-24T22:33:00.002-06:00

Another thing I don't normally do on this blog: post recipes. When deciding the purpose for this blog initially, I figured there were enough recipe blogs out there in the world that another was not needed. My hunch was confirmed with the recent creation of Pinterest, where one can find no end to all the recipes that are floating around in the blogosphere. However, it somehow simultaneously managed to achieve the opposite effect: Pinterest also makes me want to be a recipe blogger.

Why, you ask? Because I sit around looking at and reading about delicious food ALL DAY. If you are my Pinterest friend (click here to follow me), you'll notice that the majority of my boards are dedicated to food, whether that be recipes or restaurants I want to try, broken down by restaurant type or meal/course types and sub-types, of course (this hobby is ORGANIZED!). I look at other people's Pinterest food boards and repin to mine. I also have several food-dedicated RSS feeds that stream in all my favorite recipe blogs as well as any food news from Chicago and the rest of the country. I often pin those recipes to my Pinterest boards. Additionally, I have an enormous Gmail filing system of recipes I have found online. I pin those, too. It's a vicious cycle of food porn.

Do I need help? Perhaps. But I don't want it.

So, why be a recipe blogger? Ogling all these scrumptious recipes every day makes me want to make EVERYTHING. The even more ironic part is that not all of it is new to me. Did I know there was such a thing as a grilled cheese with caramelized mushrooms and onions? Of course - I've probably made it before just messing around. Do I want it right now? Not really - I just ate lunch. If I saw a recipe and a picture of a really melty, crispy grilled cheese with caramelized mushrooms and onions, would I want it right now? Absolutely - I'm drooling reading what I just wrote.

And the only way I can justify making a caramelized mushroom and onion grilled cheese (for those foodies out there wondering what kind of cheese this beauty contains - you know who you are and I'd bet we'd be good friends - it was gruyere, aged cheddar, fontina, and parmigiano reggiano) an hour after lunch is for the sake of a blog post, right? For the sake of the freedom of press and our "hunger" for information? Yes. If I were a recipe blogger I could make anything and everything because I have to for my blog.

Tell me you don't want this.

And it's not just grilled cheese. Pinterest food porn makes you want to make everything, all at once. Completely superfluous - things I don't eat normally and wouldn't buy. I had to try making Tuscan white bean soup. And suddenly I was obsessed with making granola. And protein bars - at least they are healthy! Thankfully I've refrained from making all the macaroni and cheese recipes I've pinned thus far. But at the end of the day - and yes, I made soup and granola and protein bars all in one day (superfluous), I still have a lot of homemade soup and granola and protein bars lying around, which is a lot more soup and granola and protein bars than I alone can eat.

Hence the reason for this post: what I would like to call caving to food porn by "Pinterest impulse baking." When my Monday night suddenly opened up, I had no idea what to do with myself. I'm not very good at sitting around, hence why I have three jobs. Maybe I'll "relax" at home, I told myself. "Relax" for me usually means being on my feet in the kitchen for five hours making something that was not ordered through Dolce + Decadence. I got on Pinterest and browsed recipes I had pinned over time, hoping to find something intriguing (which they obviously would be if I pinned them to begin with).

Aside: That's another thing about Pinterest that I find mildly entertaining. I believe for most it is a place to showcase what they would do in their crafty second life, because let's be honest - when am I EVER going to use lace as a stencil to spray paint a design on a lamp shade? Never. Attempt any of the complicated braided hair styles I pinned? Ha. However, I do not want to be a complete Pinterest fraud, so I feel obligated to attempt some of my pins, and the most doable ones for me are recipes.

Anyways... so I am browsing for my Monday night "relaxation" recipe when I stumble upon (wrong site... pun intended ;) a recipe I had pinned awhile ago for Funfetti cake batter bars from the blog Lovin' From The Oven. The author makes a lot of interesting baked goods that pique my interest, Funfetti cake batter bars being one of them. This shouldn't surprise readers, given my attempts at homemade Funfetti (parts I and II). What I found interesting about these bars was that they weren't made entirely with or without Funfetti; rather, the Funfetti cake mix was used as just another ingredient along with the other ingredients necessary for a blondie-esque bar. They also fit my requirement for "relaxation" baking, which is a simple recipe that has only one homemade component (for example, a cake would be two - cake and frosting). This recipe seemed even more perfect when I remembered that my coworker Sarah's birthday was this week, and nothing screams birthday like Funfetti - especially when you scream, "FuuuunnnFETTTTTIIIIIII!!!!!" (It's even more effective after you've eaten the Funfetti and have the sugar coursing through your veins.) And to make this all even more worthwhile, I would blog about it. Now it's justified - I'm a recipe blogger.

"Relaxation" with a purpose and justification besides relaxation - is that actually relaxation? Told you I was bad at it...

Funfetti cake batter bars.

I got home and started getting out my ingredients. I was curious about the 1 1/4 cup Funfetti mix called for - how many cups of Funfetti are in a box of Funfetti? Since I wasn't sure what to do with the rest of the cake mix after pulling out what I needed, I decided to make as many batches of Funfetti cake bars as the box would allow.

Three. Three batches of Funfetti cake bars. WHY this seemed like a good idea at the time ("I'm not being wasteful!") I have no idea, now that I am surrounded by a bajillion Funfetti cake bars ("I feel fatter just looking at them."). Funny - didn't I mention earlier that Pinterest tricks you into making superfluous amounts of food? ...

Anyways, I tripled the recipe. Which is a lot of butter, if you'll note. Too much, in my opinion, although the end result was buttery fabulousness. We all saw what happened to Paula Deen (too soon?). I'd perhaps cut it to a half cup (one stick) per batch next, so three sticks if using the whole box of Funfetti, and see how they turn out. You could probably even try a little less, although not too much less - haven't you learned anything from Paula Deen? Also, instead of adding more sprinkles, I made the white chocolate "rainbow chips" documented in my homemade Funfetti post. I liked that touch and recommend it, but if you don't want to take the six minutes to make them, I imagine sprinkles taste just fine. Or just adding white chocolate chips - all of the flavor, none of the color magic.

The batter is wonderful, FYI. After filling the pans, I "accidentally" left a blob at the bottom of the bowl that I was forced to lick off the spatula so as not to waste it. If it's acceptable at Next, it's acceptable in my kitchen.

Funfetti cake batter bar...batter.

Here is the recipe for the triple batch (whole box of cake mix), if you want to try it at home. For a single batch refer to Lovin's original post, then let me know what you do with leftover cake mix.

1 box Funfetti cake mix
2 1/4 cup AP flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 1/2 sticks butter, melted and slightly cooled
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons vanilla
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 bag of white chocolate chips and food coloring to make "rainbow chips"

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a few pans, since it's a triple batch. Recommendations: three 8x8, an 8x8 and a 9x13, etc. I did two 9x11 and a 6" round. Basically, whatever you've got.
Make rainbow chips: Melt white chocolate in the microwave. Remove and divide among several small bowls. Tint each bowl with food coloring and stir gently to distribute color evenly. Spread white chocolate on a parchment-lined baking sheet to cool and harden. Once hard, chop into tiny rainbow chips and mix all colors together.
In a LARGE bowl, cream both sugars, butter, vanilla, eggs, and egg yolks.
Gradually mix in flour, cake mix, and baking soda until just mixed. Stir in rainbow chips.
Spread batter evenly into greased pans.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until top is lightly browned and middle still jiggles slightly. Cool completely before cutting, or if you want them immediately, dig in - they are delicious hot and gooey.

Beginning of the collapse.

Some of the prettier middle pieces.

The bars come out looking normal, then suddenly collapse in the middle shortly after leaving the oven and beginning to cool, leaving you with puffed, jagged edges and a sunken middle. Not pretty for presentation purposes, but Sarah won't care what her birthday cake looks like (I hope):

Is that a cake or a moon rock?

They are still buttery, sugary bundles of joy, and the rugged terrain actually creates a textural playground: the crusty edges have a caramelized sugar taste and a dense chew, while the middle pieces are melt-in-your-mouth gooey.

Crunchy, chewy edges. Don't discriminate because they are ugly. You'll regret it.

Let me know if you make these! And a little feedback, please: do you like when I post recipes? Would you like me to more often? If so, I can pepper these in with my posts about my business. I plan to give a few more soon about my adventures in healthy baking, so look out for them. Let me know, either via comment, Facebook post, or email to dolce.decadence@gmail.com.

Oh, and if you're close enough that my fatass doesn't have to venture too far to find you (god forbid exercising after consuming one of these calorie bombs), I'd love to give you a Funfetti cake batter bar to get them OUT of my apartment...

My "Next" Kitchen Purchase - A Blowtorch

2012-01-19T15:06:00.000-06:00

While I know the purpose of this blog is not to review restaurants or tell you about meals I ate, I had a dining experience so mind-blowing recently that I just HAVE to share here. I had the privilege (and luck) of getting a ticket to the restaurant Next. For those of you who don't live in Chicago or read food blogs, Next is a new restaurant concept from Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas, the managing partners of Alinea. Alinea, currently ranked the best restaurant in North America and sixth in the world, is known for its creative presentation and deconstruction of classic flavors and is touted as breaking the way for the next modern food movement. While Alinea is still young and hot, mad culinary genius Achatz and his business partner Kokonas brainstormed a new dining concept, which became Next.

You cannot make a reservation for Next. You cannot call Next. Instead, Next operates under a ticketing system not unlike the theater or a concert - you purchase a ticket for dinner at a certain date/time. Sounds easy enough. Except it's not. To receive notification of when tickets become available, you submit your email to their website. And the waitlist for those notifications is hundreds of thousands of people long (that's my estimate - I know that when I signed up initially about a month before it opened last April, I was 20,000-25,000th in line). Even if you get the email notification, you have to go to the site ASAP, as tickets sell out in seconds. So not easy at all - more like impossible.

Luckily, they also reserve some tables to post for same-day seating or random future dates on their Facebook page. This is also still a mad dash, as tons of people check constantly for this posting. However, my friend Colleen was lucky enough to be one of these winners, and invited me as her foodie friend that would be most appreciative and excited about the experience. So wise of her.

Next strives to be fine dining, but not stuffy. The concept is a three month-long menu that takes the diner to a specific place and time. Going along with the idea that the restaurant is more like a theater presentation, the place settings and table decor change for each menu, and the waitstaff plays along to round out the experience. The dining room is dimly lit, small (62 seats), and not notably decorated, which I believe allows the restaurant to adapt to each menu theme, as well as lets the food take a starring role. The first menu, "Paris 1906 - Escoffier at the Ritz," captured the cuisine of legendary French chef Auguste Escoffier at his restaurant in the Ritz Carlton Hotel (of which he was a founding partner) in Paris 1906. The second menu, "Tour of Thailand," took diners through Next's interpretations of everything from Thai street food to an upscale dinner (the specific time and place of this one is kind of lost on me). The current menu, which is in its final days, is titled "Childhood" and can be described as "Michigan 1985" (or even Midwest 1980s), capturing the youths of both Achatz and chef Dave Beran. After being seated, they handed us this pamphlet, which explained the chefs' inspiration:

Outside of pamphlet.

Inside: Childhood explained.

What "Childhood" means is artfully prepared comfort food evoking the nostalgia Generation Y remembers from childhood meals. But I'm not just talking about dressed up versions like we often see at restaurants, such as mac 'n cheese with gourmet cheeses and add-ins. Rather, these courses were deconstructed, disguised, clever, and playful, appealling to adult wonder and naivete as a means of pulling out our inner child. Presentations often conjured specific scenes, and servingware gimmickry portrayed eating through the eyes of a child. The only not so "Childhood" thing about the experience was the option to add pairings (unless you were a nugget lush), which we heard were a must. We were given the option between domestic pairings or international; we chose domestic to keep the theme of an American meal.

Let's jump into the real thing - a course-by-course description:

1. PB&J

We were not told this course was PB&J; rather, we were presented with a "present," a small wrapped box, because "everyone likes to open presents." We were instructed to open (do not shake), place the item in our mouths, close our eyes, and figure out what the flavors remind us of. Colleen and I carefully unwrapped to find a small fried-looking ball sitting on a bed of chopped peanuts. We placed the ball in our mouths, closed our eyes, and bit into it. The tempura-like shell instantly gave way to a hot stream of sweet, fruity jelly, followed by quite possibly my most favorite salty flavor ever - peanut butter. The actual composition was liquefied roasted peanuts and pomegranate jelly, and the entire bite was so delicious that Colleen and I instantly lamented we didn't have a bowl full of those crispy, sweet-and-salty balls. The liquor pairing, which had a cherry flavor, complemented the sweet/salty combination nicely. There's no way they'd start the meal with the best course, so we knew great things were coming our way.

2. Chicken "Noodle" Soup

Pre-broth.

This next dish was unimpressive upon arrival: a huge bowl containing only celery, carrots, shallots, herbs, and noodles. Then, the server came and explained this was chicken "noodle" soup, complete with noodles made of chicken and a chicken-butter mousse to stir around in the chicken broth that he poured into each of our bowls. We took our oversized spoons and ladled in. The depth of the broth was unlike anything I've ever had, and the melted-in mousse created a silken texture that made me wonder why I've never added butter to soup before (um, because it makes you fat...?). The noodles, though composed of chicken, amazingly had the same consistency as the slippery noodles found in a can of Campbell's. And here was the first example of clever servingware: the oversized bowl and spoon made you suddenly feel little again, and apparently slurping was encouraged, although I didn't do it - just tipped my bowl to get the last of that amazing broth (I'm sure my etiquette-minded mother is gasping right now). Now Colleen and I said that we wanted a basket full of PB&J balls AND large bowls of the chicken noodle soup.

With the delicious broth.

3. Fish 'n Chips

The next course played to several aspects of childhood: stick figure drawings and playing with your food. Titled "Fish 'n Chips," the plate comes out depicting a drawing of a stick figure fishing under a sunny sky. Every component of this plate makes up what we know as fish 'n chips. The stick figure was drawn with balsamic reduction. He is standing on a beach of a crumbly mixture that is beer batter chips and herbs over top tartar sauce, with some malt vinegar sea foam splashing his feet. From a sea of pickled cucumbers, the fisherman catches a tender piece of walleye covered in a fried russet potato "net." A meyer lemon coulis sun shines overhead. We were instructed to taste all the individual elements, then put them together as we liked - to "play with our food." To recreate how I would actually eat the fish in fish 'n chips, my favorite bites were typically a touch of lemon coulis (squeezed lemon), a scraping of tartar sauce and crumbs (tartar sauce and the fried coating of the fish), a cucumber (the relish in tartar sauce), and a piece of fish (...the fish). For "chips" I liked the malt vinegar foam with a bit of the potato net. I didn't really understand where the balsamic fit in, but I ate it anyway. While it was really delicious and extremely creative, I think the dish suffered a bit at the whimsy of it all, as it was overall difficult to eat. But if my biggest complaint is that I found it hard to keep the desired components on my fork all at once, I'll shut up now.

Additionally, the wine pairing for the last two courses, a Pinot gris, was very crisp and refreshing - a nice start.

4. Mac & Cheese

Before server lifted the cylinder.

Upon presentation, I wasn't quite sure what this course was. A glass cylinder sat in the middle of the plate, circled by random bits of food. The server played along, asking us what we thought it was before lifting the cylinder to allow the contents to flood the plate. My suspicions were confirmed - mac & cheese! Noodles in a rich Wisconsin (I think?) cheddar sauce spread to the surrounding accoutrements, which were explained as covering the gamut of everyone's favorite mac 'n cheese mix-ins growing up. There was a prosciutto and arugula pinwheel, a mini "super-apple" cube, a "rock" that broke down into a powder that tasted like hot dogs, a disc of parmesan crumbs, a blob of tomato pulp, a fried, orange-y noodle, and a little fluff of finely grated parmesan. While I don't remember mixing anything into my mac 'n cheese growing up, I played along. The pinwheel was good but nothing to write home about. The apple provided a bit of tartness that paired nicely with the cheddar sauce. The hot dog rock was interesting - it tasted exactly like macaroni & cheese with hot dogs, which is not really my thing, but I still loved the ingenuity. The parmesan crumbs gave a good textural contrast, and the tomato pulp reminded me of a grilled cheese with tomatoes, which is always delicious. The fried noodle was meant to give the mac 'n cheese that Kraft orange-y color we grew up with, but I didn't like the texture of it with the other softer noodles, which were cooked to a perfect al dente (not reminiscent, and happily so, of the often over-boiled mac & cheese of my youth, the product of a nine year-old trying to make herself lunch). The parmesan fluff just made it extra cheesy. While the add-ins were fun, the perfectly cooked macaroni and rich, creamy sauce itself were the star, and Colleen and I added that to our previous list of things we could have eaten larger portions of.

For this course, they gave us TWO pairings. I preferred the Sangiovese to the Charbono, but couldn't finish either... I also still had half my Pinot gris and half my cherry liqueur sitting there. I realized I was getting waaaaay too into the food and forgetting about my pairings.

Garnishes, clockwise from top: ham/arugula pinwheel, super-apple, hot dog rock, parmesan disc, tomato pulp, fried noodle, and fluff of grated parmesan.

5. Autumn - "Winter Wonderland"

Not my picture, but I wanted you to see the underside.

The presentation of this dish was absolutely stunning. A hollowed log held earthy aromatics over 300-degree smoking rocks that gave off the aroma of a campfire. A glass plate over the smoking aromatics holds the dish, which literally looks like a forest landscape. In the pile are roasted mushrooms, a fried carrot "log," fried Swiss chard "leaves," fried leek "hay," a polenta "boulder" covered in powdered puffed black rice and mushroom powder "dirt," a powdery "rock" that tasted exactly like broccoli cheese soup, some berries I couldn't quite place, and an assortment of herbs, including sage and thyme. And I'm sure I forgot something, as it was a jumble that was impossible to sort through. This may have been my favorite dish. First, the smells hit you, and scenes of wandering through the forest come to mind. The earthly colors and variety of textures looked exactly like someone had scooped a handful of the forest floor and dropped it on the glass plate. I'm at a loss for words here - I don't know how else to describe it than you were eating what we normally associate with a smell - the musky, earthy, pungent smell of the woods. And let me tell you, if that's what the forest floor tastes like, I would happily be a deer, because it was phenomenal. The varying textures (touch) created a playground in the mouth, and, combined with the pungent flavors (taste), woodsy aromas (smell), the rich colors (sight), and the realistic snaps and stirring from assembling a bite (sound), provided an all-encompassing sensory experience that was downright mind-blowing. I happily scraped my plate for the fourth time that evening.

6. Hamburger

While this hardly looked like a hamburger upon first glance, the idea slowly materialized from the components. Red "ketchup" sauce smears, yellow mustard dashes, blobs of gelled mayonaise, crunchy bread crumbs, dehydrated pickles and mushrooms, carmelized onions, and fragments of a congealed sauce topped with sesame seeds that I realized were the "bun," all surrounded a hunk of short rib. The short rib had been seared on a griddle to give it a crisp exterior like a burger, but gave way to melt-in-your-mouth meat inside. While I wasn't a fan of the "bun" alone, on top of the short rib it tasted exactly like a bun with McDonald's special sauce. Add a little ketchup, mustard, and pickle, and suddenly I tasted a McDonald's burger. While not my favorite burger (read: this is no substitute for a real burger), it was amazing they could recreate that flavor. Adding some mushroom and onion jazzed the burger up a bit. I started to feel extremely full at this point, but of course I scraped my plate. And drank some wine - the hamburger was paired with a zinfadel, which is my favorite, and was by far the most full-bodied of the bunch, so I appreciated the progression.

7. School Lunch

My lunchbox.

This was arguably the most nostalgic course, as it came out in a lunchbox. Inside were several bites representative of a school-age child's packed lunch. From the exterior, everything looked conventional: an Oreo, a strip of beef jerky, a fruit roll-up, a puffed Funyun, a pudding cup, and a thermos.

Inside my lunchbox.

Oreo.

Beef jerky.

Fruit roll-up.

Funyun.

Pudding cup.

While the fruit roll-up and the Funyon were pretty standard, albeit less artificial-tasting versions, the rest were more unassuming. The Oreo was actually made from black truffles - the mushrooms, not the chocolate confections. The beefy jerky was tender Wagyu beef with hints of soy and spice. The pudding cup was actually layers of rich chocolate, banana, and hazelnut, and the thermos contained a delicious juice made from apple cider and fig, cherry, and bluberry juices. The lunchbox even contained a handwritten note:

My favorite item by far was the Oreo. I'm a sucker for anything truffle, but never before had I tried truffle in a sweet dish. It was outstanding. I didn't know how else to describe the flavor than if Oreos were harvested from the ground and not Nabisco factories. I also enjoyed the beef jerky, which started with a soy flavor and then gradually developed a spice so hot that you had to sip juice from your thermos. However, at this point I was getting so full that I could not quite finish the beef jerky or my juice.

8. "Foie"-sting

But now was not the time to be full, as the server came out bearing our first true dessert course. On the plate was a beater dipped in what looked like frosting, along with two donut balls on parchment paper, as if they were fresh-plucked from the bakery case. The server explained these as apple cider donut holes dusted in cinnamon and sugar. Standard. The frosting, though? “Foie”-sting – frosting made from whipped foie gras. As I think I’ve had foie gras once in my life, I was not sure what I expected this to taste like, so I picked up the beater and took a lick. WOW. Rich. Sweet. Creamy. Decadently fantastic. I dipped a donut in and took a bite. Unreal. My only criticism was that the donuts were not hot; while I am uncertain whether they were supposed to be, I believe it goes without saying that any donut served in a restaurant should be freshly fried (so I guess they really were reminiscent of the bakery case). Regardless, I wished I had more than two donut holes to dip into the foie-sting. I also wished I wasn’t getting so incredibly full, because I wanted to lick every last drop of the foie-sting off the plate and the beater, which was, by the way, so nostalgic (except I still do that...). But I just couldn’t do it. Oh, and they brought out an ice wine to complement the dessert courses, which felt like overkill since I was about to burst.

9. Campfire

Though Colleen and I were both waning at this point after eight rich, substantial courses and what felt like bottomless wine pairings (seriously, full glasses for each course - they'd often leave the bottle on the table for refills, plus random liquor pairings as well - one could easily get bombed at this dinner), we perked up when the next – and last – course came out. The server laid a plate in the middle of the table containing a few dark logs and some dust, then took a blowtorch to it. He explained that our “campfire” was actually composed of sweet potato “logs” and powdered alcohol “dust” that contained campfire aroma, and sure enough, I felt transported back to a summer campfire with the aroma. Another server laid dishes in front of each of us and explained we were not having what one would expect from a campfire (s’mores/roasted marshmallows), but sweet potato pie, which was a big part of the chef’s childhood. Our individual plates contained apricot puree, pecan streusel, marshmallows, and bourbon ice cream; we were then supposed to take a sweet potato from the fire, mix it in with everything on our plate, and then drizzle the entire thing with a warm toffee sauce that the waiter described as a “river of deliciousness.”

My pie components waiting for the sweet potato logs.

Colleen and I roasted our marshmallows just before the fire died, then started assembling our bites of sweet potato pie. Again, just incredible. The components alone were not much to write home about (except the toffee, which I could have drank out of the mini carafe), but together were delicious. The streusel added just a bit of crunch to the otherwise soft ingredients. The campfire aroma in the sweet potatoes gave the dish a little smoky depth. The ice cream, which was almost too bourbon-y on its own, came alive with the addition of the toffee. As we were struggling to finish this off, they brought out yet another course…

10. Hot Chocolate

While not actual food, it may as well have been, as this hot chocolate was made with 70% cacao chocolate and whole milk. It was just bitter enough to not be overly decadent after everything we had been through, but we both only managed a couple sips. They served it with a liqueur to spike it, but Colleen couldn’t do it at all and I only tried a splash so I could say I tried it. At this point my fluffy bed and some loose pajamas sounded really nice. Next was thinking the same thing – since everyone has reserved table times, no one is really allowed to linger, and they do that politely by calling you a cab. I put on my coat that now barely buttoned around my belly and wandered out, dazed by what a fabulous experience we had just had. They gave us the pamplet from the beginning, now containing the menu and pairings:

The next day I surprisingly starving from what I am guessing was a stretched out stomach. All my food seemed incredibly boring. A "soup and sandwich" is really only that - soup and a sandwich? Where's my basket of fried PB&J balls?

While I have now returned to normal (I contentedly accepted pizza as just pizza today), I was trying to think of anything I could take away from them for my own desserts. Most of their innovation is from deconstruction and in-the-moment presentation, which wouldn't work for me. I can't imagine telling a client, "Now, when you go to serve this cake, light the cake on fire, then take this dust and throw it over top - it will turn into frosting!" This is mostly because I don't know how to make fairy frosting dust, but also because people buy from me because they don't want to do anything - they want something pretty and ready to go, or else they would make it themselves. So perhaps total deconstruction won't work, but I think it can work in a different way - deconstructing components to reconstruct in a different form. For example, Next served sweet potato pie as a campfire. I could serve sweet potato pie as a cupcake - pie crust base, a sweet potato cake, torched bourbon-marshmallow frosting, and streusel sprinkled over top. The possibilities for this are endless. Any ideas for your childhood favorites you'd like to see reconstructed?

Oh, I guess there was one thing I can take away directly to apply to my own desserts: I have to get a blowtorch.

First Wedding Cake Part V: THE REAL DEAL - Decoration and Presentation!

2012-01-02T15:46:00.002-06:00

(Carrying on with the play-by-play from the last post:)

11:00am Friday: After hitting snooze a few times, I removed the t-shirt wrapped around my eyes (SO bright in that room from the beach rays coming in (I know, what a thing to complain about) that I had to create a makeshift eye mask) and dragged my ass out of bed. I felt pretty confident after the previous day's work, with only the major parts left: stacking the tiers and decorating. At this point I was SO grateful I did the practice run, as doweling and stacking was like cake (pun somewhat intended) now. Cutting the cardboard, dowels, and rods was much easier with the utility knife picked up the day before rather than the steak knife I had used in the practice run. A ruler to measure the dowels exactly rather than eye-balling was also a smart move. After doweling the first two tiers, I was ready to stack. I carefully lifted each tier with the cake lifter and placed it gingerly on top of its base. Alas, I stood back and took a look...

Doweled.

Stacked.

Driving the wooden rod through.

12:00pm: WE ARE UP! Seeing it stacked was an amazing feeling, like I had defied gravity. No one was around, and I was completely in the zone. I felt good enough to take a short yoga break on the deck, both as a release of gratitude and for a little practice since I was missing my yoga teacher-training sessions that weekend (yes, my interests are VERY diversified). I suddenly was overcome with some of the strongest feelings of happiness I have ever felt. Here, in this kitchen in Florida, making this cake, was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was so grateful to have that experience so I could know that I was capable of producing that sort of happiness by myself and for myself. It resides within me. Tears started coming to my eyes. I wanted to relish this moment forever, then figure out how to replicate it going forward. My only idea was to become a traveling cake maker for the wealthy...

12:30pm: Anyways, emotional digression. Pull it together, girl: I know you're happy, but there's a cake to make! I prepped my piping bags and got to work. As I started piping, I became inspired to break away from the practice run designs, so I started piping different ideas onto a sheet of parchment paper. The vertical edges of the cake were so strong that I wanted to accentuate them. I piped the balls at the base of each tier, as planned. But then I piped a few balls going up and down each vertical edge and horizontal edge, framing the corners. I liked that but felt it needed some sort of connection, so I grabbed a smaller tip and piped graduated balls between the corners, so that all the edges were subtly delineated. I was really pleased with this look and moved onto the faces of the tiers. I measured out exact distances between balls and piped them on. At this point, more of Traci's family had started to arrive, and I could hear kids screaming as they jumped in the pool. I tried to not let this ruin my inner peace from earlier. More people = more likely something is going to get messed up, so I focused and worked steadily to finish.

4:00pm: I'M DONE! Exactly 24 hours later. So precisely 16 hours of work to make this cake. I carried the cake like it was my firstborn child over to the fridge and gently placed it inside. We had made a sign the night before for the outside that said, "Please do not open," and I made sure it was firmly in place. I breathed in deeply to trust that when I returned the next day it would look exactly the same (try putting your baby in a fridge overnight! Yeah, exactly...), then left the house to check into the hotel and await the arrival of more friends.

5:00pm Saturday: One of the final, scary duties: transporting the cake to the reception. The ceremony was beautiful, and some friends and I went and got lunch and drinks afterward (again, only one beer), but the thought of transporting the cake loomed in the back of my mind. While I was done, I wasn't actually done yet, and knew I wouldn't feel done until the cake was safely on the table at the reception. My friends, boyfriend Ted, and I walked into what had been my home the last couple days, and I slowly opened the fridge. PHEW - the cake looked exactly the same. Apparently many people sleeping at that house didn't even know the cake was in there. Trickery - even better. I packed up the last of my supplies, grabbed the bowls of extra frosting (for any touch-ups that could arise, god forbid) and lemon curd (for snacks in the car - so freaking good), and watched Ted pull the cake from the fridge. While he's a very agile, steady gentleman that I have never once seen trip or fall, except maybe when slipping on ice or a wet dance floor, I was still nervous as hell. I walked in front of him to clear the path, only having to threaten one small child along the way. Interaction went as follows:

Kid sees the cake. Says: "Oooo is that the cake?" (makes fist gesture) "I'm going to smush it!"

Me: "I'm going to smush you!" - and then realized the Jersey Shore had given that word another meaning that suddenly made me a pedophile...

I held my breath as Ted carried the cake down the twisting front stairs. But, as he is rather tall with large, steady feet and hands, the cake made it safely to my minivan. We folded down some seats and I hopped in the back. We placed the cake on the floor of the trunk, and I held it down with a death grip, while Ted drove like his firstborn child was in the back of the van.

5:20pm: While driving, my friends had some fun with the leftover frosting and curd:

Holding on for life.

5:45pm: We arrived at the reception with the cake intact. I kept having these nightmare flashes that, just when I thought we were almost there, something bad happened. In the car, we were going to get rear-ended. Now that we arrive, Ted was going to trip in the grass while walking the cake to the table. Of course I fret for no reason: the cake made it safely to the table. However, we were not done yet! Traci had ordered a few extra springs of orchids to match her bouquet, and now it was time to artfully arrange them on the cake. This was one part I actually didn't prep for at all, and was suddenly like, "Oh, crap, I hope this goes as smoothly as I figured it would." The only weird part was actually having to smash the flowers into the side of the cake - if for some reason I changed my mind about the arrangement, I was screwed. So I went slowly and deliberately, until we had a stream of purple orchids coming down the cake. Much more beautiful than I had anticipated.

I thought I would feel "done" at this point, but I didn't. During the lovely cocktail hour, my mind kept wandering to whether the cake was okay. I realized then that I wouldn't feel "done" until the final piece: the cake-cutting ceremony.

8:00pm: Traci rushed over to my reception table to grab me for pictures with her, Stephen, and the cake. Then, it was time for the cake cutting. I think the expected feeling is that watching them cut and eat it would feel like someone was ruining your masterpiece. Au contraire - as everyone was gathering, expressing both happiness for the couple and excitement for me, I knew I wasn't going to feel upset. And, as the knife touched the surface of the cake, halted for a second, then slowly sunk through, I actually felt a wave of relief wash over me. IT WAS DONE. I had made my first wedding cake, and it was a complete success.

The cake joined the other fabulous desserts at the dessert bar, and people started mulling through. While the cake was small, the staff did an excellent job of cutting it into smaller pieces so that everyone who wanted to try a bit of cake was able to. I received dozens of compliments from guests; some people who said they normally don't even like cake or frosting LOVED this cake, probably because it was so light and refreshing.

Overall, it was a fantastic success, and I am so grateful to Traci and Stephen for giving me this opportunity. I cannot wait to make my next wedding cake, so if you're getting married soon and are looking for a great-tasting, affordable baker, I'm your girl ;)

First Wedding Cake Part IV: THE REAL DEAL - Preparation

2012-01-02T15:44:00.002-06:00

Apologies for the delay - one New Year's resolution is to update more frequently :(

ANYWAYS... back to the never ending wedding cake. THEN we can move onto more timely topics.

Three days after the practice run, it was time to start packing for Florida. I ended up with two bags: one for clothes and one for cake supplies. The cake supply bag contained my pans, a cake lifter (giant, round spatula), piping bags, tips, and couplers, metal icing spatulas, dowels, wooden rods, cake drum (base), cardboard tier bases, frosting smoother (looks like a mini iron), and my apron (figured this was an occasion as any). I prayed I could carry them both on, because after my boyfriend's recent loss of luggage through Southwest (a suitcase full of a week's worth of clothes that covered the gamut of poolside clothes, going out clothes, warm-weather casual clothes, work clothes, workout clothes - i.e., an entire closet), I was not going to risk losing one of these bags. I still question what would have been a more detrimental loss: the clothes or the cake supplies...

Lugging the bags through the airport was less than fun, and security almost confiscated the metal spatulas. Really?? About the only harm those can do is a mild slap, let alone take down a plane. Another gripe: every time I go through security/board a plane, they tell me I have too many carry-ons (a duffel or tote, a rolling suitcase, and a purse). Then, they watch me put the purse inside the duffel/tote, then let me board. What's the difference??? It's the same weight on the plane no matter how many containers it's in...

Anyways, the flight was short and smooth, and upon arrival in Sarasota I picked up my rental car - I was "upgraded" to a minivan for free. Not the most stylish ride, but definitely the most practical for cake transportation. And the license plate had the word "YUM" in it. Perfect.

After a short ride we arrived at Casey Key Road, the mini island where Traci's family and friends have houses, as well as where all the guests' hotels were. So, these houses... UNBELIEVABLE. My jaw dropped as we arrived at her family friend's house, which was where I'd be baking. This place was cavernous. The ceilings in the foyer and living room had to be at least 30 feet tall, there were enough bedrooms to house a sleepover for a family of 12 plus 25 of their closest friends, a pool deck straight out of Cribs, and the kitchen... OH, what a kitchen! So many cabinets there was a library ladder (think Beauty and the Beast-style) to reach the top ones; a granite island so large that at one point 12 people were standing around it like a cooking show, staring at me as I assembled the cakes (ummm, uncomfortable); a completely empty fridge and freezer for cake storage (this was a vacation home); and all the supplies and ingredients I needed already sitting on the counter, thanks to Traci's mom. I only had to grab a few more things from the store, and then it was time to get to work!

The amazing kitchen. I know, poor me...

View from the kitchen while working.

View of the patio from the living room.

4pm Thursday: As I had a pretty limited amount of time, I had to be very efficient in my tasks. So, first things first: the raspberry puree, a component of the cake. As the mixer could only hold one unit of the recipe at a time, I had to mix up three separate sets of batter. I got my first set of pans in the oven, then

started mixing up the next batch. The empty freezers were clutch for a quick turnaround - I just placed the baked cakes straight from the oven into the freezer to cool quickly and preserve moisture. The cakes popped easily out of the pans, the pans were cooled, and I could move onto the next batch.

6:30pm: Around this time I realized I needed to make the lemon curd ASAP so it had enough time to set up and would be ready when it was time to layer the cakes. Luckily, Crissy had just arrived, so she made the curd while I continued with cake mixing and baking.

7:30pm: Time to make the frosting. It whipped up just as perfectly as it did for the tasting. I had grabbed a couple Godiva vanilla bean white chocolate bars at the grocery for the little white chocolate addition. They melted smoothly, and I added them in. The results completely blew me away: not only was the butter flavor gone, but the vanilla beans in the bars imparted a deep, floral, vanilla flavor that I was not expecting. SO delicious. You could also see the vanilla bean flecks in the frosting. This flavor will be a must in my Swiss buttercream in the future, whether via this exact chocolate or the addition of vanilla bean. So pleased.

8:30pm: Dinner break. A slice of pizza. I realized how hungry I was then after only eating a slice of cheese and some crackers earlier that day. Laugh all you want, but cake making is an athletic endeavor: you have to take care of yourself, eat healthy, etc. so that no bodily discomforts prevent you from wanting to stand and work steadily for 11 hours straight (as I did that day). I don't really know how fat chefs do it, unless they eat all the bad stuff after their shift...

8:45pm: Back to it. Time to start assembling. I first leveled the tops of the cakes so they did not slope. After organizing the attack (think rows of cakes ready for stacking), I was ready to go. I piped frosting around the outer edge of the bottom and middle layers to create a dam for the lemon curd, then spooned in the filling. I stacked the layers for each tier, then leveled the sides to create the right angles I mentioned in the last post. These scraps were a hit, as they contained the cake, the filling, and the frosting. People mulling around the kitchen (all the friends and family that had arrived early were staying at this house Thursday night) forked a cake scrap, dipped it in the leftover lemon curd (we made a triple batch to be safe but only used a half batch - oops), and then spooned on a little frosting. Even in this form the cake was already getting rave reviews. After doing the scrap-dip, Stephen, the groom, said, "Wow, that tastes like jumping in a pool - so refreshing."

Mmmm delicious scraps.

10:00pm: Though I wanted to indulge in the plentiful beer and wine with the others, I knew it was a bad idea in order to keep my stamina (told you it was athletic), so I had half a beer and kept chugging (at work, not my drink). As soon as I started the crumb coat process, I realized what I was getting myself into... another several hours of frosting. I did the crumb coat on each tier while the other two sat in the freezer, firming up. The layers were sliding a bit from the loosey-goosey lemon curd, and that had to stop. The freezer was awesome because it firmed up the frosting enough that it didn't nick easily when I moved from the freezer to the counter.

12:30am Friday: Aaaaaaand I'm still frosting. People started to go to bed, but I knew my time wasn't yet. I allowed the crumb coats to firm, then started applying the final frosting coat. I don't know if the humidity was at the perfect level down there, but the frosting was spreading like velvet. I had bought all these precautions for smoothing - Viva paper towels, a fondant smoother - but needed none of them, so the offset spatula was enough. I became giddy about how seamlessly this process had gone thus far. Now, let's hope it continues that way...

3:00am: Aaaaaand time for bed. All three tiers have their final coat of frosting and are chilling in the refrigerator overnight to prepare for the next day: tiering and decorating. See you tomorrow...

First Wedding Cake Part III: The Practice Run

2011-11-17T18:59:00.000-06:00

I last left off with a successful tasting that left me with the bigger task: the presentation of the cake. Ever since Stephen and Traci had asked me to do their cake, I had tossed various ideas around in my head, most bordering on the sensational. As the wedding was in Florida, I had this idea for a cake with ocean wave frosting and a boat topper with a bride and groom riding off into the sunset, complete with cans and a "just married" sign hanging off the back of the boat. Uh huh.... I have never done anything like that in my life, so I don't know why I thought I could do that now. I ain't no Cake Boss.

My "simpler" idea was to mimic a photo on their save the date, which was the date of their wedding (10.22.11) drawn in the sand, surrounded by coral chunks and seashells. Didn't seem that hard, but still... what was I thinking? This was a wedding cake, not a 10 year-old's beach-themed birthday cake.

Their save-the-date on my fridge. Sand heart in bottom left corner.

My next idea was to do a simple, classic, white wedding cake and mimic the blue floral designs that I knew were going to be on Traci's wedding dress, unbeknownst to Stephen. However, just as I was mulling over this thought a few hours after Traci had left the tasting, I received a call from her. She said she had looked up the Smitten Kitchen frosting recipe I had mentioned when telling her about the cake research and had fallen in love with Smitten Kitchen's final cake design. Obviously I knew this cake by heart after studying her posts and was therefore ELATED at this news - the design was really simple, just a square, three-tiered cake with pearl button accents and a stream of real orchids (thank GOD, no sugar flowers) running down the side. I instantly felt confident - I knew I could handle that. Also, after Traci's minor freakout when she found out just how massive the dessert bar order was, we decided upon a slightly smaller size - an 8" tier, a 6" tier, and a 4" tier - to avoid dessert OD. A smaller cake was even more manageable for me, and my stress began to dissolve away.

However, the one thing I needed to do still was learn how to stack tiers. I did extensive research on Wilton's website one day, which is a great resource for anything baking. I watched tutorial video after tutorial video on how to how to level a cake, frost it evenly, insert dowels, stack tiers, touch up mistakes, pipe designs, etc. I was then ready for the practice run: a full scale model of the wedding cake.

As construction was my main concern, I didn't want to take the time to bake the actual cake recipe, so I prepared a few spruced-up box mixes in flavors requested by my roommates. I figured since they were going to have to deal with a lot of leftovers - a whole wedding cake, to be precise - they may as well like what they were eating. After calculating cake pan volumes, I figured out that one prepared mix (which was equal to one unit of the raspberry-lemon cake) would make one layer of each tier - so, a 8" cake, a 6", and a 4". So, three cake mixes (or three units of the actual cake recipe). I made a set of chocolate layers (if you want the convenience of a mix but not the taste, I actually recommend this chocolate cake recipe - it turns out surprisingly dense and delicious), strawberry (white cake mix with strawberries mixed in), and rainbow chip (I HAD to try it after bashing it so much, and I stand by what I said - it's so not as good as Funfetti). I also just bought some frosting canisters for the filling - box mixes don't deserve homemade lemon curd.

Tiers ready to frost.

At this point I discovered my new favorite part of cake making: the cake scraps from leveling. In order to get perfect squares, you have to cut off a decent amount of the cake's edges, which leaves you with some delicious snacks. All my roommates were clamoring over the scraps, especially since they saw this cake being baked but couldn't eat it until it was completely constructed, which would be another day.

Leveled cake - notice the clean-cut sides.

Enormous batch of buttercream. Good thing I got the enormous mixer.

I prepared a large batch of the Swiss buttercream, and, after leveling, I filled, stacked, and frosted the layers to create the three tiers. I then doweled the bottom two tiers, which was a pretty cool process. I never realized how architectual cakes are. Each tier sits on a cardboard base, and then all the tiers besides the top have hollow plastic dowels in them, upon which the cardboard base sits for support, instead of on top of the actual cake. Then, once all the tiers are stacked, you sharpen a wooden rod (this felt very outdoorsman of me) and drive it through the middle of all the tiers in order to stabilize it. Just frost over the top and voilà, it's magic - no one knows there are all these rods running through the cake to support it.

Supplies to build.

Dowels in place.

At this point I made a list of things I would do differently on the actual cake:

Level the tiers as evenly as possible before frosting. On a square cake, especially a smaller one, any deviation from right angles is really noticeable.
Trim the cardboard bases after leveling but before frosting. I originally tried trimming them after frosting, and it's impossible to do without messing up your smoothing work. Lesson learned.
Trim the dowels to be flush with the top of the cake. On the practice run they were a little too tall, causing each tier to kind of float above its base. Looks weird and shabby.
Apply a crumb coat. This will create the smoothest frosting possible with no signs of cake crumbs.
Add a little melted-and-cooled white chocolate to the frosting to mitigate the taste of butter. I read this in a food blog and thought it was worth trying, since buttercreams can often give the impression of gnawing on a stick of butter. Paula Deen may like this, but the rest of us do not, no matter how much we love butter (perhaps the only instance where more butter isn't necessarily better). However, from the practice run I learned to ensure the white chocolate cools completely after melting before adding it to the buttercream. If it doesn't, upon addition it will seize up from the moisture and coldness of the butter, and the frosting will not smooth easily due to the white chocolate shards.
Do not refrigerate the frosting. It takes forever to soften the butter in it to a spreadable point again, and if the air temperature is pretty moderate, it's fine sitting on the counter for a few days. However, this also gave me some insight into something else I should do...
Refrigerate/freeze the cake in intervals and overnight. Seeing how hard the frosting got in the fridge gave me the impression that it would be wise to refrigerate the tiers for a bit in between the crumb coat and the final coat, as well as overnight before stacking. This would allow the crumb coat to capture in all the crumbs and minimize knicking and damage while stacking. I found it extremely difficult to move the cakes even an inch without messing them up in the practice run, and I knew this could not happen on the real thing.

Tiers with too-large cardboard bases and too-tall dowels.

I also experimented a little with the pearl button piping design. Ultimately, I just liked evenly spaced out dots, and I knew the orchid stream down one side would steal the show anyway, so I wasn't too concerned. My roommates dug into the leftovers, and I brought the bottom tier into the work breakroom, where it was devoured by 10:30am. I was a little embarrassed how many people were like, "OMG, this wedding cake is awesome!", since I would rather die than serve a Rainbow Chip wedding cake, but oh well - I figured I'd let the final product speak for itself.

Not a fan of the diagonal stripes. Decided on the bottom design.

Practicing some piping patterns. Those balls are a little too big...

Cross-section of top tier. Neopolitan wedding cake?

From there, it was countdown: three days until the REAL THING in Florida!

First Wedding Cake Part II: The Tasting

2011-11-13T20:08:00.001-06:00

So, the tasting. As I mentioned in the first post, the tasting was planned for Labor Day, which was the day after the bachelorette party as well as the weekend that all my college roommates visited. I finished making the tasting cakes just in time to run off to Traci's bachelorette party. Let's breakdown the process:

The Cake:

Easy-peasy. As I had already made this cake for Joanna, I knew what was coming. After baking and cooling, I cut the cake into six mini cakes that would allow for filling experimentation.

The Filling:

First: the lemon curd. This is especially easy if you have a food processor. Almost all prep can be done in there, including the zest, so you can then dump the contents into a pot to heat and thicken. One of the cool things about curd is that it seems so fluid and liquidy and it feels like you're stirring forever, but suddenly you feel some traction and before you know it, you have curd. And OMG is it delicious. I wasn't expecting it to be that good. But damn - you don't need a cake to eat this, just a spoon.

After realizing how delicious the lemon curd was, I had a feeling making the raspberry was pointless, but I did it anyway. It basically involved boiling raspberries until their cell walls broke down into nothing, then pushing them through a strainer to remove the seeds, then returning them back to the stove to cook into a jelly-like state. Good, but not that different than jam/jelly in my opinion, and I had a feeling it was going to be too much raspberry with the cake. But that was for Traci to decide.

The Frosting:

I followed Smitten Kitchen's Swiss Buttercream recipe to a T, and was pretty pleased. Really light and fluffy. Spreadability/smoothness was yet to be determined, as I was in a hurry to get to the party when I was frosting the tasting samples. Since I planned to do a practice construction run, I figured I'd spend more time on it then.

I made several mini cakes: one with lemon curd filling, one with raspberry filling, one with lemon curd and raspberry swirled, one with just buttercream filling, one with a layer of buttercream topped by the lemon curd, raspberry, or swirled filling. I hoped a little bite of each would be sufficient for Traci to decide.

The Tasting:

Traci and her bridesmaid/our friend Crissy came over the morning after the bachelorette party to taste the cake. As soon as Traci walked in, I got the feeling that a tasting the night after a bachelorette party was a bad idea. She had two gatorade bottles and a bag of cheetos in her purse, and told me she had just eaten a hamburger for breakfast. We did the tasting outside because the fresh air felt good, and at times Traci just laid her head on the table. I couldn't help but laugh, as we all felt like death. Luckily, Crissy was there. An avid foodie (read her blog here!), she is still eloquent and excited about food even when hungover, and therefore a good tasting attendee. Fortunately, the decision was unanimous - both Traci and Crissy easily agreed the lemon curd filling was their favorite. I sent a little leftover cake home with Traci to Florida for Stephen and their parents to try to make sure everyone agreed with Traci's tastebuds; Crissy and other friends that stopped by took some home as well.

Traci evaluating the first bite of lemon curd filling.

Crissy (left) and Traci digging in.

So now I was completely set on the cake. Now, the look? Yikes, I had some work to do...

First Wedding Cake Part I: The Research

2011-11-09T23:59:00.000-06:00

I can't remember if I ever officially announced this prior to it actually happening, but back in February my friends Traci and Stephen asked me to make their wedding cake in October. Naturally I was flattered, but I was also a little nervous - me, make a wedding cake? Are you sure you trust me enough? But they did. After numerous tastings with other bakers, they thought my stuff tasted better, probably because they were eating fondant, which is about as tasty as a cardboard box. Since they were having a dessert bar at the wedding full of delicious mini goodies, they just wanted a smaller cake to cut in pictures. For this purpose, I was the most economical, delicious, and personal way to go.

Stephen (white shirt), Traci, and me (and Josh in the back left) back in the good old college days.

Which meant... I was making a wedding cake!!!! AHHHH!!! That's kind of big-time in the American baker world. People place A LOT of importance on their wedding cake, often spending a lot of money on it. Everyone does the cake cutting tradition, you take lots of pictures with the cake, guests talk about how good the cake was (or was not), etc. And Traci and Stephen wanted me, trusted me, to fulfill this part of their wedding. This lit a fire under my ass: it had to be the most beautiful and delicious thing I had ever made.

While the thoughts of tiering and decorating scared the crap out of me, I decided to work on the more manageable details first - the inside of the cake. Stephen, Traci, and I went back and forth on flavors but struggled a bit to find some harmony: Traci doesn't like chocolate, Stephen likes anything mocha/coffee-flavored, and I just wanted a simple buttercream frosting as a foundation for whatever decorating route I chose. Eventually, we allowed the wedding to dictate the flavors, and a Florida beach wedding called for something lighter. Traci asked about something fruit-flavored, perhaps lemon or raspberry, so I suggested the same raspberry-lemon cake I had made for Joanna's cake truffle wedding favors. Traci loved the idea. One aspect down; (what felt like) 897 to go.

I had set goals of researching, developing, practicing, etc. all summer, but never got very far with it - most occurred in my thoughts and that was the extent. So, when Traci asked if she could do a tasting after her bachelorette party over Labor Day weekend, a fire was again lit under my ass - time to figure out the exact cake composition. I did some research on what fillings might be best for the cake and decided upon either homemade rasperry filling or lemon curd; I figured I would serve samples of each at the tasting to see what tasted better with the cake.

Additionally, I did extensive research on buttercream recipes. Did you know there are MANY kinds of buttercream? American buttercream, French buttercream, Italian buttercream, Swiss buttercream, etc., with the difference residing in the eggs and fats used, as far as I can tell: some use no eggs (American), some use egg whites (Italian, Swiss), some use egg yolks (French). For the fats, some use shortening (often, American, or "Decorators" - the crap on grocery store cakes), and others use butter (French, Italian, Swiss). If you know anything about food, you'd clearly concede without tasting that French, Italian, or Swiss should be more delicious, as eggs and butter make everything better (and not just in baking - think fried eggs on burgers, butter in cooking à la Paula Deen, etc.). The problem with butter-based buttercreams, however, is their stability, or lack thereof - butter melts more easily than shortening, which, if baking during the summer months or in more tropical locales, could result in a mess and a complete failure in the cake department of the wedding.

Since this wedding was in Florida in October, when the average temperature ranged from 70-85 degrees (thank you for your monthly averages, weather.com), I was a little nervous. But, I didn't want to use a shortening-based frosting, as this would defeat the purpose of them asking me to do it - I make things that taste good, but not necessarily as fancy-looking. Luckily, at the time of the tasting, we were experiencing a heat wave in Chicago for late-August/early-September - around an 85-degree high. As this properly mimicked the conditions in Florida in terms of both temperature and humidity (ugh, a hot Midwest day can be disgusting), I knew that if the samples withstood this tasting, the cake would be fine.

Now: time to choose a recipe. French, Italian, Swiss? I was loathing the idea of doing French and Italian out of laziness, as they both require a candy thermometer to heat the eggs, sugar, etc. to a certain temperature called the "softball stage" that I just didn't want to deal with, especially if Swiss tasted just as good. I considered making them all to see if I could even tell the difference. One day, I happened to be looking at the Celebration Cake section on one my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen, for a birthday cake idea, when I stumbled upon her blog posts about her first wedding cake. I pored over her posts, which contained tons of tips and tricks for the first-timer. The one that caught my eye in particular, though, was the post about her buttercream experimentation, which happened to be Swiss. It looked super easy, and she swore it tasted delicious, was easy to spread and smoothe, and stood up well to heat. Delicious, easy to work with, stable? PERFECT. While I'm somewhat skeptical of a lot of blogs and recipe posts, Smitten Kitchen is pretty legit, so I trusted her on this one. Plus, the tasting would be the perfect opportunity to test it out.

Raspberry-lemon cake, raspberry OR lemon curd fulling, and Swiss buttercream frosting. Time to prep for the tasting....

Thanksgiving Menu! Place Your Orders NOW!

2011-11-03T22:48:00.001-05:00

Fully knowing how easily swayed most of you are by dessert descriptions and pictures (I have received lots of compliments involving the word "drool"), I have made a Thanksgiving menu of desserts so you can place an order without actually thinking AND make your family forever indebted to your dessert generosity - and consequently, you forever indebted to me.

Following is the menu with prices. More information:

Pictures are featured for sizing/presentation purposes, but may not represent the actual dessert (but pretty damn close).
All items can be made gluten- or nut-free.
As mentioned previously, I put these together to make your life easier - I know how much you hate thinking and deciding. If, however, you do not see what you want here (for example, classic carrot cake), please just let me know - I can make whatever your little heart desires.
Please contact me as soon as you can with Thanksgiving orders. Final pick-up/delivery will be the evening of Wednesday, November 23rd, as I have to haul ass on my own Thanksgiving dinner all day Thursday (my first time hosting!).

Hope to hear from you soon!

Thanksgiving 2011 Dessert Menu:

Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting and Toasted Pecans

The same recipe as my famed carrot cake, only with the addition of pumpkin and a maple cream cheese frosting. Tastes like fall in your mouth. Comes in three sizes. (Pictures are actually of carrot cakes, but sizing and look will be the same.)

-Three-layer cake (approximately 9" diameter and 4" tall, feeds 10-12): $48

-Four-layer cake (approximately 9" diameter and 6" tall, feeds 20-24): $68

-Bundt cake (imagine picture as full size ;): $55

*For cupcakes or mini Bundt cakes, please inquire about pricing.

Pumpkin Roll

A thin, spiced pumpkin cake rolled with a rich cream cheese filling. Slice into pinwheels for individual servings. (While not my picture, will look just like it.)
12" roll (yield depends on how thick you slice it ;): $22

Pumpkin-Butterscotch Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce

Pumpkin-spiced bread gooey pudding studded with pecans and butterscotch morsels, topped with a buttery caramel sauce. Best served warm with ice cream (a cinnamon variety would be awesome but vanilla is fantastic), but many prefer cold. (Picture is of a serving suggestion of my Banana-Butterscotch Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce - you get the idea.)

9"x13" pan: $38

Apple Crisp with Rum Caramel Sauce

Apple crisp that can no longer be justfied as a "healthy" dessert. Double-layer (that's right - crisp on both TOP and BOTTOM) cinnamon-spiced oat crisp sandwiches tart yet slightly sweet cinnamon-spiced apples, all drizzled with a rum caramel sauce.

9"x13" pan: $40

Apple Pie

Cinnamon and nutmeg-scented apples top a buttery, flaky pie crust, with your choice of a full pastry crust, crumb topping, or lattice crust.

$30

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

Tastes like your favorite chocolate chip cookie in a pie crust, only with that much-needed holiday addition: booze. Plus, what's a dessert menu without something chocolate.

$30

What Do Engagements, Birthdays, and Tailgates Have in Common...?

2011-11-01T22:58:00.000-05:00

DESSERTS!

In my effort to catch back up to the present or even the past couple weeks, I am forced to do a summary blog post. A dessert drive-by, if you will. All the orders I had recently that I would love to go more in depth about, but need to get back on schedule. So, here are they are:

1. Becca and Barrett's Engagement Cupcakes

I know I mentioned in earlier posts that my coworker Becca (Remember the drink cakes? That was her order.) recently got engaged to her boyfriend, Barrett. Becca's friends threw an engagement party for them about a month after the proposal, and, knowing Becca's affinity for Dolce + Decadence's/my desserts, ordered some cupcakes to round out the celebration. As I have received much dessert feedback from Becca over our time as coworkers (and from Barrett, when she took my treats home to him), I knew red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting was one of their favorite cupcakes. I wanted to dress them up a bit, however, and thus thought of the dark chocolate engagement rings and "B"s, which conveniently covered ALL the initials of the soon-to-be Barrett and Becca Boody. After considering molds of some sort, I decided to just melt chocolate and pipe it out by hand. The one thing I learned was to let the chocolate cool a bit so you have more control over writing and it isn't freely running out the tip. The cupcakes were a hit at the party (I think my boyfriend ate about four of them), and Becca and Barrett loved them. Congratulations to them :)

2. Courtney's Birthday Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte

My cousin Courtney recently moved out of Ohio for the first time in her life to Chicago for a new job. Leaving Ohio also meant the first time in Courtney's life that my Aunt Nancy could not make Courtney's birthday dessert. But, how convenient - Courtney has one relative in Chicago that also happens to make dessert.... So, Aunt Nancy sent me a Facebook message (those tech-savvy baby boomers...) to ask if I would make Courtney a birthday treat that was some variation of chocolate and peanut butter, the birthday girl's favorite flavor combination. Funny, that's one of my favorite combinations as well (along with probably 75% of the American population), so I had an entire arsenal of chocolate peanut butter dessert recipes stored away for this exact situation.

After some brainstorming, we settled on a recipe I had stumbled upon recently on one of my favorite blogs, Brown-Eyed Baker: Chocolate Peanut Butter Torte. I have made a peanut butter pie very similar to this one in the past, so I figured I would integrate the two. The end-result started with a peanut butter Oreo crust. Then, I did the peanut butter pie filling and tried out Dorie Greenspan's addition of cinnamon and nutmeg. I was super skeptical about this initially, but it actually worked well, as it cut the richness of the peanut butter. Finally, I topped with a ganache made from a mixture of dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and peanut butter chips, and then scattered the chopped peanuts over top. The best part about making desserts for your cousin is that they invite you in to enjoy them with them, so I got to taste. And I have to say - yummmmmm :)

3. Eric's Mom's Birthday Carrot Cake

My coworker Eric has been a great support of my business ventures thus far, often forwarding blog posts and pictures to his mom, Wanda. Over time she had Eric forward recipes and compliments to me from her, and when the right time came she placed a request of her own: a carrot cake for her birthday, as a gift from Eric. So, I whipped up a three-layer carrot cake (you've seen it a *loved* the cake, but I didn't know to what extent until I received an email from her Monday. An excerpt follows:

"Can I just say WOW, WOW, WOW! You are definitely the carrot cake lady. That was the best ever, carrot cake and therefore the best birthday cake ever. The cake looked so beautiful, frosting on top so smooth and the nuts on the outer edges. I actually made sure to Oooo-Awww the carrot cake while it was still in the box. You can't imagine my anticipation and delight when I cut into the cake and had that ultimate first incredible bite. Not one flavor stood out on it's own but a harmonious blend of flavors. BES T CARROT CAKE EVER!!!!"

Now I need a testimonials page just for feedback like that... Does that make anyone intrigued to try my carrot cake? ;)

4. Bianca's Fall Tailgating Cupcakes

My newly hired coworker Bianca had heard through the grapevine about Dolce + Decadence and figured I would be the perfect supplier for her tailgating needs (sounds like a commercial, right?). She wanted a dessert to bring to a U of I football game tailgate, and I instantly thought of fall. It also helped the game was on October 1, which is the official start date of acceptably doing anything "fall": carving pumpkins, eating candy corn (with peanuts!), drinking cider, baking with pumpkin, playing in the leaves, etc. Luckily, I had been thinking about fall for awhile before it was acceptable to act on fall (ahem, like beginning of August), so I had some ideas ready to go.

We decided upon two dozen cupcakes: one dozen pumpkin spice with maple cream cheese frosting and toasted pecans, and another dozen apple spice cake with caramel filling, caramel buttercream frosting, and roasted peanuts. I was in fall dessert heaven when I tried the extra of each flavor. The pumpkin was flavorful and spicy, and a perfectly rounded and plump shape. The maple cream cheese reminded me of pancakes and was a great complement. The spiced apple cupcakes were dense and moist - they are the same recipe as my carrot cake, but with apples instead of carrots - with a smooth caramel filling. The caramel buttercream was my favorite part: a couple adjustments to Paula Deen's caramel frosting recipe produced a buttery sweetness just like caramel corn, but in the silky form of buttercream. The cake, filling, and frosting together just melted in your mouth, but then there was the salty crunch of peanuts - such a great contrast. I was so pleased with how both of these turned out and can't wait to make them again - more fall orders, anyone? ;)

Tops removed for homemade caramel filling.

Spiced Caramel Apple on left, Pumpkin Spice-Maple Cream Cheese on right.

Gooey caramel center.

Wedding Cake Happening NOW!

2011-10-21T15:42:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't seen/heard, I am in Florida right now making a wedding cake for my friends Traci and Stephen. This has been a truly amazing opportunity, and I am so psyched they asked me to do this. I JUST finished exactly 24 hours after I started, leaving only minor touch-ups and the addition of the fresh orchids tomorrow - as well as the transportation to the reception site. Gulp. At least Budget upgraded me to a minivan. Anyways, check out Dolce + Decadence's Facebook page and Twitter feed for live updates of how it's going! Excited to write a more detailed post about this experience later!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/DolceandDecadence

Twitter: @dolcedecadence

Oh, and don't forget to like Dolce + Decadence on Facebook! Just click the "Like" button in the right side bar!

And finally, a sneak peak...

Homemade Funfetti Part II: The Application

2011-10-17T18:42:00.000-05:00

I apologize for sucking at blogging. There really is no excuse for leaving you all in sheer suspense about Funfetti Part II except that my schedule has been INSANE. I know you've been dying, checking daily for a new post just in case it failed to come through your newsfeed or Twitter, or the post emails somehow got lost in cyberspace or your junk mail. ....Uh huh. In reality, I hope that you even remember that there was a Part I a few weeks ago....

Anyways, Part II. I stopped right before revealing Not Without Salt's solution for rainbow chips. Drumroll, please: she melted white chocolate, dyed it various colors, poured it into sheets to cool, then chopped into chips - or what I think look more like shards. I was surprised at this idea at first, because while eating the chewy balls, "white chocolate" had never occurred to my inarticulate mind. Were they white chocolate, thinking back? I wished I had some Rainbow Chip frosting on hand to sample again with this knowledge. Alas, I did not, and as I had no other ideas, white chocolate shards it was.

They were fun to make. I melted almost 3 bags of white chocolate and dyed them green, yellow, blue, red, orange, and purple.

Then, once cooled, I chopped the sheets into shards...

And then there were rainbow chips/shards....

Not quite chewy balls, but I was happy nonetheless - much better than plain ol' sprinkles.

The cake was a white cake recipe with the homemade rainbow chips mixed in. I was going to do regular sprinkles, as this is what Funfetti uses, but I totally forgot - and am glad I did, as I liked the end-result. This baked up two fluffy 12" square cake layers - so fairly large. The frosting was a vanilla buttercream with some cream cheese mixed in to add a little tang and creaminess. It was on the sweeter side, similar to Rainbow chip, but the sweetness distinguishably came from the white chocolate rainbow chips, not from unidentifiable sugar and preservatives that I typically think of when I taste canned frosting. So, a more quality/homemade version of Rainbow Chip frosting, in my opinion.

After assembling the cake and frosting it, I stared at its vast surface and wondered how the hell I was going to decorate the behemoth. It was about 1:30am, so I was getting a little tired and lightheaded after baking/decorating like a maniac for the last six hours (if all you can recall - I know it was awhile ago - but this order was the same week as the coconut cake and the carrot cupcakes). There were some leftover rainbow chips so I made a border.... which still left a vast bare expanse in the middle. All I wanted was to slip into a sweet, deep sleep, but I knew I had to do something to jazz this up, as a bare cake at a celebration almost screams "Non-congratulations!" "So NOT happy for you!", or, in the case of an engagement party, "Heh... Good luck... We all think you'll need it...". So I pulled it together to whip up some rainbow colored frosting to write "Congrats!" ("Congratulations!" would have been really small in order to fit on the square cake). Oh, and I messed it up three times before being content with it. That's definitely one area I need mucho practice in, despite my attractive actual handwriting. Way different.

Anyways, here it is:

I saw most of the engagement party guests later Friday night at the bar at Notre Dame, and everyone was raving. Always a good sign, although I was hoping it was really the cake and not the alcohol speaking. I asked a few of them for some feedback a couple days later, and here is what I got:

On the positive side (i.e., how it was better than Funfetti), Maureen, Colleen, and others said it had more complex flavors than Funfetti. It was also richer and denser than Funfetti, making a smaller piece more satisfying. It was also very moist and had a great cake-to-frosting ratio (always, duh!). The only negative was that the cake was too big, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but great feedback on scaling for a group. There were about twenty people at the party, and Colleen estimated they probably only needed a third of the cake. I should have followed the Wilton cake-cutting guides, which say a standard size piece of a celebration (read: tall) cake is about 2" by 1". It's very common to make more than necessary since that sounds small to most of us, especially compared to those monstrous pieces served by restaurants (my favorite: the jumbo slice of carrot cake at The Palm. DIVINE). It's not. Had I done the math, I would have determined that an 8" square would have been plenty. Next time. Luckily, an overabundance of cake meant that Colleen could bring me home a piece to critique. (Look at me trying to act all professional - I just wanted a piece of cake...)

So I sat down with my hunk of cake and tasted. Definitely a lot more going on than Funfetti. Sweet but not cloying. Dense and rich, as Maureen said. Buttery smooth. The bit of cream cheese was a nice addition to the frosting, as it gave a little tang but did not taste like my traditional cream-cheesy cream cheese frosting. However, you will not like this if you do not like white chocolate. While I would not say you would classify it as white chocolate cake nor definitely call out that flavor upon first taste, if a person dislikes white chocolate, they will definitely still sense the undertones of it. So be warned, you Funfetti lovers/white chocolate haters, if you exist.

Overall, it was a damn good piece of cake, regardless of how much it did or did not taste like Funfetti. So I'd do it again.

Homemade Funfetti Part I: An Analysis

2011-09-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

The cult following of Funfetti cake never ceases to amaze me. It may be the only baked good that comes from a mix that some people would actually choose over homemade. Everyone loves it. Everyone can think of a special occasion consummated by Funfetti. I actually have quite a few examples from my own past:

Sara-Ashley's 19th birthday, 2005

Savannah's 5th birthday, 2006

Laura's 20th birthday, 2006

My 21 1/2 birthday, 2008

My 25th birthday, 2011

If you are not a Funfetti fan, then...

Your mom probably made you homemade cakes growing up.
You had no friends in high school or college.

You had friends in high school or college that made homemade cakes.

If you are any/all of the above, I will educate you. Any Funfetti die-hard knows to use Pillsbury Funfetti cake mix, which is a white cake with the longish rainbow sprinkles (or "jimmies," according to some, although I have never heard that in my entire Midwest-based life) and pudding right in the mix. Betty Crocker also makes Rainbow Chip cake mix, but I have never had it, it does not have pudding in the mix, and it is not as fun to say as "Funfetti." So, it was never as successful, and why, when you mention "rainbow chip cake" to a person, no look of recognition or fond memories passes over his/her face. As far as the final product goes, to extract the most potential from a box cake mix you must watch the cake carefully in the oven. As soon as it even shows the slightest indication of being done (e.g., center no longer wiggles, toothpick comes out clean, top is very lightly/barely golden), take it out. Otherwise, the cake will acquire a kind of rubbery crust and a dry, crumbly inside.

You do NOT however, under ANY circumstances, use the Pillsbury Funfetti frosting - if you do, it is no longer a "true" Funfetti cake. ("True" in this case is determined by the people, the fans. Even though technically it is more truly "Funfetti" due to being composed entirely of Funfetti-brand components rather than just one, a real Funfetti fan will not accept it as "true" Funfetti. Just don't ask - it does not make sense, and it never will.) The correct frosting to use is actually Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip frosting. The difference is in the sprinkles: Pillsbury just gives you sprinkles to scatter over top, meanwhile Betty Crocker mixes in these rainbow chips, that, for lack of better words, I have always referred to as "chewy balls." (Pull your mind out of the gutter immediately. We are talking about birthday cake often served to CHILDREN, for god's sake). The chewy balls/rainbow chips ABSOLUTELY make this frosting and cake. Again, don't ask me why. Maybe the balls are actually crack.

So, all together, you have a light, moist, spongy white cake with a dense, creamy, sugary frosting full of chewy ball sprinkles. A cake light enough that one can easily eat a quarter of a pan without thinking. Until later when your stomach is raging full of sugar and wants to murder you. Commonly known as having an inner Fat Kid. Yummm.

Based on my strong, informed stance on Funfetti, it probably does not surprise you that I had set a personal milestone of achieving the perfect homemade Funfetti cake; it has been on my to-do list for about six months now. Coincidentally, Colleen and Mary commissioned homemade Funfetti for their engagement party cake order last week. "Do you think you can do it?" they asked. Um, I have only been living and breathing for this moment, so, YES.

Well, yes to an extent. Yes, I am willing to make a homemade Funfetti cake. But, am I capable of making a good homemade Funfetti cake? That is the question. I wasn't worried about the cake - I could easily improve upon a box-mix white cake. A homemade cake uses real butter, real vanilla, and other real ingredients, as well as techniques to get that dense-yet-surprisingly-light texture - none of that "dump everything in the bowl and mix on high for two minutes." And I can tell the sprinkles used in Pillsbury's mix are the same I could buy at a store. So, easy as pie (errr...cake).

The frosting, however, was the cause for concern. I remember the texture being a little soupy, which is the undesirable aftermath of storage in a canister for god knows how long, so I knew I could at least improve upon that. But, I couldn't even remember what the frosting itself tasted like. Not all groceries in Chicago carry the Rainbow Chip frosting, so I haven't had it in years (and thus have not had a "true" Funfetti cake in years - all impostors. Sorry, Colleen and Erin, I loved my (impostor) Funfetti 25th birthday cake, but it wasn't "true," and you know it... love you!). Was it a simple vanilla buttercream? Was there any cream cheese in it? Can't remember. I just hoped I would fumble my way around with some frosting ingredients, do a taste test, and suddenly think, "OH! That's TOTALLY Rainbow Chip frosting!" Which is extremely optimistic and naive, or else baking would be a LOT easier - a pinch of this, a smidgeon of that - "OH! That's TOTALLY Julia Child's chocolate mousse!" Uh huh...

Even more, what scared me to the point of mini anxiety attacks about the frosting was the rainbow chips, or chewy balls. I have no idea what they are made of. Grappling deep within my flavor and food descriptor knowledge while tasting it, I articulately could come up with no possible ingredients and only the words, "chewy balls. I have desperately searched the Internet for any leads on composition, to no avail. I think my last resort is to either a) get a job in the Betty Crocker test kitchen and steal the recipe, or b) get a food science degree and experiment with the ratios of the ingredients listed on the back of the canister until I sucessfully construct rainbow chips/chewy balls.

Fully knowing my last resort was not happening, or at least not in time for this order, I had to come up with a last last resort. Almost every homemade Funfetti recipe or blog post I found online used actual sprinkles in the frosting, even after acknowledging that Rainbow Chip is the proper frosting. How could you acknowledge chewy balls and then replace them with sprinkles? Blasphemy.

The ONLY blog I found about Funfetti that did not use sprinkles was Not Without Salt, who, while liking both Rainbow Chip frosting and cake mix (maybe it's not so bad - just not very catchy), perfectly captured the almost-sacred mystery of the frosting:

"The lure of this cake is in the frosting. White so bright it illuminates the colorful miniature chips that are dotted throughout. Creamy and perfectly smooth until you bump into one of those sweet and slow-melting pieces of who-knows-what."

Finally, a blogger who knows what he/she is talking about. If she acknowledged that the frosting is the best part, there's no way she used sprinkles. So, what was her solution? Read in the next post, along with the rest of the story of my homemade Funfetti cake, pictures and all!

If Bobby Flay Presents Opportunity for a Throwdown - Sleep When You're Dead

2011-09-20T23:21:00.000-05:00

Last week was verrrrry busy. Not only was I traveling for work Sunday through Tuesday, I suddenly had THREE orders to fulfill by Friday morning. Eeeek! Sleep when you're dead, they say. And I'm still barely sleeping, even this week. You really don't catch up 'til you're dead.

The first order was from my friends Colleen and Mary for an engagement partycake for three of their newly engaged friend-couples. (Are we really at that age already?? Looks like I am getting old, and my death-sleep is coming sooner than I thought...) The second order was a surprise referral order. Remember the drink-cakes I made this summer? After hearing from my coworker Becca that carrot cake was my specialty, one of the attendees, Emily, held onto my business card in anticipation of her mother's birthday in September. She commissioned 18 carrot cupcakes, her mom's favorite. The last order came on Monday; my coworker Sarah wanted a cake for her friend's birthday Saturday. While that order officially pushed the workload into "sleep when you're dead" status, I could not say no - better to be super busy than not at all! So I got to planning exactly what had to be done each night before going to bed in order to stay on track.

Let me tell you... all that planning still wasn't enough. Thursday night was still a free-for-all. In this post I am only going to cover the carrot cupcakes and the birthday cake. The engagement cake will be a separate post, as it was a project that's been on my to-do list for awhile.

So, the carrot cupcakes first. Carrot cake studded with plump raisins and toasted pecans, topped with swirled cream cheese frosting, and sprinkled with more toasted pecans. Went off without a hitch. I could probably make carrot cake in my sleep now (which, if that were actually possible, would have been helpful last week, given my 4-5 hour nights). I am also mastering quantities: I now know that I can get exactly 18 cupcakes from a half recipe. I also finagled my cupcake inserts (i.e., cut into rows) to fit 18 in one larger box, rather than wasting a whole box on only six. Slowly learning the tricks of the trade, I guess. I didn't take any pictures of these cupcakes because I want to keep readership and am afraid posting pictures of carrot cake every week will bore you to tears (not to mention I was running around frantically and barely remembered to take any pictures)... But, if you must, they looked just like this past order:

I spoke briefly to Emily later, and she said they were amazing. Additionally, she said one of the birthday party's guests expressed interest in contacting me about making treats for an upcoming benefit. Dolce + Decadence's first charity treats? We'll seeeeeeeeeee...

Now, the birthday cake for Sarah's friend. Sarah and I did a lot of back-and-forth on her friend's favorite flavors. First, we talked gingerbread. Then, when Sarah was unsure about that, we moved onto angel food cake and pineapple. I wasn't thrilled with the recipe I thought of for that (angel food cake layered with a pineapple pudding/whipped cream mixture and strawberries), so my attempt to think of something different brought us to hummingbird cake (banana-pineapple cake, cream cheese frosting), which sounded good, but reminded Sarah that her friend liked coconut. So then I suggested a toasted coconut cake, which Sarah loved and decided upon. And after thirty minutes of seemingly disconnected back-and-forth, the ADD birthday cake conversation ended.

The recipe I adapted was a Bobby Flay Throwdown cake: four-layer white cake brushed with a coconut simple syrup, sandwiched with coconut custard whipped cream filling, enrobed in a coconut custard buttercream frosting, and cloaked in a toasted coconut siding. The cake baked well, but cutting into layers is always a challenge for me. I got a cake leveler, but I hate it - I feel like I can never get it to cut the cake layer perfectly in half, and often end up lopping off chunks. So lately I've been more into my long serrated knife, but it's not a particularly exact cut. I'm hoping it will come with practice. Or maybe the purchase of a sharper knife. That's all I really want for Christmas every year but never get: nice, sharp knives.

This recipe needed a LOT of tweaking, let me tell you. Thankfully it was efficient in that even though it had what felt like nineteen components, two of them used the same coconut custard. I was a little disappointed in the custard's flavor once finished, so I amped up the rum-coconut flavor. Then, when I added the custard to the buttercream frosting base, I was semi-disgusted at how buttery it was - I felt like I was nibbling off a butter stick. I love butter just as much Paula Deen and Julia Childs, but damn, this was a little much. I could feel my heart clogging as the tiny dollop of frosting slid down my throat, reminding me vaguely of the first and last time I ever ate a Krispy Kreme donut. When I finally took the time to compare the butter to sugar ratios of this recipe to my normal buttercream, I realized how incredibly off it was - there was about nine times butter to sugar, which is INSANE. So, I kept adding more sugar and coconut and rum flavor until the buttercream reached the flavor and consistency I typically make. Then, the filling.... again, not enough flavor, and didn't make enough to fill three layers, so even more tweaking. How was this cake good enough for Bobby Flay? I hope he lost that throwdown, because as-is, that recipe sucks.

At this point it was close to 11pm Thursday night, so I was scrambling. But, it eventually came together, and looked pretty good - the buttercream smoothed nicely, and the toasted coconut added a nice texture to the sides. The bad thing about cakes, though, is that I can't taste them to give the official Dolce + Decadence seal of approval. So, I had to take a leap of faith that Sarah and her coconut-loving friend would love it.

And they did. Whew. Sarah and I somehow found time in our super busy Friday workdays (surfing the web can be really exhausting at times...) to do a cake photo shoot:

Sarah made up for passing my business cards out to homeless people on the train Friday ("They thought your cake looked awesome!", to which I replied, "Yes, and I bet they spend all the money they get from begging on boutique cakes.") by texting me live party pictures of the cake and those enjoying it, saying that everyone loved it and that it was "moist and magnificent":

So, the coconut cake recipe could make a comeback, but definitely with the tweaks added in from the start. I should call Bobby Flay in for a second-round throwdown. Bet it sucks to lose twice.

Aside from on-the-fly recipe adaptation, the main thing I learned from these orders is time management: you can never get enough done ahead of time. The worst feeling was being tired and frustrated and anxious at 2am, with an unfinished cake still sitting in front of me. Looking back, there were various things that week I could have sacrificed in order to get more done before that point - yoga, dinner with friends, etc. So, going forward, I am going to be much more realistic about how much time it takes to complete my orders - and hopefully that way I can sleep before I'm dead.

Milestone #2: Conquering Gluten-Free Baking

2011-09-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

(So maybe it's not really a milestone, but something that has always scared me.... Milestone #1.1? #1a? Pre-2.0?)

I have noticed some polarity in my baking orders. I either make things I've made a million times (e.g., carrot cake), or make things I have never made (e.g., pie or angel food cake). Last week's order was no exception to this trend: my coworker Jackie commissioned gluten-free cupcakes.

My only baking experience with gluten-free previously involved pre-made mixes, or just making recipes that did not require flour, such as flourless chocolate cake or no-bake cookies. The pre-made mixes were okay. The chocolate chip cookies were fine due to the exorbitant amount of butter required, and the brownies were alright when incorporated as a layer in a torte, with any flavor or texture defects offset by rich chocolate frosting and decadent peanut butter filling. Otherwise, I figured from-scratch gluten-free would be better, but I was uncertain how to make a viable flour substitute, as I had heard it was not just one ingredient but rather a mixture of various flours and starches.

After doing some research, I found that most flour substitute mix recipes trended toward the same ingredients: a combination of brown rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, and xanthum gum. This gave me a little more confidence, but I was still worried about the texture. Consultations with Jackie revealed that her mom preferred more classic cakes flavors, like vanilla, chocolate, etc. - i.e., no bacon sprinkles. As one of my greatest baking character faults is my inability to appreciate the simplest flavors, I became a little nervous. The simpler the cake flavor, the more the texture and other factors affected by flour could show through - no hiding behind my creative flavor combinations. In the end, we settled on banana cake with cream cheese frosting, as I figured the moist banana cake would be more forgiving than a vanilla or chocolate cake. Plus, in a blog post I had seen my exact bomb banana cake recipe subbed with the gluten-free flour mix, so it seemed safe to just swap that in for flour without having to alter any other ingredients.

I headed to Whole Foods to get my ingredients. Who knew there were so many kinds of flours? I started to feel a little lost again as I looked at the wall of flours. I looked at a pre-made flour mix, Pamela's, that my celiac friend Sarah had recommended, but decided against it in the end, as it contained a few more ingredients than the flour/starch mix I needed. In the end, I settled for King Arthur gluten-free flour mix, which contained only the brown rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca flour. This seemed more cost-efficient than buying a separate bag of each of those flours, until the gluten-free orders start pouring in. I also bought a bag of xanthum gum and added just a tsp of that to the flour mix. Voilà, homemade flour substitute!

The cupcakes were painless. I even added a little extra touch for texture contrast: toasted chopped walnuts on top. Luckily there were a couple extras, so I could try one. I took a bite and felt a wave of relief: I could honestly not tell the difference from my regular banana cake. One large victory for gluten-free baking! And, one for my confidence: that I can successfully accommodate the food-allergy populations, which is a huge trend in bakeries' services these days. Jackie confirmed that her mom LOVED the cupcakes. Bring on the gluten-free orders - I'm ready for you!

My First Referral Order!

2011-08-24T22:33:00.003-05:00

I know I have been talking about this referral order A LOT and not giving any details, so here you go (or at least I would like to hope some of you were biting your nails in anticipation of this moment - no?). A couple weeks ago, my coworker Eileen last-minute ordered some carrot cupcakes to take to a friend's party (see story here). The next day at work, she told me they were a hit, and that I shouldn't be surprised if I received some order interest afterward. The next day, I noticed an email in my Dolce + Decadence inbox from a woman's name I did not recognize. The email lauded my carrot cake and asked if I would be interested in providing dessert for her upcoming baby shower. My response: YES!

Milestone #1: First Referral Order - COMPLETE

This was a moment I had been dreaming of for awhile: the day a person that I did not know placed an order. And this was it - Friday, July 29, 2011, exactly 75 days after starting my blog/business. Not too shabby!

The woman said she was interested in a cake, most likely carrot, and possibly some favors. I offered to throw together a proposal of some ideas for both. For cakes, I suggested various varieties, including carrot, red velvet, flourless chocolate, or baby-themed (blueberry, strawberry, etc.). For favors, I suggested cake truffles, mini pies, and mini flourless chocolate cakes. After some back-and-forth discussion, the shower honoree and her sister (the shower host) decided upon a carrot cake for the shower, and dark chocolate hazelnut cake truffles for the favors. Time for me to get to work!

The carrot cake was easy, as I have made a lot of them lately, if you hadn't noticed. I think I may be digging myself into a carrot cake hole (which isn't a bad one to have to eat your way out of, I guess). Oh well - nothing wrong with having a specialty, especially if it brings in orders! Maybe my niche could be carrot cake, and my bakery can specialize in carrot cake in all its glorious forms: cake, cupcakes, truffles, cookies, whoopie pies, cheesecakes, bars, etc. (now I'm just making myself drool...). Anyways, I digress. So I made another three-layer carrot cake. And here are more pictures of it. 'Nuff said.

Anyways, the more interesting, newer item: the dark chocolate hazelnut cake truffles. After receiving feedback that the wedding favor brownie truffles had great flavor but were a bit too crumbly, as brownies typically are, I decided to make these chocolate truffles with cake instead, since cake lends a moister texture to truffles. I baked up a dense, dark chocolate cake, promptly destroyed it (oh!, the baker's dilemma!), mixed in some hazelnuts and rich chocolate frosting to bind into a dough, and shaped the truffles. I then dipped them into melted dark chocolate to coat and then sprinkled crushed hazelnuts over top. Basically, a dark chocolate lover's dream. They wanted boxes for the order as well, so I ordered little truffle boxes, which I sealed with my label.

I delivered them to the shower site as the party throwers were setting up. The sister seemed really pleased, so I hoped the shower honoree would be as well. I emailed them afterward to check in, and they said the desserts were delicious and well-received. If anyone that attended the shower happens to read this post,

Thanks for paying attention to my cards and packaging!
Leave a comment telling us what you thought!

GOOOO IRISH! EEEAAAAAT BREAKFAST!

2011-08-15T22:19:00.000-05:00

I've always been told that one of the best assets of a Notre Dame degree, aside from the ability to get football tickets really easily or all the "soft skills" I learned in the College of Arts and Letters (read: I am doing nothing with my psychology degree), is the network available to alumni. I had my first real taste of this recently. About a month ago, I attended my first Irish Entrepreneuers meeting, after gentle prodding from both the ubiquitous Chicago Notre Dame Club emails and my friend Patrick, who regularly attends. And am I glad I did. The meeting a month ago featured a speaker from the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (ICNC), who provides business development, advocacy and consulting services for free to area companies and small businesses. The speaker, Denise, their Director of Small Business Development, told a story about helping two sisters open a restaurant. The sisters came into the ICNC and said, "We want to open a restaurant," and Denise helped them from square one - business development, signage, sanitation, marketing, etc., all the way to success - opening their SECOND location. So, the ICNC/Denise obviously knows their/her stuff. I felt like I had hit resource gold from attending this meeting. Thank you, Notre Dame network. Tucking that card in my back pocket.

But another good development came from this meeting. I noticed that the meeting organizer Mike Moran had arranged for Dunkin' Donuts Munchkins (donut balls/holes) and coffee to be delivered to the meeting; I had also noticed how hardly anyone touched the Munchkins, which are garbage compared to the Donut Bank Bakery in Evansville, my hometown (and probably garbage to anyone's hometown donut bakery). Whenever Munchkins are at meetings or in the office break room, I never touch them, as the deliciousness they fail to deliver is not worth the calories they deliver without fail (60-80 apiece - just looked it up). Clearly there are better, worth-the-splurge breakfast options out there. Lightbulb: MY breakfast options.

I asked Mike Moran how he felt about me catering the next meeting, and he gladly accepted (duh, freshly baked pastries > Munchkins any day). Wooo! I was so proud of my business savvy to recognize a business opportunity and seize it. Now, what to make?!

Fast forward a month (or rewind two weeks, however you like to look at it - and yes, I know I am behind on posts): the next month's meeting. I couldn't believe a month had already gone by, but then again, summer is almost over, and where the hell did that go? Time to menu plan. I considered making scones and quiches, but I didn't think quiches were representative of my regular menu, and I wasn't sure if everyone liked scones as much as my mom or I do (my dad and brother only like a version I make that resembles an icing-drenched cinnamon roll). So, I decided on muffins - who doesn't like muffins? And since I wanted to make more than one thing, but wanted the attendees to also get a taste of my desserts, I thought of the idea of doing an item "for now" - a muffin - and an item "for later" - a cookie.

For the muffins, I went with a lemon-blueberry variety, in order to use seasonal ingredients. To jazz it up a bit, I added a cream cheese middle and a cinnamon-streusel topping. They turned out extremely moist and delicious, with plump blueberries throughout. The sweet, crunchy streusel top contrasted nicely with the slightly gooey cream cheese middle. These muffins could easily pass as dessert, especially if the streusel were subbed for cream cheese frosting.

For the cookies, I went with a newly found recipe for chocolate chip cookies that instantly became my standby. It's a variation of the famed "Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie", and, even though it doesn't resemble the actual recipe (or so they say...), it's pretty damn good. This recipe makes those perfect, ball-like, chunky chocolate-chip cookies that I've always strived for. I first made them for my grandma's birthday a few weeks ago and found them to be so perfect that I knew I had to make them again as the "for later" treat for the breakfast. I wrapped them up with some plastic wrap and a Dolce + Decadence label to make them easily portable for the meeting's attendees.

My arm wanted to fall off as I carried the freakishly heavy box of muffins and cookies (who are we kidding, it probably contained 10 lbs of butter alone) the next morning to the meeting, my Starbucks sloshing dangerously the entire way. Finally, I made it to the Church basement where the meeting was held, and setup shop. Attendees gave lots of compliments, both at the meeting and via email later; a few even loaded up extras into bags to take into their offices or home. Good conversation abounded as well - one man discussed the advantages of running a business out of a food truck, and another woman said her husband has been wanting to open a bakery, but needs a baker (still waiting for that email.... ;).

The best response, however, was interest for an order not even two hours later, from the wife of one of the attendees. After trying a cookie and muffin brought home by her husband, she instantly emailed me to see if I could make cookies for an upcoming baby shower she was hosting. I was elated! Unfortunately, my friend Kelsey is getting married that same weekend, so I had to turn the order down (her wedding is also overshadowing my 25th birthday, which I'd probably rather forget anyway - just means I'll turn 25 next year and can enjoy one last year as less than a quarter-century old ;). But, just the idea that events like this can bring referral orders that easily makes them definitely worthwhile!

Look for my next post about my FIRST REFERRAL ORDER!

Dipping a Big Toe into Social Media

2011-08-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

Last week, I finally took the plunge into what I had been putting off for awhile: getting Dolce + Decadence on Facebook and Twitter. Clearly a social media marketing plan is critical these days, especially after seeing how many Chicago food businesses use these platforms to constantly bombard potential customers and dedicated clients. Food trucks use them to post menus and tell location. Storefronts use them to advertise specials and sweepstakes. Yup, it was time...

However, I was a little scared to get started. I have had a Facebook account since college, but posting pictures was about as fancy as I got with the available functionality - none of these status updates, checking in, applications, and so forth that all the Millenials and Baby Boomers are doing. That's right - I can't even say that I am like an old person that doesn't understand the newest technology, because people older than me (Mom, that is relative - you are not OLD) are embracing it better than I am. (Once, when my mom posted my blog link on her profile, she received 25 likes and 19 comments, all from Facebook-dominating Baby Boomers.)

But, I knew I had to embrace my fear, which I knew was, at its root, of doing something I did not know much about and was therefore not good at. You know how you don't like to talk about something you know nothing about for fear of sounding stupid? Same thing. Hash tags? What are those??? How do/why would I re-tweet? Link my Facebook page to my Twitter account? Whooooaaaa slow down, there.... I can't even figure out how to make a Facebook page to begin with...

After some fumbling around, my accounts were created. Ted also gave me a Twitter tutorial, which was much needed: I can fumble my way around Facebook pretty easily, but I did NOT understand how Twitter worked and what all you could do with it. So, we came up with some marketing strategies:

Facebook: Post photos of baked goods, tagged to buyer and linked to blog posting about that item
Twitter:

Tag followers in posts, with pictures of their purchased baked goods
Hashtags to start a conversation about a particular topic among followers (e.g., Is fruit a dessert? #DDfruitdessert; What's an item you'd like to see on the menu? #DDmenuitem)

Both

Status updates (basically, as mini-blogs)

New blog posts
New orders
Order planning/research
Personal baking
Menu/business development

Sweepstakes/giveaways (anyone interested in that??)
Solicit item ideas, feedback, etc. via polls using status/comments on FB, hashtags on Twitter

All you social media butterflies out there, what am I missing? What other cool functionality do these sites have that I am not taking advantage of? I'd appreciate as much help on this topic as I can get!

Oh, and the important stuff - where to find me ;) :

http://www.facebook.com/DolceandDecadence
@dolcedecadence

And Just When I Thought I'd Have Downtime for Menu Development...

2011-08-03T21:38:00.000-05:00

.... I got two surprise orders in a week!

By "surprise," I really mean only several days' notice. So not really a, "Surprise! I need a cake in ONE HOUR - can you do it?!?!", ala Top Chef Quick Fire challenge. But "surprise" as in I really thought last week would be downtime to do some menu development, and suddenly that downtime was gone. Well, let's be real - there was downtime: I still went to the beach last weekend, attended a barbecue, etc. It's impossible to do anything productive during the summer, I've realized. Like develop menus. Or plan wedding cakes that are due in LESS THAN THREE MONTHS. No, I'm not freaking out at all...

Anyways, the first order was from my coworker Eileen, who wanted cupcakes for a friend's party on Thursday. We settled on carrot, as she was anxious to try this carrot cake of mine that keeps flying out the door. I got everything ready to do my baking Wednesday night - grated my carrots, plumped my raisins, softened my butter and cream cheese, lit the oven... Twenty minutes later, I checked the oven temperature, which is notorious for being anywhere from 50-100 degrees warmer than the set temperature, thus broiling when it should gently bake (I miss my old apartment's Viking range...), and found it to be at....200 degrees? I stuck my hand in and found it completely cold. Oh no... I turned the oven off and tried lighting again, only to find the same issue five minutes later - it was not lighting or getting hot. I called our apartment's maintenance man, hoping he could offer some advice, but he was drunk (for all you judging right now, to be fair, it was 9:30pm...). Now I suddenly needed a drink, as I sat there anxiously poring over my options:

Fix the oven myself. This is laughable. I texted handy-man Ted to ask what could possibly be wrong, and he asked if the pilot light was out. Good question. Even better question - what is a pilot light? While I consider myself relatively handy for a girl, I have NO experience with ovens other than cooking in them (which, to my credit, is more experience than many people have with ovens in general). I opened the oven and peered around, not seeing anything except the normal light. I pulled out the oven drawer and looked under there, but saw nothing. I didn't smell gas, thankfully. I googled "Avana first edition range model XGRT3000 manual" and found sites that seemed promising, but alas, did not have my oven's manual, or else asked how much money I was willing to pay to talk to a handyman online (which was, in all likelihood, something else...). So basically, I was not fixing the oven myself.
Use someone else's oven. Damn not having a car in Chicago. This severely limited the number of friends' ovens I had access to, as I was not going to load all my ingredients, pans, etc., onto the el or in a taxi (gross). Thus, my closest option (five blocks away, and by car) was Ted's - who happened to be at a musical at the time. So, I sat in my kitchen and waited...

What seemed like an eternity later, he arrived home, picked me and all my stuff up, and took me to his apartment to finally get my baking started, around 11pm. Luckily, his oven lit the first time AND baked evenly. All went smoothly, and by 1am I had some lovely carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and toasted pecan topping. A short ride home and it was as if nothing had happened, just three hours of sleep lost. I didn't want or need that desperately anyway...

I basically threw myself over top of those babies the next morning as I lugged them into work in the rain; after all the adversity the night before, they would NOT be ruined by one of my sworn enemies, Precipitation. They made it into work nice and dry, where they then tormented Eileen on her desk all day, as she knew she could not eat one, even though there would most likely be extras. People judge if you arrive at a party with a box of a dozen cupcakes that only has eleven in it.

She told me the next day that they went over really well. The host's husband loves carrot cake and ate five of the cupcakes, demolishing any leftovers. Additionally, she said I will hopefully get some referral orders from it, and, sure enough, the next day I had an email from the host asking about supplying her upcoming baby shower. MY FIRST REFERRAL ORDER!!!! The details of this are still being hammered out, so stay tuned!

The other surprise order from Ted's mom's fiance, Jeff, for a birthday cake for Ted's mom, Laura (perhaps I could have avoided that mouthful of appositives by first laying out, "Ted's mom = Laura. Laura's fiance = Jeff. Jeff wanted a cake for Laura."). As far back as Ted could remember, they had always gotten his mom an angel food cake with fresh whipped cream and fresh strawberries for her birthday, so the pressure was on to re-create the magic of angel food past. My experience with angel food had only involved adding to a grocery-bought cake, such as my old roommate Paige's favorite, Angel Lush, or this Strawberry Trifle, which makes a perfect summer dessert. I had never baked one from scratch but was excited to try, especially because it involved buying another pan for my collection (tube pan with lift-out bottom - so handy and smart!).

Angel food is a funny recipe. No wonder it is a relatively "healthy" dessert - there's no fat in it, nor yolks. Just lots of sugar, which makes those delicious, carmelized, sugary crumbs I love to scrape off the pan bottom and sides. I made some amaretto whipped cream and frosted the top with that, then sprinkled fresh strawberries over top and on the sides of the plate. The cake turned out beautifully, with a texture like velvet. Everyone loved it, as evidenced by the fact that the ENTIRE cake was eaten, save a few abandoned strawberries. When was the last time you ever saw an entire cake eaten at an event, party, etc.? I feel like there is always at least a little slice left, if not half or more. This is probably more a testament to the light, easy-to-eat-a-hunk character of angel food and not necessarily my amazing baking skills, but just saying...

Girls Just Wanna Have Dessert

2011-07-24T19:12:00.000-05:00

Remember a few posts ago when I said I had a bunch of orders come in? Well, those just happened. One was for my coworker Becca's friend's engagement party, and the other was for my friend Liz's all-girl family dinner. Becca's specification was "pink cupcakes," and Liz's specification was something I've "never made before," with the underlying motivation of a featured blog post. Duhhh, what else do I have to write about... The best part about telling these stories is that both girls gave instant feedback and even gave me pictures of them enjoying the treats, so I am sharing that all here.

I'll start with Becca's pink cupcakes. The engagement party the girls were throwing involved lying around the pool all day, then going out that night. Since the cupcakes were going to be served at the pool, I thought a frozen drink-inspired cupcake would be fun. I had made a "Miami Vice" cake in the past, so I used that as a starting point. A Miami Vice is a drink composed of a piña colada and strawberry daiquiri swirled - essentially, the best of frozen drinks in one glass. My Miami Vice cake recipe is a soaked cake, but I wasn't sure how a soaked cake would translate to cupcakes - sounded like a sloppy mess that required a fork, which defeats the purpose of a cupcake. So, I tweaked the recipe a bit to still include all the same flavors, but not be soaked.

Drink-cakes.

What I came up with was a fresh strawberry cake, made with no gelatin or artificial ingredients - just fresh pureed strawberries giving the pink tint (requirement fulfilled). Once the cupcakes came out of the oven, I brushed the tops with spiced rum - Tortuga rum from the Cayman Islands, to be exact, which holds a special place in my heart after consuming many rum cakes during my childhood vacations in Cayman. Once the cupcakes cooled, I scooped out the middles and filled them with a pineapple cream cheese filling. Then, I topped them with rum coconut cream cheese frosting. Finally, the pièce de résistance: a topper of a pineapple wedge, a mini umbrella, and a straw. I loved the way these turned out, and I had a feeling they were going to be delicious, especially if you are the kind of person that can eat cream cheese frosting/filling by the spoonful (like myself).

A couple hours after Becca picked them up, I received a text from her: "Omg those cupcakes r amazing! The frosting is insane!!!" Then another later: "It's amazing, that frosting is crazy good! How did you do that?" So clearly they went over well. On Monday at work, Becca confirmed they were an absolute hit. The girls loved the drink theme and thought they were perfect for the occasion. One friend even disappeared for awhile, came back to the party, and said, "Oh my god, I just ate three of those cupcakes... I'm about to explode, but it's totally worth it!" All the girls shared Becca's love of the rum coconut frosting, wondering how it could taste so much like a piña colada. When they first tried it, they each just took a finger swipe of the frosting - then loved it so much they devoured the rest off the top of the cupcake. Becca is a wonderful PR woman as well - she passed out my cards to all the girls, told them how delicious everything has been that she's ever tried, and convinced a lot of them to place future orders. So, I am hoping to hear from some of these girls soon!

I did hear from one of these girls the next weekend - Becca herself got ENGAGED!!!!! So, that's two future orders: an engagement treat for their upcoming party, and then THEIR WEDDING CAKE. That's right - Becca is already insisting I make their wedding cake next spring/summer! Praying the first one goes well...

Finally using my cupcake packaging!

Some good logo-worthy shots.

Sipping on the mini straws. Wonder if the frosting comes through...

Hoarding.

Onto the next one. As I mentioned before, when I asked Liz what she wanted for her family girls-night -out, she said she didn't care so long as I made something I had never made before so as to further my culinary prowess. Well, I instantly knew what that meant for me: I had to make pies. Not only had I never made a pie crust from scratch, but the speculation of pie as the "new cupcake" also meant I had to stay up with the competition and industry trends.

I had to admit, I was scared... something about homemade pie crust sounded so daunting, mostly because my lifetime's pie experience had been filled with some pretty terrible crusts, which I did not want bearing the Dolce + Decadence name. What was the key to a great pie crust? I started scouring the Internet, searching recipes, blogs, and articles on pie crusts. However, it did not take long to recognize the culprit: almost every pie crust recipe I found used shortening as the fat. Shortening?! I was stunned. While it may be more stable, shortening could not possibly provide the flavor that butter gives, which is why I use butter as much as possible in baking. And I hate the greasy, fatty feeling that shortening leaves on your fingers even after repeated washes and scrubbing.

Visible butter chunks = flaky goodness.

I eventually found what seemed to be the perfect all-butter crust recipe from Smitten Kitchen and got to work; her explanations and tutorials are awesome. Following are several techniques that are crucial to achieving flaky, flavorful pie crust (also read the linked Smitten Kitchen post if you are still curious):

Freeze the butter beforehand and touch as little as possible in the process so as not to melt it. You want the butter to melt while baking, which lets off steam and creates the little air pockets that we describe as flakes. This same principle applies to other pastries and scones as well.
Cut the butter into small chunks before adding to the flour/sugar/salt mixture, refreezing for a bit afterward if it softened in the process. This will reduce the amount of work you have to do incorporate the butter as small pea-sized pieces later.
Use as much flour as necessary when rolling out so that the dough doesn't stick to the counter or the rolling pin. A scraper is clutch to getting the dough off the counter without ripping it.

Empty shells ready for filling.

I cut the pie crust into small circles to fit into my mini pans (so cute!) and crimped the edges to feign pie-crust mastery. Once it was all done, I was actually surprised and impressed with myself: the process was MUCH easier than anticipated, and I had a feeling that my first attempt at pie crust might actually yield one of the better crusts I have ever tried.

Filled shells ready for baking.

Liz had specified a chocolate/richer pie flavor (i.e., not fruit), and I wanted to do a baked pie (i.e., not cream-based/cold), so I settled on chocolate bourbon pecan pie (i.e.,"Derby pie," although apparently this name is trademarked and the recipe heavily guarded by the creators, Kern's Kitchen). Essentially, derby pie tastes like a just-baked chocolate chip cookie in a pie crust - just pure chocolatey, gooey deliciousness. I had made it once before but with a frozen pre-made shell, so I was interested to see if a homemade crust elevated an already good pie.

The mini pies turned out really cute - a little boring in the color department, but I had a feeling they were going to be delicious. I dropped the pies off with Liz and anxiously awaited feedback.

Mmmmm can't you see how flaky that crust is?

Liz, like Becca, was great at the instant feedback. She texted me pictures of her family eating the pies and followed up on my question of how people eat mini pies, posed in my previous post about pie as the new cupcake. Some, like her sister, are hands kind-of-people - just pick it up and take a bite. Most of the rest of her family used forks and knives, however. I have a feeling it comes down to convenience and composition. A pie such as this one can be easily picked up, as it is like a cookie inside, and is therefore a good on-the-go pie option; however, it would probably be eaten with a fork sitting down, especially if in a restaurant. Others, such as fruit pies, probably could not be bitten out of as easily and therefore require utensils; I am picturing blueberry filling spilling on my shirt as I type.

Pie with hands.

Pie with utensils.

She also texted that everyone loved the flavor, and that the crust was incredibly flaky and buttery, which confirmed the butter-over-shortening debate. Luckily, she had a couple leftover so I was able to try one. After taking a bite, I wanted to give myself a pat on the back or a round of applause or something - this was hands down one of the best pie crusts I had ever tasted. No wonder I never really cared for pie: my mom and grandma were not pie makers, and any crusts I had ever had were probably of the horrible shortening or frozen pre-made varieties. If I had tasted crust like this before, I would have been a pie advocate all my life. While the filling was delicious - just like an underdone chocolate chip cookie and would have been spectacular warm and with some vanilla ice cream - the crust just absolutely stole the show. I am so excited to make more pies and things that use a pie crust now, so thank you Liz for forcing me to broaden my horizons!

A Taste of the High Rollin' Baker's Life

2011-07-10T23:52:00.007-05:00

Who knew that the ticket to meeting TLC reality show "Cake Boss" star Buddy Valastro was to buy a Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lambourghini, or Bugatti? I would have said to go to his bakery in Hoboken, which I have seen, but not been in, due to my lack of desire to stand in line for two hours in the sweltering August Hoboken sun. I love desserts, and I love quaint Hoboken, but I do not love waiting, sweating in my clothes, or wasting NYC-sightseeing time.

Don't worry, I didn't combine the whole $500 I've made off baking so far with an outrageous loan to buy a Bentley so that I could meet Cake Boss. But my grandpa did. But not to meet Cake Boss.

Outdoor tent space and gathering crowds.

Anyway, recently I received a call from my grandpa asking if I was interested in taking his tickets to an upcoming event at the new Gold Coast Rolls Royce dealership, at which Cake Boss would be filming an episode of his show. Ummm....yeah, I'm interested.

The purpose of the event was a "ribbon-cutting" for the dealership's foray into Rolls Royce; they already sold Bentleys, Lambourghinis, and Bugattis. For this grand celebration, the dealership's principal, Joe Perillo, Sr., invited his one hundred valued customers and guests and cleared all the cars out to create room for a swanky event that included two red carpets, a live jazz band, scanty little-black-dress-clad champagne waitresses, floral and crystal arrangements, silk-wrapped high tops, and a tented patio along Pearson Street. And, to infuse the theme of "la famiglia" (family in Italian), as well as create enormous media hype, Perillo invited fellow paisano Buddy Valastro to not only make him a grand celebration cake, but also film an episode of "Cake Boss" at the event. No big deal.

Hilarious photo ops.

The day of the event, a surprise sighting of the Cake Boss spurred my excitement: right outside my work window, I watched the "Cake Boss" crew film a scene for the episode. Buddy rolled up to the Sears/Willis Tower in a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe (approximately $450,000.....), parked out front in the middle of South Wacker Drive (totally normal, especially for $450,000 cars that you don't want smashed by an errant taxi...), looked up at the Sears Tower Skydeck, a glass ledge overhang on the 103rd floor, then walked inside. The scene gave you the feeling that Buddy was then going to go up to the Skydeck, but then he just walked right back out, got in the Phantom with his group, and slowly rolled away. Just an example of how piecemeal a television episode is.
A few hours later, I ran home after work to change into my richest-looking cocktail attire, as I knew everyone at the event was going to look at me and wonder how a young female could be a valued customer of a luxury car dealership, as I am definitely not. As my cab rolled up, I admired the red carpet and tent over the Pearson Street patio to my left. As I looked to my right, I was startled: screaming "Cake Boss" fans stood behind a barricade on the opposite side of the street, scrambling for a glimpse of their beloved Buddy. So, this is what it feels like to be on the other side... felt good, I must admit. Especially when one girl screamed, "I love your dress!" At least they don't know I'm not a valued customer.

I was escorted to the other red carpet (the Pearson Street one was for Buddy's cake entrance), where I had to take a picture of my face next to my pre-signed-and-faxed television release waiver - tight security to see a cake, in my opinion. My "date"/friend Stephanie and I walked in, politely accepted a glass of champagne from the sexy waitress, and commenced people watching. What a site. This crowd was rich and beautiful, that was certain. The age ranges were interesting: there were a few Cake Boss-fan kids, probably up to the age of 15, that belonged to the Perillo family and to a couple luxury car-owning parents. Ten years after that, there was Stephanie and me - and that's it for the 20s. The ages then started again around 35, mostly male owners or trophy wives. And from there, the sky was the limit, with the median age around 55, with many wealthy seniors to be found. There were approximately 20 boob jobs, 10 nose jobs, 12 lip jobs, and 15 lipo jobs (some botched), that I counted. There were approximately 50 designer handbags, 17 pairs of Louboutins, and probably 500 carats of diamonds - often 10+ in a single woman's ring. The wonders never ceased.

Need that professional picture taken by the hand in the corner.

Aha! Amidst the fake boobs and tight dresses and white hair and diamonds was Buddy Valastro, THE "Cake Boss," taking pictures with the guests! Stephanie and I patiently joined the line (I could handle this one, as it was only about five people long) and got our picture with Buddy! Here's the one on my camera, which is terrible - thank you, lady-behind-me-in-line. However, there was a professional photographer snapping as well, so once the dealership posts the pictures on their site, I will snag that pic to post here.

Having gotten half of what I came for (1/2 = picture with Buddy; 1/2 = slice of Buddy's cake), I settled in for the the festivities, which commenced with some speeches from the Perillo family and friends about their illustrious dealership past and future, now with Rolls Royce as a partner. All anyone was thinking, though, was, "Where's the cake?", "What will the cake be?", "I bet it's going to be a full-size Rolls Royce!", "No way!!!", "Yes! Have you SEEN his cakes?!", etc. They tried to assuage the crowd by passing around silver platters of Italian pastries from Buddy's own Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, which worked on me at least, as I am a sucker for a good cannoli. However, the cannoli-high wore off as we all stood herded around the red carpet, waiting for the arrival of the cake via Buddy's refrigerated truck all the way from Hoboken. The sky slowly turned a foreboding shade of gray, then black, making me happy I was under the tent, as some guests were not so lucky. Finally, the truck arrived, but then we could not find a forklift to get the cake out. That took another fifteen minutes, causing one to wonder why this was not a better-organized operation. Buddy and crew knew they needed to get a hustle on, as the heavens were about to open and rain on their parade, literally. Luckily, a forklift was found, and the cake slowly emerged from the truck. The large group of fans behind the barricade screamed (and dutifully did not take pictures, as the producer instructed them not to for maximum television drama) as the cake theme was revealed - the city of Chicago!

What a struggle. The cake was easily ten feet wide, four feet deep, and eight feet tall - four feet of table and four feet of cake. It took a crew to get the cake into the red carpet receiving area. Fortunately, the cake made it under the tent just in time to escape some hurricane-like winds and rain (I felt bad the the crowd members that were just outside the tent, as the roof kept dumping water on their heads). Buddy started his explanation of the cake parts: the deep dish pizza, the hot dog with no ketchup/catsup, the Sears/Willis Tower, the Hancock building, the Prudential Building, Soldier Field, Wrigley Field, etc.

And thennnn.... the best part! ..... Aaaand..... here it comes! ..... Aaaaaand..... what's going on? Suddenly the camera lights went out. "We need lights for this part," Buddy said, as he gave his crew some heated looks, then walked behind the cake. A shuffle ensued for an extension cord, and a Carlo's Bakery crew member fiddled around with some clearly broken mechanics in the underbelly of the cake. About fifteen minutes later, light was found, as was power to the cake. Buddy continued his speech as crew members lit sparklers on the cake's edges. Suddenly, a Rolls Royce emblem rose out of the middle of the cake, a crowning glory over the city of Chicago. While a truly impressive display, I was laughing as I pictured the last hour (struggling to get the cake off the truck and scrambling for electrical power, with Buddy cursing all the while) condensed into a five-minute, seemingly seamless television segment - Oh! The magic of Cake Boss!

Explaining the cake/city components.

Sparkler magic.

Buddy: "Ugghhh, c'mon!"

I'm sure they'll also not show the fact that it took about an hour to actually cut the cake, meanwhile a different sheet cake and pastries were passed to guests. I eventually fought my way into the Chicago cake line, as Stephanie and I were bound and determined to try the actual Cake Boss cake. To be honest, I was expecting it to be kind of gross, an over-sugary, chewy fondant-wrapped cake that had sat too long in a refrigerated truck. However, to my surprise, it was actually quite delicious - the vanilla cake was flavorful and moist, the middle chocolate frosting layer complemented the cake nicely, and the top frosting (no fondant on the piece of Lake Michigan and Grant Park that I cut) was nothing like your typical gritty grocery buttercream. In fact, Stephanie and I both liked the Chicago cake better than the sheet cakes, which was a vanilla cake layer and a chocolate cake layer separated by a fudge filling, with white buttercream on top. However, at this point, after all the pastries and cake and champagne, all I wanted (and needed for my blood sugar's sake) was a burger.

Sampling.

Italian pastries.

Mark your territory.

Overall, my favorite part of the night occurred in the cake receiving line. Even though the event's guests were dripping in couture and diamonds, when the hostesses ran out of forks and plates (they had about twenty-five. Great planning on their part."We're hosting an event for 200 people with a 10'x4'x4' cake from the freaking Cake Boss - how many plates and forks do we need - twenty-five? Yeah, sounds about right...") they were not above cutting a piece, palming it with their bejeweled hand, dropping it onto a napkin, and picking at it with their diamond-encrusted fingers to eat it. Oh! The magic of dessert! Doesn't matter how rich or cultured or proper you are - we all still have that primal tendency to swoop our finger over some frosting and lick it off :)

Fruit for Dessert Follow-up

2011-07-05T22:05:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I ran a poll on the blog, "Is Fruit a Dessert?", in light of a recent dessert experience that hit home with my business (who are we kidding, life) philosophy. Now that the polls are closed (sounds so official, right?), I want to dig into the results...

Is Fruit a Dessert?

A: Yes, just fruit alone can be a dessert.

B: Only if it is served as a component of a more substantial dessert (e.g., pie, cake, etc.)

C: Never.

Your Responses:

Yes: 60%

Only as a component: 36%

Never: 4%

I have to say... Wow. I'm a little surprised. People actually disagree with me, the desserts guru... just kidding. But really, I am surprised - for everyone out there that shares my sweet tooth, you would be content with, say, an apple after dinner? Because I would say, given an option between an apple and cake, I'll take cake.

Maybe I am missing the point, though - I obviously just chose one of the less dessert-y fruits as an example. You out there, that like plain fruit for dessert, what kind of fruit are you eating? Strawberries? That's slightly more satisfying than an apple I guess. A fruit salad? I can honestly say the only fruit I ever remember eating after dinner and thinking, "Wow, that was satisfying," was a chirimoya. Which, to my misfortune, is extremely rare in the U.S.; otherwise, perhaps I would have fruit for dessert more often (which is probably not a bad idea, given that I'd guess 50% of my caloric intake some days is sweets...). I enjoyed this specialty while I studied abroad in Spain, to which it is native, as well as to South American countries. My host mom and I would cut one in half and split it after dinner many nights, when I wasn't baking and making them try American desserts (which they found incredibly rich - are you surprised?). Chirimoya roughly translates to "custard apple fruit" - yeah, don't remember the custard variation next to the regular apples in the grocery, do you? For best taste, the outside of a chirimoya should be soft, similar to a ripened avocado; the inside is opaque white, fleshy, and creamy - hence the translated "custard" name. You navigate around the large, black, bean-like seeds with a spoon - just scoop out the flesh similar to how you would eat a grapefruit half. Mmmmm, I can almost taste it...

But, chirimoyas aside, I still don't really consider fruit a dessert. So, those of you that answered, "Yes, just fruit alone can be a dessert," enlighten me - how is fruit a dessert? Tell me what I am missing. What kind of fruit do you enjoy for dessert? Please leave comments explaining your stance - I am really curious! Especially since I thought choosing "Never" or "As a component" was a no-brainer. If this is how the "people" feels, perhaps I need to alter my product offering.

In the spirit of this debate and the season, I am want to share with you one of my favorite fruit desserts: fruit pizza. It is incredibly easy to make, especially if you take all the shortcuts. Fruit pizza is the perfect end to a summer barbecue, especially with all the ripe, glorious berries on sale at the grocery/farmers market right now. It looks elegant, yet there is nothing to it. And, it's a really flexible recipe, as there are many options for each component. It is also one of the first "orders" I ever had: a family friend commissioned individual fruit pizzas for a party when I was 18 years-old.

Ingredients:

Sugar cookie base. Options:

Pre-made refrigerated dough
Sugar cookie mix, made as directed
Homemade sugar cookie dough

Cream cheese filling. Options

8 oz. cream cheese + 1/2 cup sugar + 2 tsp vanilla
8 oz. cream cheese + 7 oz. marshmallow creme
8 oz cream cheese + 8 oz. cool whip, thawed
1/2 cup cream cheese frosting + 1 cup whipping cream

Fruit. Whatever your heart desires. I recommend whatever is ripe/in season. A combination is always fun. Some options:

Strawberries
Blueberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Mandarin Oranges
Kiwi
Bananas (place on pizza JUST before serving, or will turn brown)
Grapes
Pineapple

Steps:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease pan. Typically a pizza pan is desired, but a cookie sheet works as well. Individual fruit pizzas can also be made in place of one large pizza.
Crust preparation:

If making homemade or mix sugar cookie dough, prepare as directed.
If refrigerated, let soften.

Crust baking:

If making one large pizza, press crust into pan.
If making individual pizzas, place cookie balls on baking sheet.
Bake crust(s) in preheated oven until light golden brown on top. Allow to cool completely before topping.

Filling preparation

8 oz. cream cheese + 1/2 cup sugar + 2 tsp vanilla: beat all until smooth.
8 oz. cream cheese + 7 oz. marshmallow creme: beat all until smooth.
8 oz cream cheese + 8 oz. cool whip, thawed: beat cream cheese until smooth. Fold in cool whip.
1/2 cup cream cheese frosting + 1 cup whipping cream: beat whipping cream until soft peaks form. Fold in frosting.

Assembly

Spread filling over top of cooled cookie crust.

Allow your inner artist to come out: arrange desired fruits over top of pizza. Here are some pictures I found on the Internet:

Enjoy! Also, if you make/plan to make one, comment on the post! Maybe even post a picture of your artistry!