Well, the title pretty much says it all, right? Warning, this is a picture heavy post, so if you’re on a slow connection, be forewarned that it could take a while to load.
Yum!
I’m gonna pretty much let the pictures do the talking today.
Wrinkly soaked apricots
Hm... I started the ganache, but now I need this for my apricots. Time to finish the ganache, and wash dishes, I guess.
That's better.
Looks like baby food. Or squash.
Tastes a whole lot better, though.
Perfect amount of leftovers (I did a half batch)
Ganache and Lekvar. What's next?
Oh. I need this for the biscuit. Looks like it's dishes time again.
Much better. Heart of Wheat bread will be ready by supper time.
Mise en Place for Meringue
Whipped Egg Yolks + sugar + vanilla
After folding in the flour
Time to fold in the meringue
I'm not very good at smoothing the surface of my cakes.
All rolled up. Propped against the oven mitt to keep seam side down.
All ready to assemble. Looks like someone made syrup, too.
Lekvar spread
Ganache Spread (with a layer scraped off and back into the bowl for the crumb coat after I read the next step)
Ready for crumb coat
Glaze software
Glaze hardware
Cocoa, sugar, and water mixed together
Cream and corn syrup added
Waiting for it to cool after yet another batch of dishes (see the clean strainer?)
Ready to glaze.
Wow. That was easier than I expected (It looks more precarious than it was... I think)!
Shiny! Does someone want to buy me a pretty rectangular cake plate? Anyone? No? Bah.
How did this get in here?
Hubby liked this, and thought the glaze was really cool. He (like me) was rather disturbed by the texture of the puddle that I scraped off the pan, though. Chocolate Jello! I put it in the freezer. Hopefully, I’ll find a use for it. I took the leftovers into work and sent an email out to a handful of people, rather than all of dev, because I didn’t want to email 30 geeks telling them I had cake, and have 20-25 of them go away empty-handed, since this was a pretty small cake. The few I emailed we rather pleased that they’d managed to end up members of some sort of exclusive club. I’ll have to email a different set of people next time just to keep them on their toes. Trade bug fixes for cake or something. 
Tags: apricot, chocolate, heavenly cakes
love your step by step photos! and your cake looks wonderful! Yup..i too wished i had rectangular plate..lol!..and i didn’t..:)
Love your post… and I so can relate to the emailing at work… I did not bring mine to work.. since we finished it last night. It was a huge hit with my family and neighboor and like you said, small cake – less to go around.
How in the world do you bake so nice and neatly? Very nice step by step pictorial.
Your cake looks lovely!
Vicki: It’s a trick. I zoom in on the small number of items being used for any one given task, so you can’t see the rest of the disaster that is my kitchen.
Loved your step-by-step photos (not that I don’t like your writing!!). Your cake turned out beautifully. The chocolate puddles DO taste like choc jello (I think, anyway, because I don’t eat jello). Glad you liked it and had enough to share with (some of) your coworkers. How about, if I give you a piece of cake, you go home early so you can’t write up any more bugs?
) Btw, I made this into a layer cake and filled it with a white choc mousse. Delicious!! Check it out.
Loved your post. Excellent pictures and your cake is beautiful
Great post! I especially liked the software/hardware photos.