Archive for May, 2011

Chocolate Raspberry Trifle

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Hello? Is anyone out there? I’m usually on the tail end of the weekly posters for the heavenly cake bakers group, but it looks like I’m only the second one to post this week’s cake. I guess I’ll chalk it up to Memorial day festivities in the US, since the only other poster so far also lives outside the US, in Canberra. This week, we’re working on the Chocolate Raspberry Trifle, leaving only a handful of cakes from the sponge cake chapter unbaked. For me, they are White Gold Passion Génoise, Red Fruit Shortcake, and Catalan Salt Pinch cake, which I skipped the first time around. I decided to make this trifle in a casserole dish, for several reasons. The first is the most important: I don’t own a trifle dish (shock! horror!). The second reason is because I thought it would be a pretty convenient way to carry it to work.

Mmm.. so pink!

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Barcelona Brownie Bars

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

Since, aside from Marie, the host of the Heavenly Cake Bake-along, only one of Rose’s Heavenly Cake Bakers (congratulations, NancyB!) managed to bake their way through every recipe in Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, several of the group are continuing through to completion, with Jenn of “Knitty Baker” taking up the role of host. This week’s ‘cake’ is the Barcelona Brownie Bars. I think this was the first recipe I baked as part of the bake along, if memory serves. For nostalgia’s sake, here’s the link to my Barcelona Brownie Bars (though I’m not sure how anyone could be nostalgic for that kitchen!).

I didn’t manage to bake anything new this weekend. Instead, I made Cordon Rose Cheesecake from The Cake Bible (my standard go-to cheesecake), then drizzled it with chocolate lacquer glaze, leftover from Zach’s La Bomba. It was my husband’s birthday yesterday, so he got to choose the cake. ;) Happily, he’s getting around much better this weekend than he was a week ago, and he’s scheduled for physio tomorrow. We event managed to frame out a new garden shed this past weekend. Roof’s next!

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Zach’s La Bomba

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Well, it’s finally here. The last cake of the official heavenly cake bakers project. Despite the weekend* we had around here, I just didn’t feel right missing out on baking this one with the rest of my baking buddies. We picked up some black currant herbal tea at Teaopia. The rest of the ingredients were easy: chocolate, cream and regular pantry items. The cake has a lot of components, but none struck me as particularly challenging (ok, my arm got a bit tired with the Sabayon). I tried to clean up the dishes as I went, but by the end of it, I still had just about a full load in the dishwasher, and several big bowls on the counter. Oh well. Let’s bake!

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Catch up time with the Heavenly Cake Bakers

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Ok, so I’ve missed a few weeks. Sorry, I’ve been a bad blogger. I’ve missed some baking too. Instead of making a southern (Manhatten) coconut cake, I made a buttermilk country cake with Seville orange curd (from orange juice I had frozen last spring), for my grandfather’s 90th birthday. Instead of a free choice cake from Rose’s heavenly cakes, last weekend, I made this for a friend (who’s in her mid-twenties, but never mind that):

K's Birthday Cake

Now granted, this particular cake used the white velvet butter (cup) cakes for the feet, a white velvet bowl cake for the head, and the marble velvet cake for the body, but since I’ve already made those previously, I don’t get to cross something extra off the list.

This week, however, I made Tiramisù, so I do get to cross that off my list. Like most free choice weeks, this was Jay’s choice. :) I don’t like coffee (he does), but I kept an open mind, and actually really enjoyed this one.

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