Last Cake, Next Cake

I apologize for a late LC NC summary. It's been a crazy week.

This is the week where everyone played catch up, as it seems like everyone has made this cake.
Mendy already made the Molten cake back in October last year. So for this week he made the Karmel cake. I love how Mendy breaks down what the Karmel cake is all about in a few words: "The idea behind this cake is pretty simple really. Caramel with cake batter." This is his first time using sugar thermometer and it took half an hour to make the caramel. He also made the caramel parve using soy milk and margarine. There's some holes in the finished product, Mendy blamed his baking powder math as he doubled the recipe. Fortunately it didn't affect the taste. "It was very good although the flavor was a bit subtle. Goes down right with a cup of coffee."

Lois, also made the Molten cake last year. This week she made the Golden Lemon Almond cake for her husband to bring to work. Lois enjoyed making this cake: "the batter was sublime, but you probably already know about my weakness for almond flavored baked goods." Tasting impressions was also excellent, as she quoted from her husband's text message: "The guys said it was delicious and they appreciated me baking an American cake for them.  It reminded them of babka - a yeast dough baked with fruit filling and topped with a glaze.  They told Ed that babka means pretty girl, or pretty girl's cake, in this case.  Actually, babka means grandmother.  Can you blame them for bending the translation a bit to flatter the cook?  LOL."

Our FEATURED BAKER, ECL, is only four cakes behind in the bake through. This week she made both the Pumpkin cake and Moist Chocolate Raspberry Genoise. She made the Pumpkin cake in a bundt pan. The unmolded cake is so perfect and beautiful. So much so that ECL was hesitant about covering it up with the smbc. ECL noted that the cake and frosting took their time to come together in flavor, 24 hours. "A great fall cake that stays moist and flavorful for days. The frosting, although time consuming, is also delicious but I would prefer it on another cake."

ECL showed her deep love for chocolate by her description of the Moist Chocolate Raspberry Genoise:"moist and light and rich, all at the same time. Oh, and deeply chocolaty." This cake, though, was made not without some ranting. ECL ranted about how long it took to bake this cake, "partly because there are lots of steps in this recipe, partly because twice you're supposed to bring something to a boil over low heat." Then there's some ranting about her own decision not to sift the flour, which caused flour balls to form: "oh HELL no. THE DREADED FLOUR BALLS." The raspberry ganache is now her favorite ganache, as also evident by the lack of ranting when ECL wrote about it :).

A shout-out to Kristina for posting the link to her Molten Cake, made October last year.

Next week is the Peanut Butter Ingots, the last of the ingots in the schedule. If you have made ingots before then you know this calls for beurre noisette. It is pretty easy to make and can be made with the financier pan or any other small pan (cupcake pan). Yes I realize I do not sound very excited about this cake, but ingots and I really do not see eye to eye. If you have made the other ingots in the book and have liked them, you will not be disappointed with this one.