Alpha Bakers: Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache

Cake design inspired by Hector Wong and Rose's latest out bakes post.

This is one of the recipes in the book that has no photos. I didn't know how to decorate the cake or what to aim for. I know I want to make 1/2 recipe of the cake *grin* and thought to decorate it by piping the ganache around the base. When I went to get my 6 inch round cake pan from storage, I saw this 6 inch heart shaped pan instead. I had completely forgotten I have this!!! I think I bought it somewhere along baking through Rose's Heavenly Cakes from a cake supply store in town. It's Wilton brand by the way and it's available on Amazon as well. When the cake cake out of the oven and the top was flat and the cake tall (1 5/8 inches), I remembered Rose's out bakes post last week and the Hector-inspired heart design, so I am proudly copying Hector's beautiful rendition.

This cake turned out a whole lot better than I had hoped for, especially since I didn't have the correct flour. I was so excited to see a King Flour brand of cake flour that I completely didn't realize it said "unbleached". That's not the same as bleached. I only realized this yesterday morning when I did mis-en-place for this cake. Well, I am way too lazy to make a trip to the store to get the correct cake flour, so I adjusted the flour by using 90% of the KA unbleached cake flour and 10% non-gmo cornstarch (Rapunzel brand). For those expecting a math lesson (I'm looking at you Monica :)), half recipe is 78 grams total flour - 70 grams of KA flour and 8 grams of cornstarch. For the leavening, it only uses baking powder. I had to check the recipe twice on the baking powder amount - I thought I read wrong. This cake uses a lot of baking powder. It makes my math difficult. 1/2 recipe would be 1 1/2 tablespoon plus 1/8 tsp. 1 tablespoon is equal 3 teaspoon (according to google), so I used 1 1/2 teaspoon plus 1/4 teaspoon. Confused yet? We're not done. For the eggs, I have been buying Farmer's Hen House Organic Jumbo Eggs. Jumbo! It's not large or extra large anymore. Each egg is about 60 grams. I used the additional 10 grams for the liquid adjustment. Okay now we're done with the math lessons, hehe.

Alpha Bakers: Chocolate Cuddle Cake

I am a little ashamed of posting this cake after seeing how tall other's cakes are and comparing it to how tall the cake in the book is. My cake only measured 1 1/2 inches tall. Sniff. The loss of height is because of my own fault. If you keep reading you'll find out why...

I was really looking forward to this cake. Plus it coincides with my birthday. I planned to bake the day before my birthday, though I didn't sleep well and didn't feel like baking. I started anyway. I should know better. Since I was not in the right mood, of course I messed up. It was bad. I had to make the caramel three times to get it right. My fault because I forgot to order a new instant thermometer so had to make do with the dying thermometer - don't really trust a dying thermometer, it seems to be working okay around 200 degrees but can't go past 250 degrees. So I am doing this by eye-balling, which is a bad sign. My first caramel, I was afraid of the caramel (still remember the caramel burn I got from a couple of years ago) so I didn't wait until the caramel was dark enough. And then I forgot to separate the cream to add to the cocoa powder. So I mix the cocoa powder into the caramel directly while it was still warm.

Alpha Bakers: The Ischler

There is no better smell than the smell of freshly-baked cookies.

This is the third recipe in our baking adventure, The Ischler are not on the quick and easy list. I suspect mainly because there are 3 components to it and the recipe is 4 pages long. But they are really pretty quick and easy, especially considering  you can make some of the components in advance. The lekvar can be made ahead of time and last indefinitely in the fridge. The cookie dough itself can be made 2 days in advance.

These cookies are one of the recipes that I was looking forward to make when I got the book. I have made the Sugar Cookies recipe from Rose's Christmas cookies several times - it is one of my favorites, so naturally I was curious about the Ischler. Add that to the fact that the Ishler's photo is so beautiful. The styling is simple, there is no prop really, just the cookies themselves. The close up shot really did the job - I want to reach into the pages and grab a cookie (or three!).

All the steps for the Ischler are easy enough and I enjoyed putting the dough together in the food processor. And then I got to the roll and cut cookie part. I find this part a bit annoying. The dough is stickier than the sugar cookie. And towards the end of rolling, they have a hard time to stay together and wants to crumble. At some point I thought that these were not worth all the efforts, and I was glad I only made 1/2 a recipe or I would have spent a lot more time rolling and cutting. It took 10 minutes to bake them and I tried a couple as they are still warm. They were so good that I forgot my annoyance from earlier. They are totally worth the efforts. I find them way too sweet with the ganache and lekvar though. I like the cookies itself without any filling so next time (yes there is a next time), I will skip the lekvar and ganache.

HCB: Bernachon Palet D'Or Gateau

This is 1/2 recipe of the Bernachon, baked in a 6 inch pan. Usually when I make 1/2 recipe I like to use the 7 inch pan but this time I want a tall cake.

The cake component is similar to several other chocolate cakes from the book. I love cakes with sour cream and this one is no exception. Mix sour cream, cocoa, vanilla with a whisk until it's pudding like. Mix all the dry ingredients in the mixer, add the butter and 1/2 the cocoa mixture. Mix for 1 1/2 minute. Add the rest of the cocoa mixture.

HCB: Molten Chocolate Souffle and Lava Cake

My blog has a mind of its own this morning and decided to publish a post that is still at an early writing post, just as I was typing it! This happens to me sometimes when I typed email using my yahoo email account, but never with the blog before.

Anyway, this is my last cake from the baby cake chapter. I know it's kinda backwards because we still have the Peanut Butter Ingots next week. But see I made that baby a couple of months ago. The post is written and ready to go. So technically this is my last baby cake.

HCB: Deep Chocolate Rosebuds

When you read a recipe, it sorta helps when you actually read it, instead of reading the title and a part of the instruction and then filling in the blanks yourself.

I blame this to tiredness. I didn't sleep well last night. Yet I woke up early, had breakfast, then proceeded to make this cake.

HCB Free Choice: Marble Velvet Cake

The first time I made this cake, it turned out so well. I used Hector's conversion to make it in a round cake pan. The cake marbled beautifully and baked up flat. At that time I didn't take a photo. It was late by the time the cake was done and I didn't make the ganache, so I thought next time when I make it I will take a photo.

Since the rules of this bake through is that you must blog about the cakes, here I am giving this cake a redo. This time I made 1/6 recipe of it (Marie, are you reading this?), baked in a 4 inch pan (volume measure 1 3/4 cup), it is teeny tiny.

HCB: Chocolate Tomato Cake with Mystery Ganache

This cake turned out better than I expect. Which is not hard, considering I have very low expectations (sorry, Rose!) But I just could not bring myself to think or imagine that a cake made with tomato soup would turn out edible. If I were not so determined to bake everything from the book, I would have skip this cake in a heartbeat.

For the sake of scratching off one more cake off the list, I made 1/4 recipe, which yield 8 cupcakes, 50 grams each.

While I was prepping all the ingredients, it occurred to me that I should have just made 1/8 recipe. But oh well, it was too late.

HCB Free Choice: Apple Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake and Chocolate Apricot Roll with Lacquer Glaze

There are a couple of cakes from the book that I made last year but never blogged about. I was going to at some point but things other cakes got in the way.

This weekend I told myself that I should blog about them. No excuses! Even if the photos makes me cringe, especially the Apricot Roll one, where the sliced photo is all blurry. I took 8 photos of them and none were in focus. *@)*&)*%#_*#)!

There's not much to say about the Apple Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake as I don't remember much. Which to me means two things: the cake was easy and the taste was not bad but not super good either.

I do remember that we love the crunch of the topping on top and the slight crunch of the apple in the middle.

HCB: Mud Turtle Cupcakes

This cake is my 77th cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes.

It feels so good to say that.

I have been saying that I have 17 cakes remaining. That number seem so small in comparison to 77, and yet, if I bake one every week I have 3 months left.

I can't wait!!!

It's not because I don't like being part of HCB. But at this point in the game, where the end feels so near (what's 3 months!?!) but yet so far (still 3 months!!!), I am itching to finish. 

I can smell and see the finish line (okay, I am being a tad melodramatic).

But wouldn't you be?

I am not very excited to make this cupcakes. Like I said last week, a cupcake named "mud" does not make me think "yum."

Still, I woke up on Sunday morning feeling quite excited.

Not necessarily about "mud," but about photography. Cupcake photography, in this case.

HCB Free Choice: Devil Food's Cupcakes

For the free choice this week I made Devil Food's cupcakes.

Again, you said?

We just made it 6 weeks ago.

Yes. It's that good.

So instead of catching up on the remainder 23 cakes left, I made this again.

It also helps that I have leftover Midnight Ganache in the freezer, as I didn't use it all last time.

This time, I used the book's method of mixing. The result is a fluffy cupcake, not dense and fudgy like next time. It is really good. I like the texture this way.

Also this time, the brandied cherry tasted more boozy. I can feel myself swooning after finishing a cupcake. I better not drive.

Note: My apologies for such a short post. But since this is a repeat performance, I don't know what else to write, ^o^!

HCB: Devil's Food Cake with Midnight Ganache

WARNING: This post contains many pictures - most of them are mouth-watering. Please have something sweet nearby, a piece of cake would be nice, or if not available, a piece of chocolate/candy.

Got your candy?

Ready?

This is one of the cakes that I've been looking forward to. I've never had a Devil's Food Cake (not a cake fan before HCB) and usuallt ganache is too rich/sweet for my taste but the picture in the book looks so luscious that everytime I see it I felt myself almost drooling. So when Marie scheduled it this month I was yelping with joy.

Rose advised to soak the cherries 8 hours ahead so I soaked it Friday night. Looking into the liquor collection in the pantry, I do not own a bottle of Cognac. Hard to believe, but true. I do have a bottle of brandy so that's what I used.

In going with the theme "let's divide the recipe as little as possible and using odd fractions if possible" I made 1/4 recipe, baked in 6 inch hearts pan. I had thought of taking Marie's dare comments and do 3/7th but I didn't want to mess it up.

First, I made the ganache. Rose said to make it at least 6 hours ahead. I didn't have time the night before, so I started first thing in the morning, 8.30, bright and early. For those of you who don't think 8.30 AM is bright and early please remember that this Sunday was daylight saving's time, we moved up 1 hour. So essentially I was up in the kitchen at 7.30 *grin*.

The ganache calls for mixing cocoa powder and boiling water, then cooling it down to room temperature. Whenever I make this, I always took Rose's suggestion and put it in the fridge - so much faster that way. While the ganache was cooling, I prepped the chocolate. The chocolate is a block of Schaffen Berger from the freezer. It's hard as a rock but whacking a piece of it is no problem, thanks for a tip from Monica to use a chisel.

Once the cocoa mixture cooled down, I made the caramel. For once, I thought to opt out of measuring the temperature of the caramel and just judge it by sight. Rose said until deep amber. I took the pan off the heat when it's medium amber and then watch the caramel turned to almost deep amber. Then poured the cream over it. Since I've taken the pan off the heat a minute earlier, the cream didn't sizzle when I poured it, so I was a little worried then. Maybe I undercook the caramel? But then I stir the cream with a spatula, and it sizzled indeed. I did wear my oven mitts when I poured the cream because I did not want to have caramel burn again.

Next, place the pot back on the heat until the caramel has dissolved. Then poured it over the chopped chocolate. The chocolate was in a bowl. I opted out of using the food processor. I don't feel this is necessary for ganache, plus it's such a small amount.

 

Next, I made the cake. And this is where my poor mis-en-place skills showed. I have not read the instruction for the cake so I didn't realize that the cake also calls for mixing cocoa (and chocolate) with hot water and cooling it down. To speed things up even further, I placed the cocoa mixture in the freezer. I don't know whether this is a good idea but I did it anyway, and set the timer for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, it's still a bit warm, so I put it back for another 5. By then it's completely cooled. Yay!

Rose recommends an alternate mixing method for a less tender cake, so I tried this method. It's quite different than the original recipe. It calls for mixing half the cocoa mixture with the wet ingredients (sour cream, eggs, vanilla) and the other half goes with the butter into the dry ingredients. This method also cuts down on the frequency of mixing time since there's only 1 wet ingredients mixture to incorporate (vs two in the original recipe - egg mixture and cocoa mixture). That means less scraping the sides of the bowl, which I'm happy about (yes I need to get the beater blade - it's on my wish list!).

The good thing about making smaller portion of a recipe - aside from the obvious of not having too much dessert around or the headache of finding people to help you eat dessert - is that things cooled down much faster. The ganache is supposed to take 6 hours until it gets to a spreadable consistency. But with 1/4 recipe, after 2 hours it's ready.

I thought the cake needs dressing up a bit, so I made a little whipped cream and piped rosettes around, topped with leftover drunken sour cherries. 

Tasting impressions:

Be still my heart! This is the ultimate chocolate cake! The chocolate cake is fudgy and moist - like a really good brownie. And the ganache. Let me tell you! This ganache is a killer. I was licking the spatula, my fingers, the bowl (psst.. don't tell anyone). Even hubby, who's usually not a chocolate cake fan, said this is really really good.

HCB: Moist Chocolate Raspberry Genoise

I made this cake for my birthday in 2009 but never posted it. I made 1/2 recipe, baked in 2 6 inch pans. It's funny to go back and dig up old photos of cakes. If I had make the cake this weekend, 2 things would have been different. I would have decorated it differently and the photos would have been much better.

Still, I think it turned out kinda cute. I know I''m complimenting myself here, something that I try not to do. But it is so funny to see this cake after over a year and the happy birthday with the smiley face, written in strained raspberry jam.

As it's been over a year, I do not remember much a lot of details about this cake, so this is going to be a very short post.

Moist Chocolate Genoise is one of my favorite chocolate cake. It's a chocolate cake that I've made most often (twice as black forest, once with whipped chocolate ganache, and this cake).

Too lazy to make raspberry sauce, I bought a jar of raspberry jam/preserve and strain the seeds. I don't remember that I was too lazy, but I know myself, so I know that's what I must have done LOL.

I see from the picture that the ganache it turned out smooth, which surprises me because if I had made it today it probably would have turned out grainy. This tells me that I must have had better patience back then. Have I grown more impatience over time? Something to ponder and work on I suppose :).

 

Though I don't remember much about making this cake, I remember my tasting impressions. The cake was good but it was a bit too rich for me (I might have used a higher cacao content chocolate or something). I remembered that I could only eat a small slice and ended up bringing the rest to the office. The raspberry taste is barely noticeable (should've made my own raspberry puree).

HCB: Genoise Tres Cafe

My 59th cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes: Genoise Tres Cafe. I was looking forward to this cake. It's genoise - with the magical beurre noisette as the base.

For a change, I made the full recipes, baked in several different pans. I got these mini heart shaped pan last year at Sur La Table. It was one of those impulse buy on my 1st visit to the store. I have not used it and at some point regretted buying them. Then I saw this post on Hector's website last December where he used Wilton's miniature heart pan to bake a genoise. Hector said that genoise bake well in any shaped pan. I have been planning on using my heart shaped pan ever since.

There are still a lot of batter leftover after filling up 4 mini heart pan. So I used a 6-cavity Wilton mini heart silicone pan for the rest. Even after that, I still have leftover batter, so I used the financier pan. So yeah this genoise produced 10 mini heart shaped cakes and 4 financiers.

Okay, enough talking about the pans. Let's talk about the cake.

The genoise is easy enough. By now I should be able to do this with my eyes closed. Well ehem.. okay.. maybe not that exactly, but it is easy indeed.

The ganache, as always, proved to be difficult. Or it's just my incompetence talking because I curdled it. Thanks to Rose that in this recipe she mentioned how to save the ganache. I remelted it, rechilled, and rebeat. And it curdled again!

Annoyed (at myself), I remelted it again. This time, I told myself, I better not mess it up. Phew, 3rd time's the charm. It didn't curdle and I was able to pipe pretty decoration on one of the stacked heart cakes. By the time I wanted to do the same decoration on the other little cakes, the ganache was too soft. I re-whip it manually, and it was still too soft and threatened to curdle.

Okay then I give up. No way I'm going to melt the ganache for the 4th time. At least I got a pretty little heart cake out of it.

Tasting impression:
YUM! I'm not a big coffee drinker. I love the smell of coffee more than the taste. Not a huge fan of mocha either, but this cake packs a punch. I love the flavor of the cake and combined with the mocha ganache it is awesome.

TCB: Bittersweet Cocoa Almond Genoise

For a New Year's party at a friend's house, I offered to make a cake. Which cake, I have no idea. It took me forever to choose. Do I choose one of the 40 cakes I have left from Rose's Heavenly Cakes? That would be good, one more cake down, 39 to go. Or do I try something from The Cake Bible?

The crowd I'm serving to seem to like Genoise-type cakes, and chocolate is always a favorite. I have made both Moist Chocolate Genoise and Genoise Au Chocolat. Genoise Au Chocolat is the running favorite (lighter, fluffy, and less sweet).

I flipped through RHC, looking at the ones I have not made. Then I did the same with TCB. My hand stopped at a page... the cake is called Bittersweet Cocoa Almond Genoise.

Score! I thought. This would work perfectly with a decorating idea that I had in mind, borrowing from this blog.

I read the genoise recipe. Intrigued. Then I did a search for this cake over at Rose's forum. It yielded results. Reading on, I'm liking the cake. And so here it is.

I made the full recipe of the cake, baked in 2 7 inch pans. It is not what Rose recommended, but I wanted to achieve a good height for the chocolate decor.

I used a low fat cocoa (Ghirardelli). I took Julie's suggestion and used 75% of the cocoa and 25% of Schaffenberger unsweetened chocolate. The combo worked like a charm and the cake turned out wonderful.

For the filling, at first I was going for stabilized whipped cream all over. On baking day I changed my mind and went for light whipped ganache. I didn't do a good job when melting the chocolate with the cream, the mixture was too hot and I can see the chocolate separating. Not a big issue, I took it off the heat and started adding cream slowly until the mixture come together.

Too lazy at this point to add more chocolate, I went with it and the result is a very very light ganache, more like a chocolate flavored whipped cream. It was wonderful. Fit perfectly with the cake as it was pretty rich.

Making this cake, I figured out that I much prefer piping than torting and frosting a cake. Slicing each cake in half is no biggie except the sides of the cake started falling a part and they look more like a distorted circle. I gathered all the crumbs, combined with some light ganache, and started spackling.

The chocolate decoration is pretty easy to do. I followed Emma's instruction down to a T. The only deviation I did was that I apply the chocolate directly onto a cake, instead of forming it around the tin can, as Emma did.

The chocolate was not even tempered, and it held up throughout the 60 photos I took and through the evening.

I'm very pleased with the end result, it didn't look like the mess that I torted.

And most importantly? My friends LOVED the cake. They all think it looks awesome and it tasted awesome.

HCB: Chocolate Genoise with Peanut Butter Whipped Ganache

I hadn't make cupcakes for a while, I realized. So when this cake came into rotation, I decided that's what I would do.

This cake is pretty easy to make. So easy that I had to add an extra challenge, and make 2/3 of the recipe. I figured 2/3 would yield me 8 cupcakes. I ended up with 12 (35 grams each). Math is not my strong suit, and yet I continued with the complex math :).

While the cake was easy, the ganache turned out to have a different story.

Continuing with 2/3 recipe, I made 2/3 of the ganache. Melted the chocolate, whisked the peanut butter and vanilla in. Then whisked the cold cream slowly. It took a while for the chocolate to completely melted. When it does, I whisked and whisked until soft peaks.

2/3 of ganache recipe turned out to frost 5 cupcakes only. As it was only 1 PM, I proceeded to make more ganache. It was easy anyway, so I thought by 2 PM I would be done and then I could go run some errands.

Well, as it turned out, the 2nd batch of ganache never reached soft peak, even after 10 minutes of whisking and what little arm muscles I have were sore at this point. Figuring it's not cold enough, I put the ganache in the refrigerator. After 10 minutes, I took it out and whisked again. Then the darn thing turned grainy.

Taking Rose's suggestion, I re-melted the whole thing, chilled it, and whisked. The darn thing now started breaking, turning shiny and oily.

Crap!

By now it's 3 PM, I do not want to start over, but at the same time there are 7 un-frosted cupcakes and a bunch of chocolate hearts, and it's sad to left them unused.

Upon investigating the freezer, I found a small blob of something that looked like a ganache. Hm... upon trying it out, I confirmed it is indeed ganache. I melted it, added some cream since I was supposed to make whipped ganache.

I must have been overzealous in whisking this 3rd batch of ganache, because it turned grainy. Not about to start over again, I piped it on the rest of the cupcakes.

The grainyness did not affect the taste, it just doesn't look very nice. Oh well, that's what the piped hearts and chocolate flakes are for - to distract attention LOL.

Though it is a bit of  a bummer, as I was excited to use this "KB" lettering on one of the best cupcakes.

Oh well, it could have been worse. At least the texture didn't affect the taste.

Tasting impressions:

It is really really good. I couldn't decide which one I like better, the peanut butter ganache, or the de-frosted "mystery" ganache with Chambord. Both are really really good. The peanut butter is kinda interesting, with the flavor of peanut butter, Chambord, and chocolate altogether. Genoise usually taste better the next day, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow's tasting :).



HCB: Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache

I made this cake last weekend along with the Marionberry Shortcakes. Both cakes were 1/2 recipes.

The cake itself was pretty easy. It's very similar to the cake base for the other butter/oil chocolate cakes in RHC.

One thing that surprised me when I took the cake - or my 1/2 cake :) - out of the oven, is how short it is. I think it only measured a little over an inch. Plus I would have to split it in half, yikes. That freaked me out a bit and I was afraid that the layers will be too fragile and I will mess it up when I applied the ganache.

Anyway, while the cake was easy, the ganache put up a bit of a resistance - to say the least.

The caramel making part went along smoothly. I had the heavy cream hot and ready and poured it onto the caramel. Sure enough, it bubbled like crazy. So far so good. Then I heated up the whole thing until the caramel dissolved. I took it off the heat and incorporate the butter, then pour it onto the already-chopped chocolate.

Oh, and by the way, I chopped the chocolate using my newly purchased chisel (great tip from Monica.)

Back to the ganache, mixed until the caramel and chocolate are all blended and started looking super shiny. Too shiny in fact, as they started separating. The ganache was looking too greasy and it looked like the oil/cocoa butter separated from the rest.

I panicked and didn't know what to do. Unlike regular non-caramel ganache, I can't re-melt this one and hoped it will emulsify again. How do I know this? Because that's exactly what I did, and I think I ended up melting the caramel because the ganache started becoming watery.

Onto the trash can it went.

By this point I was frustrated and pissed. Not at Rose, not sure at myself either. I was just pissed.

Starting over...

Caramel... while it was approaching the dangerous 350 degrees, my phone rang. I jumped, and released the caramel pot I was holding. A couple of drops of the caramel jumped out of the pan, landed on the palm of my hand (one drop on each hand). I screamed, yelped, jumped! It hurts like hell (never had caramel burn before).

And by this point, the caramel already burned and was beyond saving.

Starting over... with a band aid on my left palm...
Caramel... Exactly 370 degrees. Then heavy cream. I skipped the butter part (or more precisely, I forgot the butter part). Then chocolate and mixing by hand. And the ganache threatened to separate. I threatened it back and guess who won? Don't mess with a girl with a caramel burn!!!

I put the ganache - along with my hand - in an ice bath.

Next, frosted the cake. The ganache feels a bit slimy so I didn't bother to make any decorations.

And I said to myself, this cake looks ugly. It was just way way too plain. So I looked into the pantry and saw leftover chocolate pearls from the Designer Chocolate Baby Grand. I decorated the cake with it.

Okay still looks ugly.

Aha! *lightbulb above my head* Let's make caramel decorations!!!

Caramel... this time I used the full amount of sugar & water for the caramel ganache. The plan was to make some swirly designs but when I poured the caramel out of the pyrex cup it came out in one big glop. So I ended up just pouring the rest out onto the silpat, wait until they cool, and then bashed them in to make the shards.

Results? Not sure I like the combo of chocolate pearls and caramel shards. But I didn't feel like taking the pearls away, and figured that we'd ended up eating the pearls more than the caramel shards so both stayed.



Tasting impression:
I am disappointed. I was expecting more caramel taste, but the chocolate taste was more overpowering. I like the fudgy texture of the cake but otherwise it's a bit on the plain side. Though I do have to say that the taste improved after a couple of days - or it's just because my caramel burn started healing. I can't say I will make this cake again, but I will say that I have one caramel burn story (hopefully it's the only one) and a caramel shard-making experience :).

HCB: Chocolate Banana Stud Cake

I was really looking forward to this cake. So much so that I started ripening the banana 5 weeks ago. This being the summer season, the banana started turning black on week 3, so I put it in the freezer.

This prompted a funny conversation with J.
J: there's a banana in the freezer, is that okay?
Jenn: yes, that's okay. It's for the banana bread.
A week passes by...
J: there's a banana in the freezer (I guess he forgot the conversation last week :))
Jenn: that's for the banana bread.
On baking day... the frozen banana is on the counter top...
J: that banana doesn't look good. are you sure it's okay to use frozen banana?
Jenn: yes, I'm sure. I've asked some people on the club and they say it should be okay.
Jenn peeling the banana and weighing it on the scale...
Jenn: this banana is gross.
J: maybe that's not a good idea.
Jenn: but that's what we're supposed to use.

I continued on with the recipe, processed the "gross" (LOL) banana with the sour cream in the food processor. Then incorporated half the water cocoa mixture that I already made 1/2 hour ago into the banana.
Then mix all the dry ingredients in the KA mixer, incorporated the eggs vanilla mixture, the remainder of the cocoa mixture, and finally the banana mixture.
(I'm typing this from memory so I hope I got the order right :). Someone please tell me if I messed it up!).

I poured the batter into the prepared 7 inch pan. Heavenly smell came up - and I swear I thought I was gonna faint. Ripe banana smell and yummy chocolate. It smells like banana split! And... dipping my finger into the batter for a taste, it taste pretty darn close to banana split!!!

Brought the pan to J to smell...
J: Hmmmm!! Smells good!

I think this put to rest the discussion about whether or not it's a good idea use frozen banana, ^_^.

Once the cake is in the oven, I started making the ganache. I chopped the chocolate into little bits, and mix it by hand with the scalded cream. No need for food processor. For once, I left the ganache to set at room temperature without an ice bath. The cake baked in 25 minutes and I let it cool on the rack. 40 minutes later, the cake cooled and the ganache is still a little too runny. I started decorating anyway. Mostly because I was impatient, but then I thought that it was easier to spread the ganache at this consistency. At least on the top of the cake, on the sides I created a mess. Then I refrigerated the cake for a little bit to set the ganache. By this time the rest of the ganache in the bowl are more frosting-like, and I finished smoothing the rest of the cake.

I knew I wanted to fill the whole cake with chocolate chip studs and use a combination of the 2 colors. This is the design that I come up with. It takes 18 minutes to stud the whole cake (yes I timed it) - and it's about 350 chocolate chip studs. I was going to count exactly how many chips I used but I lost count at around 330, so 350 is an estimate. I do know that the outermost circle has close to 100 chocolate chips!

We haven't tried the cake. I know that's a crazy idea. I'll have a piece later today and report back on taste result :). If it taste as good as it smells then it will be FABULOUS!!!

Tasting impressions:
Finally had the piece of cake. The banana taste was more noticeable than I originally thought, but that’s also because I was intensely eating it and trying to distinguish the banana flavor. J liked the cake but he said he didn’t notice the banana flavor.

HCB: Le Succes

This is one of those cakes that seem like it's going to be super easy but turn out having a hidden challenge along the way.

It all starts out easy enough. Blanched almonds, process them with the sugar in food processor until fine. Then whipped egg whites, add cream of tartar and sugar. Once the egg whites are stiff and glossy, fold the almond sugar mixture into the whipped egg whites. Next comes my favorite part, piping. I love piping, I find it fun.

Btw, I love that Rose is so specific, she even gave instruction on how to make the circles if you are using silpat. I dipped my 6 inch cake pan into cocoa powder, then tap it on the silpat. I would never have figured this out myself!
So far everything went well, the challenge come upon unmolding the meringue. Per Rose's instruction, the circles are very soft and therefore you have to unmold it carefully. I tried to do this super carefully, but I am also impatient so I tore 2 out of 3 of the circles. I didn't take a picture of it b/c it looks just too sad. But oh well, the good thing is that all these will be frosted with yummy ganache, so I'd be able to hide the imperfections!

I'm getting pretty good at making ganache now (yay!). I didn't even use the food processor, just mix it in the bowl. This is the first time I use creme fraiche for ganache. Instead of using instant lemon tea, I used Starbuck's decaf instant coffee. Not trying to promote Starbucks or anything, but I love their new instant coffee. The ganache smells and taste very coffee-y. I love the smell of coffee so I think it is heavenly. But I do wonder what the tea version will taste like. Hm.. will have to make this one again using tea.

I am trying to improve my cake-photography skills. These pictures are taken with natural light, white balance on, ISO setting 100, and flash off. I think they are not bad, better than my previous pictures - taken during the night. This means that I would need to bake on Saturday or early enough on Sunday so I can take a picture early enough :). Which means I need to be organized enough to do this, LOL!

Tasting impression: 
YUM! (this seems to be my general consensus for Rose's cake). I like the crunchy texture of the meringue. Though I do think the balance of portion between meringue and ganache is off - there's too much ganache, too little meringue. I do love the creme fraiche in ganache more than regular heavy cream. It taste more tart and it balance the chocolate taste nicely. The coffee smell is stronger than the taste. Overall I think the cake is pretty good. It is definitely a very interesting combo and cake experience. Thank you Rose for this yummy recipe!

HCB: Baby Chocolate Oblivion

Last month I ordered the 6 cup Lekue silicone muffin pan from Amazon. I only ordered one of them for now since I have been buying other things for the kitchen. This cake sounds pretty rich so I decided to make 1/2 a recipe.

For 1/2 the recipe, melt 1/2 a pound of chocolate, 8 oz of butter, and 1 1/2 Tbps of sugar over hot water (bowl should not touch the water) - stirring occasionally. I bought Valrhona dark chocolate (70%) and I didn't bother chopping it up so it takes a while to melt through the whole chunk. Once this is done, whisked 3 eggs over simmering water until they're warm to the touch. Then move it to the stand mixer and beat on high speed for 5 minutes until they've tripled in size and almost reach soft peak when the whisk is raised (I think it looks like it's a few minutes away from what's called "ribbony"). Then fold 1/2 the eggs into the chocolate, using either a balloon whisk or a large spatula. I should've used my large spatula. Somehow I used a regular whisk - which may or may not attributed to the mixture deflated so much.

When this is done, distributed them evenly into the 6-cup muffin pan, set it in the roasting pan that has a wire rack and a hot water bath. In to the oven it goes! When it's done, take them out of the pan. Easier said than done - we have all those hot water in the pan. I was not sure how to do this because I don't have silicone gloves or a bulb baster. Oh, and I don't plan on getting hot water splashed on any part of me. Even if I do have a bulb baster I don't think I want to spend 1/2 hour pulling the water out. Then a thought came over me. The good thing about silicone pans is that they cool down instantenously, right? I touched the edges of the pan to test and they are room temperature cool. So I placed a kitchen towel next to the roasting pan, hold the edges of the silicone pan and with a quick but fast movement move it to the towel. Ta-da.



So far it's been easy. The hardest part came when having to take the cake out. Only 3 of them came out smoothly - the rest has some bits sticking into the pan. Not really a huge deal because I took a spoon and scrape those babies out. But those 3 "damaged" babies didn't make it to the picture session. Sorry love, if it makes you feel better, I love you 3 all the same and you will get eaten just like your 3 other siblings :). Oh, have I mentioned that I love love love the name of this cake. It is so cute and so fitting use the word "oblivion" since they are so potently chocolate. It is very rich. It reminds me of chocolate Pot-de-creme or a very very chocolatey truffles. Actually, I think this would be perfect is smaller, truffle- like, size.