Hallaca

Last week something came in the mail that I've been looking forward too. So excited I was that I even took a photo of the package.

Opened it up to reveal a hot/cold carry package.

Inside, a smaller, foil-packaged goodies.

In it, 2 banana-leaf wrapped food.

I haven't met banana-leaf wrapped food that I didn't like. For one thing, the smell of banana leaf is so good. Another, food cooked in banana leaf taste super good.

And this one, in particular, I have never had before. They are called Hallaca, which is a classic Venezuelan dish.

According to Wikipedia: "In Venezuelan cuisine, an hallaca (alt. spelling, "hayaca") typically involves a mixture of beef, pork, chicken, capers, raisins, and olives wrapped in maize (cornmeal dough), bound with string within plantain leaves, and boiled or steamed afterwards. It is typically served during the Christmas holiday."

These Hallacas that came to me in the mail, is sent to me by my HCB/FFWD/"adoptive sister" (if you can call someone you've never met/spoken to a sister, that is) Monica!!!

They don't look big, but it is actually. Bigger than my hand in fact :).

I brought one to the office for lunch and saved the other for the weekend, so I could take a photo of the insides. It was very hard to refrain myself from eating it before the weekend.

But I did, mostly because I want to share this experience and the photo with you all. You can see the beef and a piece of the dried plum/apricot in there.

They were gone in mere minutes.

THANK YOU Monica for sending me such awesome goodies. It was my 1st Venezuelan dish and I LOVE every bite of it!

HCB Free Choice: Chocolate Pinecone Cake

For the Free Choice this week, I decided on Chocolate Pinecone Cake. I was looking forward to this cake, mostly to the idea to making fondant for the 1st time. It felt so exciting. 

It's been something that's on my "bucket list" to do. Plus this recipe sound yummy and that makes it even better.

So excited I was that I even made all the ingredients pose for a photo shoot, :). 

 Here's the diluted gelatin heated up over simmering water.

Dry ingredients - powdered sugar and cocoa powder - sifted and combined.

You can't really see it but the gelatin mixture, corn syrup, and vanilla are in with the dry ingredients.

I don't have a picture of how it got from the mess above to this nice long fondant log, as my hands were completely sticky and brown from the cocoa. 

Let me just tell you that this fondant is sticky and confusing to work with. Rose said to knead the fondant until it's smooth and satiny. I got to the smooth part but it doesn't feel satiny and it breaks when I try to pull it (trying to imitate rolling it out). Nowhere in the recipe does it say that it's supposed to break and I thought how am I gonna drape it over the cake when it breaks like that.

I was so troubled that I posted a cry for help over at Rose's forum. The awesome Hector and Liza confirmed that this particular fondant does breaks and rips. Having learned that, I breath a sigh of relief and glad that I hadn't thrown it away.

The cake, as it turns out, pose a problem also. This confirms again that sponge cake that are made in a sheet pan is my demise. Some of you guys have said that piping or decorating make you shudder. For me, it's sheet pan sponge cake!!!

It all started so well. Cocoa powder water mixture - check. Whisked eggs and egg yolks with sugar until quadruled, ribbony, and beautiful - check. Fold in cocoa mixture - check. Fold in dry ingredients - check. Finally, fold in the meringue - check. Mixture is still billowy, high inside the mixer bowl, and looking fine. Last step is to pour it onto the baking pan. It looks nice in there. Into the oven it goes for 8 minutes. Set timer. At 8 minutes mark, took a peek through the oven window, looks great. Opened the door to check the middle, yes, it indeed bounce back. Took the pan out, set it on the counter, and witnessed the sponge cake DEFLATING before my eyes!!! It became 1/4 inch in height.

Devastated, sad, frustrated, and annoyed. I considered chucking the whole thing and making something else.

I thought of the fondant, sitting in the fridge, waiting to be tested...

The idea of starting over and doing this whole thing again, sometime in the future, in unfathomable. So I proceeded. Might as well get it over with.

Making the ganache. Much smoother and there's nothing to report except instead of adding cognac to the ganache, I added Grand Marnier instead :).

Since the sponge cake is so short and sad-looking, I ended up quartering the sheet and making 2 mini pinecone instead. I thought since it's such a narrow log it will look very weird and not pinecone-looking if I use the whole thing. 

The chocolate fondant turned out to be nice! Easy to roll and looks good. Happy happy. At least something turns out - I thought to myself.

And there, next to the fondant, is the Wilton fondant rolling pin that I just bought last week.

Draping the fondant over the cake is tricky. It breaks in several places and when it didn't, it threatened to break. And while making the numerous V cuts' on the fondant, it breaks in several places as well. I was becoming very sad and on the verge of depression, until I realized that a heavy dusting of powdered sugar will hide all the imperfection that I am seeing.

Tasting impression:

This cake ain't bad. Okay, maybe that's just my somber mood talking. It is a pretty good cake. The ganache is yummy and the chocolate fondant taste really good as well - I love the smell of it, very chocolate-y. I'm not sure I will make this cake again, though I would probably attempt the sponge cake at some point.

HCB: Fruitcake Wreath

I already made this week's cake for a Free Choice back in November, so I'm doing a catch up again (seems to be a trend these day).

These are fruitcake cupcakes. I do not own the wreath pan, nor do I wish to own one. Even though it was on sale for $9.99 at Michael's during Christmas last year. The pan is huge and it's supposed to feed 14-16 people. I don't see how often I will get to use it, so I'd rather use the storage space for something else :).

I've macerated the candied fruits and golden raisins for this cake for 4 weeks now. I used a large canning jar and turned the jar around every day for a week, and then the jar sort of sat on the counter for the last 3 weeks.

I did not intend to macerate the fruits for that long, but things happened. Or more correctly, other cakes happened. Somehow this cake does not sound appetizing to me, which is strange, considering I like cakes with fruit so much.

Trying to figure out why this cake is not interesting, I think it's because there's way too much stuff in it. All those candied fruits, plus raisins, plus walnuts and pecans. The rum component sounds yummy though - I love cake with alcohol. And this one in particular sounds like it's on the drunk side.

This cake, as it turns out, is very easy. The hardest part is waiting for the toasted nuts to cool. Had I realized that I need to toast the nuts, I would have done it last night or something. Anyway, I made 1/4 recipe of the fruitcake, and it yielded 8 cupcakes - about 55 grams each. Yes, it seems like I can't avoid complicated math when baking. Thank you Rose for grams measurement in your recipes! And thank goodness for whoever invented calculators!

Back to the recipes, the cake calls for mixing butter and brown sugar together, add eggs and vanilla, then add the remaining dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt), and finally add the candied fruits and nuts.

In cupcake form, they bake in 20 minutes. While it was cooling, I brushed a bit more rum on top of each cupcake. Why not, the more rum the merrier!

Tasting impressions:
Where did all the rum go? It was pretty rummy yesterday right after it cooled down and today all the rum taste is gone! It is not bad, but I'm not falling in love with it. I like the nuts flavor and texture with the batter but I'm not sure I'm liking the candied fruits. And I'm definitely sad that it's not a drunk cake anymore!