HCB: Cradle Cake

The cradle cake that my friends Monica and Hanaa have been waiting for is here. I've flipped through Rose's Heavenly Cakes so many times and always pass by this cake without a moment's pause. I think it's the name. It just does not sound interesting. But now of course that I've made it, it made perfect sense.

This cake has a layer of dacquoise outside along the bottom and the sides of the cake, and the cake batter is in the middle. So the dacquoise is essentially hugging the cake, hence Cradle cake as the name. At least, that's how I interpret why Rose named this Cradle cake.

I've read the recipes a couple of times last week and thought that the cake sounded easy to put together. On Friday afternoon, I got an email from Monica where she said that her cake had sunk. Picture attached and I was horrified. Not at the picture (though Monica, as sweet as she is had written a warning in the email that the picture would be shocking). I was horrified thinking that if she had failed then I would too. I emailed her and said that maybe I should skip this cake and make something else. She wrote back saying, "oh no, you don't get to skip. You have to make this one." Okay okay.. I said.. It's nice to be able to count on good friends to keep me in line!

The cake is pretty easy to put together. Toast the pecans in the oven for 7 minutes. After it cooled, process it in the food processor with unsweetened chocolate and sugar. I speed-read the recipe and missed the part where Rose said to save some sugar for the meringue. So by the time I made the meringue, I added a tablespoon of sugar. I think I should have added more but I don't want to risk making this overly sweet. Once the meringue is stiff peak, fold it into the pecan chocolate mixture.

Rose said that it is best to use silicone pan. As I do not own a silicone loaf pan and I want to make half a recipe anyway, I get to use my somewhat new Wilton mini hearts silicone pan. Yay!

Putting the dacquoise on the bottom and the sides of the silicone pan is kinda fun (yes yes.. I know.. this sooo proof that I am a geek if I think things like this is fun). Anyway... the dacquoise mixture keep sliding off the sides of the pan and I thought it must have been because I put too much baking spray. Then this morning I read Monica's post where she said that her dacquoise stayed put because she waited until the egg whites reached stiff peaks before adding the sugar.

The cake batter is a typical butter cake. I can say this now, having made 27 cakes from the Butter & Oil cakes section *grin*. Miix all the dry ingredients together. Add the butter and a bit of buttermilk. Whisk the egg yolk, buttermilk, and vanilla until combined. Then add it to the cake batter in 2 additions.

Once the cake is baked, make the chocolate glaze. I realized that making chocolate glaze for 1/2 recipe is tricky. I got the heavy cream too hot, and when adding it to the chocolate, the chocolate started looking shiny and oily and unattractive. No I'm not kidding, chocolate separating is really unattractive to see. I added some cold heavy cream until it started looking better. In the end, I think I made a ganache :).

The ganache/chocolate sauce was fluid enough that I could make the drizzle with a spoon.

Tasting impressions:

It is pretty good. I like the crunchy-ness of the dacquoise. It is a bit too sweet though and I wonder if I can reduce the sugar a bit without compromising the structure. The cake part is uneventful, though it does go together nicely with the dacquoise. I am mostly happy with how the cake turned out. Yeah, I know I am a sucker for pretty little cakes. But it's just so cute. It makes me happy just looking at it :).

FFWD: Chicken B'stilla

I was a little apprehensive about this week's selection. Mostly because the ingredients is all 100% chicken. I have nothing against chicken. My issue is that we don't eat that much meat. And there is nothing else in this dish, except for eggs of course, which again, is also protein and chicken-base.

So then I tried to think of what I could add to the recipe so I could use less chicken and at the same time  will not alter the taste so much. And it took me about 10 seconds before I figured it out.

MUSHROOM!

Problem solved.

This dish is easy but it has a lot of steps that require you to wait (chicken needs to marinate for 1 hour, then simmer for 1 hour, then cool down, etc). Not a big problem for me as I can do other things while waiting, such as making cakes for HCB.
I followed the recipe exactly, except for I used 4 chicken thighs (instead of 8) and about a pound of cremini mushrooms. I diced the mushrooms and sauteed them on the side with EVOO and butter. Then they are  added to the thickened broth along with the shredded chicken.

I did get whole wheat fillo dough instead of regular fillo dough. I didn't use to like whole wheat flour but now that I'm used to it I love the taste (it's healthier as well).

Fillo dough is a bit annoying to work with. It's so fragile and thin that it breaks when I try to drape it into the pan. Good thing that they're all covered with the filling anyway, so it doesn't have to be pretty.

With the addition of mushrooms, this recipe makes one 9 inch Chicken B'stilla and a mini 4 inch one. I like the mini one, it's so cute.

Tasting impressions:

We love this dish so much that I have made it twice (both times with mushroom). And it will definitely get made again many many times in the future :).

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.