|
All
Original Text & Photography
|
|
30 March 2004 - I'm Turning into a Cake... Last weekend I backed off a bit from the whole cake dealio and focused for one day (well, a small part of one day) on pie. While I wasn't totally impressed with the outcome (I still think my mom's pastry is way better, even if she said she really liked mine), it tasted good...it was edible...and it didn't make anyone sick or anything. I will have to make many more pies (can you hear S. cheering in the background??) in the future until I get the knack for it, really. So...I decided to move back into the cake realm again this past weekend -- for my brother's birthday on Saturday, actually. AND, S. drove me out to Golda's Kitchen in Mississauga on Saturday morning after we'd spent an exhorbitant amount of money on groceries and I was in the "mood" to bake a cake. I made the cake using the recipe for Velvet Underground Chocolate Cake, which seems to be a sure-fire hit (people have liked it twice now!) and crowd pleaser and left it to cool while I shopped my heart out at Golda's.What did I buy? Well...let's see. A mini-bundt cake pan so I can make cute little bundts to serve for dessert for some future dinner party. I finally managed to buy something off of my lusting list - a pastry rolling pin (yay!)...I'll have to take it off the list and put it on my loving list because I'm sure I'll adoring it when it comes time to make pie again (possibly tomorrow). I got a really good ball-bearing mechanism cake turn table (much better than the wooden lazy susan I was using before that didn't always like to turn...and was slightly warped). And! I got something I have wanted for a while, a set of six mini tart pans for making baby tarts. Yummy! I also bought some cake decor stuff -- meringue powder for making royal icing, some pretty silver dragees and a small container of good quality dark green food colouring. It was quite the splurge; my birthday present to myself since my birthday is this Saturday (feel free to get me something off my wish list...hee). When we arrived home, flushed from my love affair at Golda's the cakes were cooled and I was primed to make the icing. I decided on a traditional Italian Meringue Buttercream and jumped right into it. It was easy -- really easy, actually -- and turned out really well. It was quite delicious, and (as I'm sure I've mentioned this before,) I usually hate icing. Everyone was impressed -- it tasted great, looked great, and I was proud to present it to my brother on his birthday...he of course had a love affair with it through the lense of his camera and i have some pretty fantastic looking pics of it (thanks, John!). |