MangiaMore: BOOZY yellow birthday cake and chocolate ERMINE frosting

RER 4.21.18

Oh, I do love a good birthday cake. Especially, when I get to make the cake for someone very special’s birthday. Not only do I get to make it, which is an odd mixture of stress and joy, but also I get to eat said cake, each step of the way. #anditsnotevenmybirthday

I have about a million tabs open on Chrome on my phone, so preparing to make this birthday cake merely involved thumbing through the tabs and some quick reference searching (can you make buttermilk? the answer is yes!).

It only seemed fitting that I make Hummingbird High’s boozy yellow birthday cake. There is something about eponymous about yellow cake and birthdays.   Annnnd Birthday is even in the name of the cake. Done. Yellow cakes have been a challenge for me—once a disaster, once a success— so I was excited to gain some more experience in yolky, buttery deliciousness. 

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Ten egg yolks, much sugar, and much butter, and a tired arm later, I gained that experience and a beautiful batter that was a pretty yellow and tasted like sugar cookie dough.

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Instead of orange peel to go with the Grand Marnier, I opted for almond extract mixed in the sugar before adding it to the rest of the concoction. Love, love almond cakes. This cake had just a hint of almond, but it definitely added an earthy opulence to this yellow birthday cake.

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Next came the frosting. The birthday boy has grown tired of traditional American buttercream frosting, but severely enjoyed the flour/ermine/boiled buttercream I made a while back, topping of a highly delectable almond sheet cake.  Yellow cake deserves chocolate frosting. So, I referred to Pastry Chef Online for a chocolate ermine frosting. This is where things got tricky. It started strong, but my cocoa powder was clumpy and that stayed through to the final result. Then, I was challenged with stubborn frosting. Something was separating, so I tried heat and cold and powdered sugar (even though the recipe did not call for it) and beating forever. In the end, it turned out ok, but it was less attractive than I wanted for a birthday cake. Oh well. Turned out pretty tasty, though: light and not too sweet, sweeping and fluffy.

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Then, there was the booze. I did not forget about the booze. What’s a celebration without booze!? Grand Marnier is not a staple in our household bar, so I went with Disaronno, our tried and true friend. All it took was a little heat, water, and sugar to make the sweet syrup that would be dabbed on the two layers. I say “dabbed” because without a pastry brush, improvisation was involved—that Downy paper towel. Wish I got more of that syrup onto the cake and less on my fingers. The bites where the cake absorbed the most of the sweet stuff were magnificent.

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All in all, I love birthday cake. And this cake definitely fit the bill. My birthday boy enjoyed it too, so I’m happy. I think we should start celebrating half birthdays, because more birthday cake… halfy birthday to you. 

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4.30.18

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MangiaMore: ALMOND sheet cake with flour frosting

RER 2.18.17

This year, I didn’t make anything red for Valentine’s Day, even though I usually like to (linzer cookies, mini red velvet cheesecakes, red velvet brownies, and red velvet sandwich cookies). I didn’t even make my Valentine’s Day treat on Valentine’s Day proper. Instead, my sweet (for my sweet) was stark white and made the weekend following the holiday. But as I always say: Everyday is Valentine’s Day.

My Valentine’s Day landed on a Saturday, and my obsession and curiosity about sheet cakes (pumpkin cake and yellow cake) continued with a beaut that I found on Food52. After searching for an almond cake (first layered, then sheet), I landed on this Almond Sheet Cake. The photo alone was enough to make me crave this cake—those wisps of cloudlike white frosting looked killer. Plus, I’ve never made a flour frosting (or boiled buttercream or ermine frosting, whatever you want to call it). So I made it…

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I pulsed my slivered almonds in my food processor-slash-blender.

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I played around with sunlight and almonds on my kind of counter.

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I whisked my dry ingredients.

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I creamed my butter, added my eggs one at a time, and I incorporated my almond extract (probably more than called for).

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I alternated my milk and dry ingredients, but I did not keep track of how many additions or where I started.

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I stirred in my homemade almond “flour” and poured the pretty batter in my cake pan.

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I checked my cake one too few times, and maybe even let it cook a second too long.

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I simmered flour and milk and sugar on the front burner, afraid to burn what was becoming my sweetening agent for that pillowy-looking, cloudlike frosting.

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I beat my butter longer than I ever had with almond extract and Disaronno. I (with the aid of my sister) added heaping tablespoons of my cooled boiled base one at a time until my frosting was fluffy, white, and billowing.

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I plopped the frosting on top of my cooled cake. It looked like a mound of meringue and just as sweet.  I made swoops and swirls, layered it on thick, hoping my cake would be half as pretty as the cake in the picture.

My cake did not turn out like fudgy yellow cake that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth; mine was of a drier, more mature variety. It crumbled with toothy almond bite, contrasted with the light-as-air sweet semblance of whipped cream. Delicious and adult…

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Too bad I have indulged more than the receiver of this sweet Valentine’s Day sweet. jk.

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2.14.17

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