Friday, May 18, 2007

Taste-Testing Cake Flavors

I forgot my camera, but Dinah got some pictures of the wedding cake taste testing. Yes, I numbered the cakes and I had a chart to remind me what was what. None of them were exactly bad, but there were a few clear favorites. Also, oranges? Difficult to slice thin and candy. I can't really recommend it. Limes were a snap.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Trying Out Wedding Cake Components

Dinah and Eli requested something light, summery, and citrusy for their wedding cake and we talked about a few flavor options. I've spent the last couple weeks making (and freezing) all sorts of possible components. A couple spice cakes, a white chocolate cake, a plain white cake, buttercreams from four different books, lime curd, lemon curd, two blood orange curd recipes. Oh, and candied slices of lime. It got to be kind of a lot to keep track of. I had a chart at one point. Ended up assembling 5 different cakes, each with a unique combination of components. Stay tuned for pictures of the taste testing.

Blood Orange Curd Ingredients Blood Orange Zest and Sugar Orange Zest, Sugar, Yolks Reducing Blood Orange Juice for Curd limes sliced to different thicknesses cooking lime slices in simple syrup candying lime slices White Chocolate Buttercream Ingredients HPIM1705.JPG HPIM1706.JPG HPIM1707.JPG HPIM1710.JPG Egg Yolk Buttercream Whipping up Egg Yolks Buttercream

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Chocolate Muffins

Made these for Mother's Day, from Harold Friberg's Professional Pastry Chef book. They actually have beets grated into the batter and I had some beets to use up. Portioning with the ice cream scoop is the only way to go with muffin pans. I've never had them come out so uniformly sized. Will did a burnt caramel ganache for the glaze. Brought them to a family party. Positively received.

chocolate muffins - mixing liquids chocolate muffins - mixing drys chocolate muffins - portioning batter chocolate muffins