I can’t tell you why I feel it all around whenever I hear the word affogato. The mere thought of that holy combination of life giving caffeine and a dairy-based dessert gets me weak at the knees and foggy in the head. Perhaps it’s old memories of my dad pressing ice cream into latte glasses with the gaze and conviction of a man on a mission, or maybe it was that time in Italy in 2008 when I asked a friend to order me an affogato, and once I returned from a neighbouring ATM I caught her pronouncing “aff-row-JAHHHH-teee” with such gusto only to have everybody within earshot laughing so loud she refused to speak to me for a while. I’m sorry. But I still say “aff-row-JAHHHH-teee” sometimes.
Whatever the case, it was a pleasure and a privilege to bake a big cake for The Makers Society Great Bake Swap at The Hop and Grain last weekend. Assembly instructions are below in terrible animated glory, but as for the “recipe”: I used Tartine’s devil food cake recipe to bake two cakes sliced in half; the icing is Linda Lomelino’s chocolate fudge frosting with the addition of some dissolved instant coffee (replace some of the milk and add to taste) and the drippy chocolate is nothing but ganache (dark chocolate and cream) with a couple of tablespoons of glucose / corn syrup. For the fake ice cream, throw some buttercream in a bowl, freeze it, scoop out some rounds with an ice cream scoop then re-freeze them for easy stacking. I was lazy and used compound chocolate for garnishing, except the Sydney sun was merciless that day and annihilated my rustic spokes. I forgot to take some photos at home before the event (unless instagram counts) so thank you ladies for being so patient with me as I spent too long trying to take a decent photo and thank you for sharing my aff-row-jahhh-teee cake.
I do not have a clever anecdote, relevant life story or poignant statement in relation to this cake, instead I can offer a few simple home truths. It was my friend Felicia’s birthday yesterday, she’s a pastry chef and therefore deserved a spectacle more thoughtful and curious than the usual birthday fare; rich chocolate cake, malty and salty ganache, crunchy crumbs and chewy, charred marshmallow. Sound legit? Well. This cake ended up so intense it made the aperture blades in my brand new lens seize up (no joke, I’m now spending my day off tomorrow visiting the camera service centre). This s’mores cake literally forced my camera into a food coma just by looking at it.
The directions, dare I say gospel, according to Momofuku’s class act via Bonappetit were followed to a tee however their signature naked-cake style was abandoned in lieu of my penchant for a good chocolatedrip cake. It was kept messy all ’round since successfully hiding behind the guise of rustic when in actual fact I lack kitchen finesse is my greatest aesthetic flaw trait. If you enjoy your sweet treats tall and gooey this might just be the cake for you, a Momofuku recipe with a heavy-handed twist.
S’mores Cake (by Momofuku / Christina Tosi via Bon Appetit) Milk Crumbs
3/4 cup milk powder
1/2 cup flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons corn flour
3/4 teaspoon sea salt flakes
80g butter, melted
12 tablespoons Ovaltine mix
80g white chocolate, melted
Malt-fudge sauce
1 1/3 cups Ovaltine mix
120g dark chocolate (I used Lindt 70%)
1 teaspoon molasses
Pinch of sea salt flakes
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup glucose / corn syrup
1/4 cup sugar
Chocolate cake
60g dark chocolate
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup dutch-process cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
170g butter, room temperature
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 tablespoons glucose / corn syrup
3 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Malt soak
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons Ovaltine mix
Assembly
2x packets mini marshmallows (sorry didn’t make note of the grams!)
Brûlée torch
Milk crumbs
1. Preheat oven to 130°C. Combine milk powder, flour, sugar, corn flour and salt in medium bowl; toss to mix evenly. Add melted butter and stir with fork until clusters form. Spread mixture evenly onto baking tray lined with parchment paper. Bake until crumbs are dry and crumbly but still pale, about 10-15 minutes. Once cool toss in a bowl with Ovaltine mix and white chocolate. Toss until completely coated and allow to dry.
Malt-fudge sauce
1. Place Ovaltine, chocolate, molasses and salt in a bowl and set aside. Combine cream, corn syrup, and sugar in bowl and microwave until everything has dissolved. Pour cream mixture over chocolate mixture and let stand for 1 minute, then stir until smooth. Whisk until sauce is glossy. Set aside.
Chocolate cake
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Coat three 8-inch cake pans with nonstick spray. Line bottom of each pan with parchment round and coat parchment with nonstick spray. Place chocolate in small bowl and microwave in 15-second intervals just until melted, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into medium bowl. Combine butter, sugar, and glucose in large bowl and beat on medium-high speed until fluffy and pale, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl and add eggs. Beat to incorporate then increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture is fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add melted chocolate and beat briefly until blended. Add buttermilk, oil, and vanilla and beat until pale brown, about 2 minutes. Add dry ingredients and beat on low speed just until blended. Divide batter among pans.
3. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20-30 minutes. Cool completely in pans on racks.
Malt soak
1. Stir milk and Ovaltine in small bowl.
To assemble
1. Rewarm sauce until just pourable. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of it in the centre of your cake board and place the first chocolate cake round on top (this is to ensure it stays put). Brush over a few tablespoons of the malt soak, cover with some chocolate sauce, just under a third of it (allowing some to ooze over the edge if you feel so inclined), add a third of the malt crumbs and a quarter of the mini marshmallows. Torch the layer of marshmallows lightly for that charred, s’morsey feel. Add a little drizzle of chocolate sauce and add the second cake round. Repeat adding malt soak, chocolate sauce, crumbs marshmallows, torching and more sauce. Add the third cake round. This time top the cake with more sauce then the remainder of the marshmallows. Torch those bad boys then sprinkle with the remainder of the milk crumbs and drizzle the rest of the chocolate sauce on top (a word of advice: if it begins to do the leaning tower of Pisa thing, don’t sweat it; it’s rustic and beautiful). Add birthday candles and you’re all set.
As bloggers we are content creators, we make neat stuff whether it be photos, drawings or pieces of insightful writing to entertain and/or educate the internet masses. If we have a corner of the internet we have a responsibility to represent ourselves in entirety; creatively, emotionally, whatever. We push the boundaries of what we know and enjoy and create new and exciting things to share. In turn we are inspired by what others do. An honest blog is a beautiful outlet of nice sentiments and hard work. Personally, my benchmark of a good post is one that disregards all the trends and basks in the sweet glow of straight up originality (if there even is such a thing).
However.
This weekend something took hold of me. A terrible monster. Like the devil’s grip I was thrown into the shallow abyss of kawaii cake trends. On Friday night I was up at 2am gluing small triangles onto striped twine and you know what? I felt so alive… like I was patting a pack of pugs whilst simultaneously poaching an egg for brunch. I made ombré cakes, I stacked them high and got rustic with a Wilton #125 tip. Pink. Chocolate. Strawberries. Ruffles (kinda). Bunting. Is this how God feels (on one of his more leisurely days)? Can I put a bird on it? These are my dirty kicks. I was possessed by a beautiful twee monster all in the name of creating a nice birthday cake for my friend Julie. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIE!
Basically what I’m trying to say is sometimes I cannot resist the warm, comforting yet disgusting lure of a good dessert trend. Ombré + bunting. It’s Etsy crack, it’s twee porn. But it’s ok (sometimes), or at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself. I did not choose the Etsy life, the Etsy life chose me.
I named this a “Neapolitan Cake” mostly for the wank, however, upon actually tasting the combination of vanilla cake, chocolate ganache/buttercream, strawberry swiss meringue buttercream and slices of fresh strawberries together the cake really did emulate flavours of a straight up ghetto tub of Neapolitan ice cream. So good. One of my favourite cakes to date. In fact, pastry chef Felicia said it best when she confided “I know exactly what’s in this icing yet I can’t stop eating it”.
Because I so often keep it real I don’t have any staged “slicing of the cake” photos, instead I have some unglamorous shots as it was divided between the 12 of us at a restaurant in Glebe. In true (new?) alanabread style I’ve illustrated how to construct this tower of twee (no recipe this time but send me an email if you’d like some assistance on that front). Otherwise just stack it, dirty ice it then slater it (maybe stab it with bunting if you’re ready to embrace twee).
Also (not even an attempt at a suave segue here), I was recently informed alanabread was not only nominated but is a finalist in the Voices of 2013 blog awards! So thank you so, so very much to everyone who nominated me and of course to the judges, I really appreciate the recognition. Congratulations to all my blogging peers also, you can find the list of finalists here. But, I digress (sneaky tear), here are some cake related pixels. Good luck and enjoy!
I’m constantly saying birthdays are the most important time of the year; it’s a time that reminds us of the importance for being grateful for the wonderful friends we keep, it brings everybody together. This year I’ve felt too unemployed, too useless and therefore too undeserving to even begin contemplating the fine art of celebration for myself (the only happiness I see is the bottom of ice cream tubs) and it’s unfortunate that such a happy occasion should fall on such an awkward time in my life. But, thanks to some encouraging family and friends we partied nice this weekend and it was good.
Such a terrifying number (twenty six, say it with me now) amplified by my post graduate and job seeking status warranted the creation of a delightful cake screaming of age denial. Welcome to my life, banana split cake; banana cake with a dulce de leche filling covered in yellow buttercream, chocolate glaze, honeyed cashews, 100s and 1000s, faux ice cream buttercream scoops in neapolitan colours and even more nuts, sprinkles, cherries and wafers. If your cake doesn’t scream “DIABETES” then you’re doing something wrong. This is an ode, no, a blaring symphony to my cake philosophy; FONDANT NEVER, BUTTERCREAM FOREVER. It’s my legacy instilled in sugar.
For a cake that began as a humble sketch pictured above it seemed apt to illustrate the procedure for creating this buttery wonder instead of documenting via photos and I assure you the lack of fancy cross-section photos has nothing to do with the eternal struggle between gin brain and camera/knife wielding after blowing out the candles. Guys, did I make an idiot out of myself when I made that speech… ? RIP me. Death by embarrassment.
The banana cake recipe was taken from a classic Women’s Weekly book (my mum used to make it all the time (~FAMILY HISTORY~)) and the dulce de leche filling was made by slow-cooking condensed milk in a bain-marie with a pinch of salt (too scared to boil dat can).
Beautiful, flourishing emotions aside, here’s how to decorate it; you’ll need two 9 inch rounds of cake, a filling of your choice (optional), lots of buttercream, food colouring (I find gel is best), crushed nuts, sprinkles / 100s and 1000s, chocolate, cream and glucose / corn syrup. It will make any 26 year old cry with happy tears or at the very least gently ease them into the final year of their “mid 20s”. There is no such thing as age appropriate when it comes to cake.
I FEEL COMPELLED TO TYPE IN CAPITAL LETTERS FOR A SENTENCE OR SO BECAUSE I AM A BIT ANNOYED. I NEVER INTENDED FOR IT TO BE THIS WAY BUT UNFORTUNATELY MY EMOTIONS HAVE GOTTEN THE BETTER OF ME AND HERE I AM SHOUTING IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE INTERNET, MY PRECIOUS OUTLET. AHHHH! BOOO HISSS VENT VENT VENT ETC ETC
My camera is broken. Well, was broken (the nice people at Nikon HQ have since worked their repair magic). It began seriously playing up at the most inconvenient of times; in the middle of a photo shoot! Now, “photo shoot” is a term I avoid using at the best of times because it conjures weird and strange memories of dudes with enormous egos (it’s a long story and I am a complicated girl), however, the location was somewhere other than my bedroom for once, with a model, an assistant and a whole lot of pretty props so I’m allowing myself just this once to indulge in some jargon. The reason I had finally ventured away from my “bedroom studio” and was standing amongst all of these seemingly professional and nice things is because I was encouraged to enter the San Pellegrino Café Society photo competition by a tutor at uni to broaden my photographic horizons. As I may have mentioned before I’m making a big effort to work on photography, building up a portfolio and all that, to avoid the dreaded jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none syndrome that seems so easy to slip into these days like an unfortunate coma of artistic mediocrity. “So, what do you do for a living?” “Oh, I’m a creative“. No, no, no, no; that certainly isn’t the life for me.
Café Shenkin in Erskineville was my allocated venue, a wonderful space dripping with rustic charm (~my dream~) with the gorgeous Chloe and assistant Felicia. I’d sourced some old books, acquired many coffee beans, picked some flowers, spent all of my play money on raspberries and baked a big ol’ chocolate cake for my table setting. Everything was going fine until my camera refused to focus and chromatic aberration (those annoying blue/purple lines that fringe objects in photos) was all over the place. Every single photo looked a little skewed and I could not work out why, I’d put it down to using a wide lens as I was snapping. It wasn’t until browsing my set on Lightroom however the intensity of the matter loomed over my foolish optimism (I then spent the next few minutes hulk-smashing everything in sight as it was clear something had gone spectacularly wrong). According to the repair report there was an alignment issue within the camera body, hence the amazing lack of clarity. Luckily the photos are salvagable!… but could have been so much better. At the same time the situation could have been so much worse. LIFE, OH LIFE, OHHHHH LIIIIFE (dooo do do doooo).
So! The photos you’re seeing are from a seriously busted (two month old!) camera. So much lost detail (sigh). Here are some portrait photos, tell me what you think (I went with the last one but just quietly the second-last will always and forever be my favourite)!
I didn’t exactly to think to take a thought out photo of the cake and only ended up snapping some at the last minute before dividing it up between the troops to enjoy for later. I actually (mostly) followed a recipe for this one since it needed to be photo-worthy and required an icing to withstand some car travel. No winging it this time! This recipe isn’t a life changer but it’s simple, easy and comforting; a nice blank canvas for any decoration or accompaniment. PRO TIP: Cut yourself a slice and microwave that badboy for 30 seconds. The icing will melt all around dat cake creating the most delicious faux-self-saucing pudding of all time.
Simple Chocolate Cake with Raspberries
(an adaptation from Anneka Manning’s Mastering the Art of Baking)
Cake batter
185g butter, room temperature
330g (1 1/2 cups) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs, room temperature
260g (1 3/4 cups) self-raising flour
55g good quality cocoa powder
120ml milk
60ml espresso
1 tsp salt
Icing
120g dark chocolate, chopped
40g butter, chopped
165g (1 1/3 cup) icing sugar
3 tbs milk
Pinch of salt
To serve
Fresh raspberries
Icing sugar, for dusting
For the cake
1. Preheat oven to 180. Grease/line a 9″/22cm cake tin.
2. Beat the butter until creamed and beginning to pale. Add the sugar and vailla and continue to beat until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, until completely incorproated into the batter.
3. Sift flour and cocoa in another bowl with the salt and gently fold into the batter mixture, alternating with the milk and espresso.
4. Pour into cake tin and bake for around an hour. Allow to stand for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
For the icing
1. Heat chocolate and butter slowly over simmering water, stirring continuously. Once melted and smooth slowly add sifted icing sugar and milk and continue to stir until smooth. Allow to cool to a spreadable consistency, if needed.
To serve
1. Ice cake, beginning at the top and moving down towards the sides. Adorn generously with fresh raspberries and a little icing sugar just before serving.
This post is dedicated to the Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book. Shout outs to my Australian pals!
Hopefully for those living in the great sunny land down-under this image should stir nostalgic delight within each and every one of you.
Perhaps I should explain for my international friends. This book was held precious to many families in the 90s with its simple instructions and how-tos for creating adorable cakes. It’s so popular that a commemorative Vintage Collector’s Edition was released in Februrary this year. It’s so popular it has a number of Facebook fan groups and fan pages. It’s so popular this book has barely aged; it’s incredible to see how many people continue refer to this gem of a book for fun cake ideas. It’s simply amazing.
Amongst its pages of how-tos for the Teddy Bear cake, Train cake, Piano cake and Butterfly cakes lies the most infamous cake of all – The Swimming Pool cake. It was every kid’s dream cake when I was younger, and why wouldn’t it be? Delicious cake slathered in buttercream and jelly (or jell-o for my American pals) covered in lollies and candy. It was a dream come true. I might go as far as to call this an Australian Icon.
Thankfully, however, the culinary world has evolved from using algae-green jelly and nailpolish as decorating components.
My version is a little different from the recipe listed (I didn’t use “1 packet butter cake mix”, for example) so here’s my step-by-step guide to creating this iconic Australian cake. It’s best started a day in advance to prepare the cake, and more importantly the blue jelly. I hope you have lots of lollies ready in your pantry!
Swimming Pool Cake
(Alana’s Illustrated Guide)
1. BUY LOLLIES AND CANDY. Blue jelly, desiccated coconut, Teevee snacks (or long chocolate covered biscuits), jelly babies, gummy bears, snakes, kool mints and cocktail umbrellas. GO NUTS!
2. Prepare blue jelly according to packet instructions. Place in fridge and allow to set completely.
3. Prepare a 9-inch round cake. I used my standard vanilla cake recipe and added a chocolate swirl by adding a little cocoa in some of the remaining mixture. Once baked (180°C for around 50 minutes), wrap in plastic so it doesn’t dry out and place in the fridge until your jelly is ready.
4. Remove cake from fridge. With a sharp knife trim the cake to remove the dome that has probably formed in the baking process to create a nice, flat surface.
5. With the sharp knife, cut around the top in a circle to represent the wall of the swimming pool. Hollow out the centre if the cake to form a recess for the jelly.
6. Prepare chocolate buttercream by beating 125g butter, 1 1/2 cups icing sugar, 50g melted chocolate and a tablespoon of cocoa. Spread around the cake covering the edges and around the wall of the recess.
7. Prepare green coconut “grass” by combing desiccated coconut with a few drops of green food colouring. Gently place or spoon around the rim of the cake ensuring not to spill any on the sides (a little overflow is fine though as they will be covered by the biscuits). I know it’s looking a little silly now but just bare with me, it will be worth it, I promise!
8. Create the fence of the pool by arranging the Teevee snacks (or biscuits sticks) around the edge of the cake. Be sure to leave a 1 1/2 inch gap to make room for the ladder.
9. Construct the ladder out of must sticks and thin candy strips, I used thin sour laces. Use a little of the buttercream to attach the pieces and lean against the cake.
10. Remove your set jelly from the fridge and mash with a fork to represent water. Carefully spoon into the crevice of your cake, ensuring you don’t spill any onto the coconut grass (once it sticks, it stays!).
11. It’s time for the decoration! Adorn your cake with cocktail umbrellas, jelly babies, gummy bears, kool mints for balls or anything else you like. I had my brother make create some lounging jelly babies floating in pool toys constructed from snakes. Place them in and around the pool edges!
Note: you may have a LOT of sweet treats leftover if you bought as much as I did.
It’s a sight to behold, isn’t it? It’s just so adorable taking a knife to is seems almost blasphemous…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-
Oh well. Good night, sweet prince.
You were everything I ever dreamed of and more as a 5 year old.
Macaron Cupcakes. MACARON. CUPCAKES. Why aren’t these a “thing” on the internet yet? A dessert garnished with another dessert; genius (if I do say so myself)! I first made a dozen of these a few months ago for Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea, an annual event to raise both awareness and funds for The Cancer Council. My vague instructions were to “make cupcakes, or macarons, or I don’t know, SOMETHING” so I took it in my stride to combine the two aforementioned goods to create the absolute ~CUTEST~ cupcake known to man. They were a hit! And of course the inspiration behind the alanabread logo.
So when my friend Bayden of Packwood recently asked if I could bring something along to the accompanying bakesale at Folkraiser @ Hibernian House this weekend there was only one adorable cake on my mind.
If you’re already experienced in macaron and cupcake baking then this should be an absolute breeze, albeit a little time consuming. The great thing about this combination is that you can mix up the flavours as freely as you’d like and, with the addition of some lovely pastel colours, they’ll always look fantastic. They basically advertise themselves! And who wouldn’t want a delicious cupcake with a macaron top-hat?!
This recipe will make 12 macaron cupcakes with some extra macarons to spare.
MACARON CUPCAKES
(an original recipe)
Macaron Shells
100g egg whites, room temperature
100g almond meal
200g pure icing sugar
30g caster sugar
1 tsp powdered egg whites
Powdered food colouring of your choice
Salted Callebaut Ganache
140g Callebaut chocolate, chopped (I used half milk, half dark)
80ml pouring cream
sea salt, to taste
Vanilla Bean Cupcakes
100g butter, room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
1 vanilla bean
3/4 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup +2 tbs plain flour
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup buttermilk
Cream Cheese Icing
250g cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups icing sugar mixture
Food colouring of your choice
Assembly
Mini cachous
For the salted Callebaut macarons
1. Preheat your oven 150°C.
2. Sift pure icing sugar and almond meal and place into a bowl and give it a quick stir.
3. Beat eggwhites and eggwhite powder in a separate bowl until soft peaks form. Slowly add the caster sugar, beating well between each addition, until eggwhites are stiff and glossy. This process should take around 5-10 minutes.
4. Pour half of your dry ingredients into the bowl of beaten eggwhites and combine with a flat utensil, like a spatula, using “cutting strokes”. Once incorporated repeat with the remaining icing sugar and almond meal mixture. This is where things begin to get a little tricky as under-mixing or over-mixing will ruin your macarons as they attempt to rise and “grow feet” in the oven. Experts say to stir the mixture until it becomes the consistency of lava. The mixture will be sticky but you’ll know it’s ready when, upon holding your spatula above the bowl, it will begin just begin to flow freely back into the bowl. You’ll need to knock a lot of the air out of it.
5. Prepare a piping bag with the appropriate tip (around 1 cm or less), a baking tray with baking paper, and pipe small rounds (they must be small enough to balance on the cupcakes!). If there are any small lumps left from piping wet your finger and gently press them down (unlike cake batter, macaron mixture does not flatten out when in the oven). Allow tray to rest for 30 minutes.
6. Place baking tray in the oven and allow to bake for around 15 minutes (this time will depend entirely on your oven, so keep an eye on them). Within 5 minutes or so they will begin to grow feet.
7. Once ready, remove from oven, and after 5 minutes transfer to cooling racks.
8. Whilst your shells are cooling place your cream in the microwave for 30 seconds or until relatively hot. Pour your chopped Callebaut into the bowl and stir continuously until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is combined. Add sea salt, to taste, until you chocolate flavour begins to “pop” (this took me a few turns of my salt mill). Place bowl into the refrigerator to cool and thicken.
9. Prepare another piping bag with a large tip and neatly pipe rounds of ganache into half of the shells. To close, gently place its partner shell on top of the ganache and twist shut, taking care to prevent ganache spilling over the edges.
For the vanilla bean cupcakes
1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Beat butter until it begins to cream and pale. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod into the butter, add the sugar and continue to beat until combined and fluffy. You should be able to see the flecks of vanilla bean.
3. Add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition. Add the self-raising flour, milk, then plain flour once again beating after each addition.
4. Spoon into a prepared cupcake tin with liners, filling each to around two thirds full. Rap the pan by dropping it from a small height to knock out any air bubbles.
5. Place in oven and bake for aound 15-20 minutes or until the tops spring back when touched. Allow to cool for 5 minutes then transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. While these are cooling, prepare your cream cheese icing by beating the cream cheese with icing sugar and food colouring until combined and creamy.
For the assembly
1. With a piping bag with a large tip attached carefully pipe cream cheese icing over cupcakes. Carefully take macarons and place at an angle on each cupcake ensuring their placed firmly enough that they won’t slip off. Sprinkle with mini cachous and place cupcakes in the fridge for the icing to firm up to ensure the macarons will stay put.
All packed up and ready to go!
If you’d like to hear more of Packwood’s tunes you can check out the Facebook page here, also the alanabread facebook page is here too. Here’s a fan-video from our friend Zohara from a show a couple of months ago (you can hear me playing piano at 5:30!):
Lessons learnt the past few days: 1) orchestral folk music is cool, 2) being a baker/musician for a night is a total dream come true, and 3) there is something strangely satisfying about baking your own logo.
Steven is a beautiful friend of mine I miss every day. His presence in my world is testament that life can work in mysterious ways. Should he still be with us today would be his 30th Birthday – and what a day! There’s such beautiful sunshine here in Sydney inviting us into Spring.
We met a show five years ago and continued seeing shows together like the sweet indie kids we were at the time. Coincidentally we ended up working only doors away from each other so every second-or-so afternoon we would meet in a downstairs cafe, order two coffees and discuss the day’s events. To this day a cappuccino will always remind me of dear Captain Steve who is my inspiration to this lovely recipe – replicating this warming friendship via a warming beverage with warming cake . This will serve 12 lucky caffeine fiends.
Cappuccino Cupcakes for Steven
(an original recipe)
150 g butter (room temperature)
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
2 shots (60 ml) espresso
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs dutch-process cocoa
Espresso Syrup
3 shots (90 ml) espresso
1/4 cup sugar
Vanilla Buttercream
100 g butter (room temperature)
2 cups icing sugar mixture
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbs milk
extra cocoa, for dusting
wafers, chocolate-covered coffee beans for decoration
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 12-cupcake pan with cupcake liners of your choosing.
2. In a bowl, beat butter for a few minutes until it begins to pale. Add sugar and eggs, one at a time. Beat until fluffy.
3. Add flour, espresso, milk, vanilla and cocoa and beat until combined and light.
4. Divide mixture between your cupcake liners – they should be around 3/4 full. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are springy to touch.
5. While the cupcakes are baking in a small saucepan combine your espresso and sugar. Allow to boil and leave on medium-high heat for 5-10 minutes without stirring until the mixture thickens to a syrup. Be wary of leaving it too long or it will become toffee.
6. As soon as your cupcakes are removed from the oven lightly prick them a few times with a fork and spoon your espresso syrups over the tops. This will take a few scoops as you must allow the syrup to slowly seep into the cake before the next. Allow to cool.
7. To prepare the vanilla buttercream beat the butter and icing sugar until just beginning to combine. Add the vanilla and slowly add milk until you reach the desired texture.
8. To assemble: prepare a piping bag and carefully ice your cupcakes. There’s no need to apply too much as the cupcakes are already quite sweet; we want to create a nice base to replicate the froth of a cappuccino. Lightly dust with additional cocoa and adorn with wafers or any other relevant candies of your choosing.
Life is precious and I’m so sorry I couldn’t make these for him sooner. Happy Birthday, my wonderful friend! We miss you.
Layer cakes. Who has zero experience in making them? ME. My first attempt at this cake a few days ago was disastrous despite it starting so well; maybe it was the kitsch silicon baking ‘tins’ I was using, maybe it was the cakes baking to thin, maybe I didn’t let them cool enough before handling, whatever the case there were cake crumbs EVERYWHERE. Oh and due to over-pulverizing and over-mixing my oreo cream cheese icing began to turn grey… this was one ugly test cake.
Using 9-inch rounds was a much better idea. The chocolate cake recipe below is adapted from Buddy Valastro of Cake Boss fame. There are a few concessions made in this recipe due to necessity (and laziness) – for example, using less sugar in lieu of the torrent of oreos, substituting buttermilk for yoghurt as I was running low and generally fixing some of the measurements for a more metric experience. It’s a fantastic chocolate cake and coupled with a whole lot of cream cheese icing with smashed oreo stirred through… this is about to get intense.
DOUBLE CHOCOLATE AND OREO CAKE
(cake recipe adapted from Buddy Valastro; makes two 9 inch rounds)
FOR THE CAKES
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup caster sugar
125 g butter, room temperature
1/3 cup good quality dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
150 g melted chocolate
1/2 cup hot water
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup milk
1/4 natural yoghurt
FOR THE OREO CREAM CHESE ICING
250 g cream cheese (Philadelphia)
70 g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups powdered/icing sugar
1 x 150g packet of oreo biscuits
FOR THE ASSEMBLY
1 x 150g packet of oreo biscuits
1. Pre-heat your oven to 175°C.
2. Beat the butter until it begins to cream. Add flour, sugar, cocoa and baking soda and and beat until combined.
3. Pour in melted chocolate. Beat for one minute, then pour in the hot water. Continue beating until combined then add the eggs one at a time, adding the next one after the previous has been absorbed. Pour in the milk and yoghurt and beat for a few minutes until the everything is well combined, the sugar has dissolved and the batter is lovely and velvety.
4. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with oil or greasing with butter. Divide the mixture between the two pans and bake for around 30 minutes or until the cake begins to peel away from the sides and is springy to touch.
5. Allow to cool to room temperature before turning cakes out of the pans. Refrigerate until ready to decorate.
6. Break up one oreo packet into shards, preferably by hand as to not create to much ‘rubble’.
7. Beat butter, cream cheese and vanilla extract until beginning to cream.
8. Add the icing sugar one cup at a time until incorporated and fluffy. You can add more/less icing sugar to taste.
9. Divide icing in around half – but preferably 70/30. In the larger portion stir in your oreos carefully – just enough to combine but do not overmix or the icing will begin to turn grey.
10. With either a piping bag fitted with a large nozzle or a very handy spatula, layer your larger portion of oreo icing over one of the cakes. Make sure to keep this as level as you can so the cake layers look nice and even once sliced. Place your second cake on top.
11. Take your leftover cream cheese icing and layer over the very top of the cake. Once again, break your other packet of ores into shards and scatter atop the cake. Be sure to cover all the ‘white spots’ so the cake looks dense with cookies.
This cake is now packed away ready to take to a friend’s dinner tonight, thank goodness I’m not being left alone with this hot mess of chocolate.
Let me introduce you to two of my friends. Firstly, there’s Julie; she’s expecting her first little one within the next few weeks! Secondly, there’s Felicia; current employee of the Rockpool Group and pastry chef extraordinaire. Why is this relevant? Because, in celebration of this wonderful occasion we partied hard. We partied hard with baked treats made entirely by Felicia. Baby cupcakes, chocolate truffles, cookie pops and baby pink lamingtons; this girl is amazing.
The evening was concluded with a tour of the nursery and a slice of gorgeous cake by Celebration Cakes.
Waking up the following morning with a (carb) hangover has never has never felt so worthwhile.
