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.
Or, maybe it’s because I know how to do fake ice cream on cakes well.
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.
