Erica's Birthday
My sister turns twenty today. She has lived with me for twenty whole years. She's put up with me telling her that a bug bite on my leg is MRSA (and very nicely calmed me down while pretending to take me VERY SERIOUSLY), lets me steal her clothes, keeps my secrets, has seen me at my lowest, my highest (emotionally and illegally) and my drunkest. I've gotten to watch her grow up, and sappy as it is, it has been a privilege and honor and I couldn't have asked for a better sister. I know how extremely lucky I am to have a sister who also doubles as a best friend. It makes life that much better.
As a reward for putting up with me, I make people birthday cakes. I feel like it's the least I can do.
Erica wants the same cake every year. German Chocolate. Sometimes I wimp out and just make chocolate, because the extra coconut pecan filling is that many extra dishes, but today, for her twentieth, I made her exactly what she wanted.
For her cake, I used David Lebovitz's recipe. If I were to make it again, I'd double the filling and switch out the ganache frosting for chocolate buttercream since ganache is a fickle little son of a bitch with temperature issues. Too warm, won't thicken. Too cold, won't spread. I spent two hours getting it spreadable. Fuck ganache, man.
Anyway, first we start with chopping the chocolate.
With a serrated knife because chocolate does not cut well. It fragments, and serrated knives keep the pieces from going all over the place.
To get a really fluffy cake, I sift the dry ingredients three times.
I'd do four times, but then you start to go to OCD territory and you might have people lurking in the kitchen saying "Nicole, stop. Hurry up! I have to leave in fifteen minutes and I want to lick the bowl!" so, you know, leave it at three and the cake will probably be plenty light and fluffy.
Then I do get all OCD and get my mise en place ready for the cake.
The gin is not part of the cake, but it doesn't really hurt to have it out. Especially when it comes time to frost and pipe with ganache.
One reason cakes sometimes fall flat is that you either over-cream or under-cream the butter and sugar. I've been told you shouldn't be able to feel the sugar granules, but I don't know how the butter wouldn't have melted away by that point. Five or seven minutes is good. Light and fluffy.
Add the chocolate, egg yolks, dry ingredients, buttermilk and vanilla extract:
Then whip up dem egg whites.
This is a soft peak, and when you add sugar to make the egg whites all glossy and pretty:
Glossy and pretty:
Then fold one third of that into the chocolate batter. To lighten it up a bit.
Then gently, gently fold the rest of it in just until you can't see the egg whites anymore.
Into the oven, for forty five minutes.
Then break out the gin because this is what's waiting for you:
Then somehow, BY MAGIC, the filling and frosting and syrup will be made and the cakes will be perfectly baked and de-panned:
Here's the douche bag of frostings (but it looks so nice):
And the finished cake:
And my reward:
Amen.
As a reward for putting up with me, I make people birthday cakes. I feel like it's the least I can do.
Erica wants the same cake every year. German Chocolate. Sometimes I wimp out and just make chocolate, because the extra coconut pecan filling is that many extra dishes, but today, for her twentieth, I made her exactly what she wanted.
For her cake, I used David Lebovitz's recipe. If I were to make it again, I'd double the filling and switch out the ganache frosting for chocolate buttercream since ganache is a fickle little son of a bitch with temperature issues. Too warm, won't thicken. Too cold, won't spread. I spent two hours getting it spreadable. Fuck ganache, man.
Anyway, first we start with chopping the chocolate.
With a serrated knife because chocolate does not cut well. It fragments, and serrated knives keep the pieces from going all over the place.
To get a really fluffy cake, I sift the dry ingredients three times.
I'd do four times, but then you start to go to OCD territory and you might have people lurking in the kitchen saying "Nicole, stop. Hurry up! I have to leave in fifteen minutes and I want to lick the bowl!" so, you know, leave it at three and the cake will probably be plenty light and fluffy.
Then I do get all OCD and get my mise en place ready for the cake.
The gin is not part of the cake, but it doesn't really hurt to have it out. Especially when it comes time to frost and pipe with ganache.
One reason cakes sometimes fall flat is that you either over-cream or under-cream the butter and sugar. I've been told you shouldn't be able to feel the sugar granules, but I don't know how the butter wouldn't have melted away by that point. Five or seven minutes is good. Light and fluffy.
Add the chocolate, egg yolks, dry ingredients, buttermilk and vanilla extract:
Then whip up dem egg whites.
This is a soft peak, and when you add sugar to make the egg whites all glossy and pretty:
Glossy and pretty:
Then fold one third of that into the chocolate batter. To lighten it up a bit.
Then gently, gently fold the rest of it in just until you can't see the egg whites anymore.
Into the oven, for forty five minutes.
Then break out the gin because this is what's waiting for you:
Then somehow, BY MAGIC, the filling and frosting and syrup will be made and the cakes will be perfectly baked and de-panned:
Here's the douche bag of frostings (but it looks so nice):
And the finished cake:
And my reward:
Amen.