Cbocolate, chocolate, chocolate!

Imagine my eagerness to meet a client's challenge!

Tired of "Death by Chocolate" cakes- I was asked to make a chocolate cake that I would love to eat. Hmmm, moist dark chocolate cake with sour cream, melted chocolate and cocoa. Dark chocolate ganache with a blend of 60% cocoa bittersweet chocolate and semi sweet with a touch of espresso, vanilla extract and Godiva liqueur. Dark chocolate mousse ( because who does not love whipped cream!?) with the same blend of chocolates. Yet this was not the "classic" chocolate mousse...whipped cream folded with dark chocolate custard.

Egg yolks cooked with light cream and whole milk, poured over the chocolate blend, then gently folded into the whipped cream, YUM!!!

Layers of cake with raspberry puree, ganache, mousse...that's my idea of the perfect chocolate cake! AND with the leftover ganache? Truffles, of course, rolled into Ghiradelli cocoa, till I can order more Perignotti cocoa...

Delightful, tasty, heavenly. I would like to make individual cakes the next time around, though I do love to see the tall slice filled with all those scrumptious layers!

Still baking...

My husband's birthday is on Christmas Eve. We try very hard to keep it separate from the Holidays, and this year it just seemed to merge into all the activities. My in laws asked if JujyCakes would bake his cake this year!

The birthday cake is usually a spice cake, and in keeping with the theme made this!
It's a 8 inch by 6 layer cocoa spice cake with pecan creme filling and brown sugar meringue buttercream with DeRuyter dark chocolate sprinkles and Eclat Reserve blend mendiants.
I tweaked a recipe and added Ghiradelli cocoa, cinnamon, ginger and a smidgen of nutmeg. The cake is moist and has a good crumb texture, and since I love spiced hot chocolate, thought the chocolate would be a great addition to all the cake flavors.

Oh, those mendiants! Eclat Chocolates in one of my favorite chocolatiers, that is close to home. It is artisanal chocolate at its best.

"I love the story behind mendiants: the word means "beggar" in French, and is related to mendicants -  religious orders that relied on charity, or begging, for income. Mendicant orders originated in Europe in the Middle Ages; it is from there that the classic image grew of the poor friar who has given away all his earthly possessions and lives off the charity of the faithful. The original chocolate mendiants had as their toppings four fruits and nuts meant to symbolize the colors of the robes of the four major mendicant orders of the Roman Catholic Church: almonds (Carmelites), hazelnuts (Augustins), dried figs (Franciscans), and raisins (Dominicans).
Further fascinating information: those four fruits and nuts are part of the 13 Desserts of Christmas, part of the Christmas tradition in Provence. At the end of the big Christmas dinner, thirteen sweets representing Christ and his 12 apostles, are served to finish off the meal. Honestly, 13 Desserts sounds a lot more appealing than the 12 Days of Christmas! The thirteen sweets can vary but usually include the four aforementioned fruits and nuts, dates, nougat, and more recently, a Yule log. (It's delightful the delicious information you dig up while doing research for a book on candy!)"

( thank you, Anita Chu @ http://dessertfirst.typepad.com ) 

Holiday Bake a palooza time!

WOW! I woke up on Wednesday morning at 5am and went to bed on Thursday at 3am. I was elbows deep in flour, all kinds of flour, chocolate and lemons...I had baking elves who assisted in cutting marshmallows, zesting and juicing lemons and keeping up with all the dishes- so I could keep going with all the production. Thank you to the elves!


I "upgraded" the 2 layer cake orders from 4 layers to 6 layers with a moist lemon cream cheese pound cake with Meyer lemon curd and lemon meringue buttercream. Since they were "blank" canvas, I colored the butter cookie dough and made holly leaves, and used raspberries. I love lemons and raspberries together. 

Also made dozens of cupcakes, carrot, chocolate, golden, coconut, brownies and several fillings, pecan, coconut rum, lemon curd! It takes longer to make all the components then the final assembly AND there is a limited amount of what you can do in advance. There are several cupcake bakeries that are making the "blanks" in advance, putting them in the freezer and pulling them out to frost right before the delivery date! AARGH, that is not baking to order! and I question the "freshness" and texture of the cakes.

Everything was picked up by 11am today, and now it's time for napping and relaxing,
then it's time to do some last minute gift wrapping of stocking stuffers and waiting for Santa!
Hope that everyone's Holiday is filled with magic, joy, hugs and something sweet.
Happy Christmas!

SNOW, I want to wash my face and hands in SNOW!

Well, well, well...

Take a look at what happened here yesterday! It just kept on snowing and who knows when it ended but WOWIE, we now have a white Christmas this year!

Just wanted to share the scenery, and I'm off and back to baking- the oven is beeping at me, so TTFN.

I've been busy...

What a week this has been!

I had an unplanned trip to the ER, after 8 hours of testing- was asked what plans I had for the weekend, and was wisked upstairs to the OR for an emergency appendectomy.
Getting back into the swing of things has been challenging. Had an interview this week, and baking up a storm for the 3 cakes that you see, those were due on Wednesday. More baking for Thursday, since Thursday was a full day with a funeral and then Friday- working all day in a nearby studio and having FUN!

My spirit is willing, my body, well, that's another story. Here's to more rapid healing! Hard to believe that Christmas is 13 days from now. So much to do and limited time!

I promise to be better about writing, sorry for the stretch of time.
More baking adventures coming soon!!!

Generation 2 for Holiday Tree Cupcakes, yes, please.

Okay, welcome to G2 of the Holiday Tree cupcakes. I was not really happy with G1, it was too plain, not enough whimsy and design. The cake got a bit more Grand Marnier and orange extract. The cake is now filled with Grand Marnier custard with a bit of orange zest + the meringue buttercream has Godiva liqueur. I used a larger tip for piping so the mound looks cleaner and more controlled but overly so. The biggest change was in the cookie, added swags with royal icing + a yellow star as the topper. I think they look better and taste great, DELISH, as my husband said as he scarfed his up as a late night snack. 

What do you think?

Thanks again to Cupcakes Take the Cake!

Many thanks again to the folks at Cupcakes Take the Cake for spotlighting my baking again. Imagine my surprise to see all the uploaded photos of all my "projects" that I was working on yesterday! It's crunch time for me to get a "tweaked" Holiday menu out to all my friends and followers, since Holiday entertaining is in the air for all of us in less than 3 weeks for Christmas (let alone any Open House parties with good cheer and good food!)

Take a look, I promise you won't gain any pounds from looking, though a friend of mine would love to have some "smell-a- vision" with every posted goodie...can you imagine???!?!

http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/2009/12/tis-season-for-holiday-cupcakes.html

Turkey at School

The 24 turkeys made it safely to school and had no casualties. ( Their necks were breaking as I was trying to gently coax them in to their boxes AND had to do emergency surgery!)

Good reports that the kids loved them and there are pictures of them trying to "scare" their turkeys and devouring them. For the security and privacy of the children, those photos can not be published.

It does my heart good to help with the kids. No child should be hungry at school and while these treats are a meager offering- their tummies won't growl for one afternoon so they can concentrate on getting excited about learning new things and new ways to look at things. It's amazing to hear stories about their PoV- remember when you were 7 years old and how you viewed the your world? 

 

My next baking day for them is right before Christmas; I wonder what fun things I can come up with for them!