Birthday | Turning 30 Is Just Peachy!

For my friend's 30th birthday, her husband requested a peach cake, since peach is one of her favorite fruits and something that the couple consumes by the Costco-flat per week. Unfortunately, the birthday fell on the week of the nationwide peach Listeria contamination scare when all Costco peaches got recalled. Fortunately, Safeway had (presumably) non-contaminated fruit in stock.

I made this cake based on the Beau Soleil cake in the Extraordinary Desserts cookbook. Readers of my blog already know how much I love Karen Krasne and her cakes, but in case you're new here, I love Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego!

This is a 10" cake with hazelnut joconde (sponge cake) layers, soaked with orange simple syrup and filled with mascarpone mousse, peach curd, whipped cream, and some hazelnut praline (for crunch) and drizzled honey.

The mousse is a French style one with an egg yolk base, mascarpone cheese, whipped cream and vanilla beans (which make everything better).

The peach curd contains some peaches sauteed with brown sugar, and folded into the remainder of the pureed and gelatinized fresh peaches.

The outside is coated with the mousse and a thin layer of whipped cream. The sides are covered with the hazelnut praline, and the top is decorated with thinly sliced fresh peaches. The vibrant color and floral pattern make this cake aptly named Beau Soleil (beautiful sun).

I didn't have a big enough box handy for this cake, so the sides got a little smashed when the wait staff took the cake out of the box for slicing. But, it was still delicious! I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to both make this cake and eat it too :)

Pastry School Recap | Units 9/12 - Chocolate

As my classmates know, I have a love-hate relationship with chocolate. I think it's an admirable art form, and when tempered properly (i.e. heated and cooled in a precise way so as to cause the melted chocolate to recrystallize in a particular state that has shine, snap, smoothness and strength . . . don't even get me started on my fascination with the physical chemistry of it all), chocolate is amazingly versatile. It's great as a standalone confection, as a flavoring for other desserts, and as an architectural building block and design element.

But man, chocolate can be finicky when the kitchen is warm or humid, and messy without commercial kitchen equipment (my biggest complaint really). Writing this post reminds me of some frustrating chocolate structure-making, so let's just get on with the photo recap without further ado:

A few highlights from Units 9 & 12 of pastry school:

Chocolate Candy Stand: The class theme was comics and cartoons. I picked Garfield, a childhood favorite of mine :) 

 Chocolate Boxes & Bows: Learning to build with chocolate!

 Queen of Sheba Cake:

Caramels and Toffee: Did not enjoy the process of covering these in chocolate, but sure loved eating them.

 Assorted Bonbons:

 Two-Tiered Chocolate Cake: Hand-painted these chocolate cylinder wraps with colored cocoa butter

 Chocolate Project: With a limited amount of chocolate, we had to create a structure. Our theme was SF, and I picked the Palace of Fine Arts. I wasn't quite able to execute to 100% of my original design but was excited about what I was able to pull off!

Milo | The Professional Sunbather Turns 5!

Happy birthday little pup! You are now older than me in dog years. But you were always wise beyond your years and a bit of an old fart anyway.

With all of his fluffy hair, one of the most common questions I receive is, "isn't he hot?"

Well folks, let me tell you. He likes it hot. (He also doesn't have an undercoat, so he gets cold easily.)

In the last year, Milo and I have discovered his love for sunbathing. I always knew he liked warm weather paired with a nice breeze, but this past year in particular, he has actively sought out that ray of sunshine peeking through the window, that warm patch of concrete in the driveway, and everyone's front door welcome mat.

Sometimes, when we return from a walk, he will stop on the welcome mat, look at me knowingly (and happily) as he refuses to step indoors, and then do his circle-walk before planting himself down for a toasty session of relaxation. Sometimes he doesn't even get that far; we might just return home from a car ride and he decides to plop down on the sunny driveway.

Or randomly in the flower bed at the mall . . .

Even when he's clearly hot, panting with his tongue extended, he has a look of joy on his face. I have to physically nudge him indoors to break him from his reverie and ensure his physical well-being. I haven't allowed this as much recently, with foxtails being in season outdoors, but perhaps today on his birthday I will indulge him.

Office Bytes | A Box of Chocolates

Life (work?) is like a box of chocolates!

In preparation for my recap of our chocolate units in pastry school, I dusted off my chocolate tempering skills and decided to try my hand at making chocolate bonbons and a chocolate box at home.

For this project, I made a round box with a keyhole cutout on top out of dark chocolate with some milk chocolate accents. For the company logo, I painted orange cocoa butter on a sheet of acetate before pouring on tempered chocolate and cutting the logo shape.

There are two flavors of bonbons inside: (1) salted basil ganache, and (2) pecan bourbon ganache. I only had maybe three dozen bonbons total, so I offered up the box for eating too. And wow, people were not shy.

Birthday | Trio of Old Friends

Happy birthday to me! And my friends!

During a recent weekend getaway, I was lucky enough to celebrate my 30th birthday with some dear friends, a few of whom are also turning 30 this year, and a couple of whom share July birthdays with me. So, I made each one of us a cake.

I knew I would have very limited time to decorate, so I made a batch of Italian meringue buttercream, and brought some fondant and piping gel along to the getaway in case I was struck with inspiration. The idea of representing the growth of a long friendship over time came to mind during the drive. So here is our trio of cakes to celebrate old friends:

 

The first is a green tea chiffon cake with green tea pastry cream and puff pastry layers, requested after I posted about that flavor combination in a previous birthday cake project.

 

The second is a purple yam chiffon cake with mango Bavarian cream. This one was fluffy and light. Maybe a little too light on flavor in my rush to make it.

 

 

The third is a lemon pound cake with lemon curd pastry cream and fresh strawberries. Perfect for a hot summer day!

 

Office Bytes | Vols-au-Vent Puff Pastry

French for "windblown" (I learn something new every time I use wikipedia in preparation for my blog posts), these hollow puff pastry shells are an amazing vehicle for both sweet and savory fillings. They're made with two discs of puff pastry, with the bottom one docked to minimize rise, and the top one with a hole cut out to create the hollow.

For a recent surprise baby shower at work, I wanted to bring an easy finger food dessert other than cupcakes, as I knew the party organizers had already pre-ordered cupcakes from a bakery shop. I made these vols-au-vent, half filled with lemon curd crème légère, and half filled with vanilla crème légère, each topped with sliced strawberries. And of course, I used the extra puff pastry dough to make my favorite cinnamon twists :)

Birthday | Above & Beyond 30th!

I was asked to make an "Above & Beyond"-themed cake for a 30th birthday celebration. For those of you who don't know (myself included, prior to this cake), A&B is a British trance group with a radio show called Group Therapy, hence the play on that name on the side of this cake.

I'd never heard of A&B before, but they have a very striking and fun rainbow theme with an album cover image that I based the cake design off of.

I'd also never made a square cake before. Or covered a square cake in fondant. Or made a cake so dependent on fondant decorations! It was an all-nighter but also a great opportunity to stretch myself and imagine what it would be like to have a custom cake business. One can dream :)

This cake was a matcha green tea chiffon cake, layered with thin crunchy puff pastry layers and green tea crème légère (green tea pastry cream with whipped cream). I crumb coated with plain Italian meringue buttercream and then covered with black fondant.

The ribbons and lettering were also rolled and cut fondant (with royal icing for the pound sign and numbers). I tried a new technique, the wax paper transfer method (using wax paper and shortening), to put the letters on quickly and evenly (thank you Craftsy). I also used a milk bottle cap to give the ribbons a lined texture.

Note to self: Invest in additional refrigerator or freezer space . . .