Brownie cake

The brownie idea has been there since the beginning. I wanted some "chocolatey" cake to decorate. The question was what to fill it with. So I decided to try different fillings and let somebody be judge of it. I tried to fill the brownie with caramel whipped cream and sprinkle it with caramel sauce. I also tried a filling with Nutella whipped cream. Both were good. But the one with Nutella was clearly very chocolatey. And I really loved the caramel whipped cream myself. And everybody that tried that one actually voted for it.

When I was doing the real cake, I forgot the sprinkling with caramel sauce. Probably due to the fact that I actually knew the sugar paste would be very sweet already. If I do this again, I will do the following: Multiply the brownie recipe with 1,5. Only cut it in half. Fill it with caramel cream and cover it completely with cream. Make fluff tops. Sprinkle with the caramel sauce. Will be sooo good I believe. Nothing more than that.

But well, that is the future. Here, as the cake was for a Christening, I just felt some kind of decoration and sugar paste kind of cover was required. So this is the recipe for the cake. I actually served with passion fruit on the side. Personally, I was not so excited about the combination. But well....The fact that the brownie was baked a little too long did not help either.

2013-10-26

And by the way, next time I have to bake a cake for a baby or something and come up with the idea of making a bear, please stop me... Those bears of mine always look somewhat ugly. Not creepy. But they do not get any cuter... Whatever I do.... Especially not with sugar paste that falls apart... :(

2013-10-26

Or if I really want to do bears... then please force me to do some exercising before the "big day"...

Ingredients

Brownie cake (please use 1,5 times the given ingredients)
Caramel cream (make it 1,5 times also)
Italian Marengue Buttercream (a third of the recipe will be enough to cover it once externally)

Sugar paste (I would guess that more or less half of the recipe will be needed to cover this cake including some decoration.)

 Instructions

I coloured the sugar paste with brown colour as I wanted it to become  kind of cappuccino coloured. It turned out an ugly orange. Added more brown colour. Became too fluid. Added more sugar. Became too cracked up. Hopeless. The colour at the end became some kind of brownish-orange Autumn-like colour. Not really the "Christening" theme of choice (of anybody's choice...). As the amount of sugar paste was too little and it cracked up, it was very difficult to have any decoration to go with the cake. So well. As you see, it did look somewhat weird and ugly. And it was somewhat very much one colour only. Hey... I am not a baker... Get a grip. What did you expect from me?!

The buttercream was necessary as the sugarpaste kind of melts on regular whipped cream.

The brownie cake can be prepared in advance and frozen. As the brownie cake was completely unstable, I decided to follow the following procedure.

Cover the pan you baked the brownie in with plastic foil. Wetting up the pan will make this operation much easier. Put some of the cream at the bottom of the pan. Put the brownie cake in it. I tried to cut it in half, but it was extremely difficult and crumbled a lot. I recommend once more to make 1,5 times the amount for a a 26cm pan. Then more cream. Remember the caramel sauce I forgot. Then the cake again. If possible cover the cake again with more cream. I did not have enough cream unfortunately.

25/10-2013

Freeze in for a couple of hours. Remove from the pan. Cover with the buttercream. I am not sure why but the cream kind of slipped over the cream. Not so easy. But it worked out anyway. Put on the sugar paste on the top of it and decorate as desired. This technique makes the cake more stable.

This is how the cake looks like in the inside after a few cake eaters have been on to it.

Italian Marengue Butter Cream

This is a butter cream. So it is not low fat! And definitively not low sugar....
But if you use sugar paste, you need to have something that protects it from becoming sloppy. And butter cream is it. If you use regular cream, it will not keep "fresh" and it might sort of melt.

The taste is good. But I have some difficulties with butter cream in general. Little too heavy. But all right. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

200gr egg whites (which maps to 7 average size eggs or 6 big)
300gr caster sugar
80ml water
450gr unsalted butter (keep at room temperature until soft)
1 tsp vanilla powder

Instructions

Whip the egg whites. They do not need to be perfectly stiff as they will have to keep being whipped after you add the hot sugar. Cook the water with the sugar until it reaches the temperature of 118 degrees Celsius. While whipping, add the hot sugar. Be careful as it is very hot. Make sure you do not hit the whips.... That might become seriously dangerous. Keep whipping until the marengue becomes cold. It will take a very long while so I recommend to use a Kitchen Aid or similar tool. Then add the vanilla powder and add little of the butter at the time. When you do that, make sure to use the lowest speed on the blender. It is supposed to become fluffy and stable butter cream.


For some reason it does not become as hard as other butter cream. Guess it has to do with the air in the egg whites. But I am not sure how long it can be in the fridge before you spread it out. I have had some in the fridge since more than one week and it still tastes delicious to be honest. But it is hard. I will maybe try to take it out of the fridge and see if it becomes softer one day... :)

Rumours go that it can "go wild". But that has not happened to me.

Caramel cream filling

This is my own recipe. Nothing off the shelf. But I did steal some tips and tricks from other recipes. For instance, for stabilizing the cream I use piping gel in minimum amounts as it does give an unwanted flavour/smell otherwise.

Ingredients

100gr caramel sauce
350gr cream
1tbs piping gel

Instructions

Heat up some 100gr cream and melt the caramel sauce in it. Let it cool in the fridge. Remember. The cream needs to be cold to whip up as desired. Put the piping gel in it. Add the rest of the cream.
Whip slowly until stable. I use my Kitchen Aid at speed 2 (even if that makes me a little nervous and sometimes I just turn it higher for some moments). Be careful and do not distract yourself. Had to throw away a whole batch because I forgot it there and it whipped to a gritty thing that could not be used for anything.... :( So again... Be very very careful... ;)

Basic yellow cake

I have actually used this cake recipe nearly every time I actually have baked a cake in the last years. I think it works. And it tastes good, too. If you ask me...
I normally pick it down from the wilton.com home page, but every single time I wonder: "Do I have it among my recipes?", then, of course, I don't find it and at the end of the story I find myself fighting with American measures... So now, now let us do something against this...

Ingredients

375gr sifted flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

390gr sugar

75gr butter

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

300gr milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 175degrees Celsius. Grease bottom and walls of a pan (26cm diameter) or two (20cm diameter). Line with baking paper.
Sift flour, salt and baking powder and set it aside.
Cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

19/10-2013 Butter and sugar when fluffy...

Add one egg at the time and then add the vanilla and keep beating the mixture. I think it is smart not to add too cold eggs. It mixes much better.

19/10-2013 After having added the eggs

Add milk and the flour mixture alternatively until everything is incorporated. When this is the case, just beat one more minute.

19/10-2013 With flour and milk added

Then the batter is ready to be distributed into the pan(s).
I personally try to use special ribbons wetted with water to cover the external part of the pan so that the cake does not blow up in the middle. It is always good if it can stay flat at the top rather than getting bumps.
Bake for 30-35 minutes when in the small pans and 45-48 minutes when in the large one.

The cake is ideal for decorating. It can be prepared in advance and frozen as it is! When you need to set the cake, you can actually do it before it is completely defrosted as it will be easier to decorate when it is a little frozen.

Vanilla custard

In Italy, you can get the most delicious vanilla custard at any patisserie. I have been trying to reproduce the same effect for ages. And never succeeded. But today I think that I kind of know the answer. When you try to do your own vanilla custard, you always use the real ingredients: egg yolks, sugar, cream, milk.... But I think the pros do not use all those eggs as it would be much too expensive to do some little amount of custard. So my guess is they use some other emulsifier instead. I think the vegegel from Dr. Oetker's is a very interesting kind of product that gives a texture similar to the purchase cream.
In the meantime, until I get to test my theory, here is the recipe with original ingredients.

Ingredients
400g milk
100g cream (38-40% fat)
150g egg yolks
150g sugar
17g corn starch
17g rice starch (I could never find this so I used rice flour instead)
1/2 vanilla flower

Instructions
Whip sugar and egg yolks. Add starches and vanilla flower powder.
Cook milk and cream. When the liquid is boiling through in the mixture above and then whip it up neatly for about 1 minute. If you wait too long to whip, the eggs might scramble up themselves giving an omelette taste to the custard (believe my word... :O( ) resulting in a less smooth custard and a less enjoyable taste.
You will notice that the whipped mixture will actually float in the liquid keeping the whole from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Note: do not use flour as an emulsifier as the flour can make the custard liquify. Also the rice and the corn starch give different texture so it is good to mix them it seems (I have never tasted how the custard would taste with only one of those actually, but well, I simply follow the recipe.). And by the way, next time I might give it a try to actually use the vegegel from Dr. Oetker's I think. That texture reminds me of both vanilla custard from Royal my mom used to do for me when I was a child and the custard you could find in the purchased petits choux.

Royal icing

This is the first time I try this kind of icing. Last time I needed to cement my gingerbread house, I actually used fat with it. That recipe was very "long lasting" as the house did not have any problems until April the year after. Not sure about this recipe, but let us see.... :O)
So far it hardened pretty quick and seems indeed very stable compared to the one from last year.
After 1-2 hours I could really move around my gingerbread house without bothering.

11/12-2011

Ingredients
3 tablespoons Meringue pownder
4 cups confectioners sugar
6 tablespoons warm water

Instructions
Mix for about 10 minutes with Kitchen Aid and whip. We whipped slowly half time and quick the rest of the time.

Mommy's birthday minicake...

Background
Mommy does not really like cakes that much. So I thought instead of making a big cake, I could bake a lot of muffins and cupcakes of different kind for her enjoyment but still make a very little cake for her, just for the tradition... :O) Well, that was theoretically a good idea, but making a small cake is really far from easy. And as a matter of fact, it looked pretty ugly... Poor mommy... :O(

11/8-2011

 But on the other side, she seemed to enjoy the cupcakes/muffins with Nutella, her favorite! And she did not complain about the cake. Maybe as I had been baking for her the whole day basically and she did not dare :O)

And on the positive side of it, I got to use my brand new cake plate!

11/8-2011

I used the same sugarpaste that I used for Janne's birthday cake. I took the orange color as she likes orange a lot. I also found quite cute "candles" that fit mommy.

11/8-2011

Honestly, I can't really remember what I had in it.... Thit is what happens if you wait that long to write a post about something... :O( I'll try to think some more.

Barbro's Birthday Cake

Background
Barbro's birthday had to be celebrated. She mentioned she liked chocolate and berries. Then well, this was the result based on her statements.

25/10-2011

The cream used to decorate the external part was an Italian marengue butter cream.The chocolate decorations were made with regular 70% chocolate and the cake was then topped with blackberries. The idea with the chocolate decoration was to look like "paint" spots on the side and as a grid on the top.

25/9-2011

I wanted to write "Happy birthday Barbro", but the chocolate was giving me a hard time: tried to "temperate" the chocolate to get a good result without a thermometer, but it did not turn out as desired: the chocolate melted as soon as you touched it. So I just tried to minimise the touching of course. But it was not easy to move around those very big letters. Also the "space" was not enough to put the name on it also. So Grattis was all that got space... :O)

In the inside, I did a raspberry "Jelly/jam" and a vanilla sauce (which I burned while I got distracted) mixed with whipped cream.

This was a very very heavy cake really. After one slice, you were more than full. Personally, I have eaten better, but I cannot state I did not try to do something good. But sometimes, trying is simply not enough... :O( I guess next time I ever come up with the idea of doing a butter cream, I will have to make sure I will use butter without salt. But then I did not have a choice as there was hardly any butter to find in the shops.

White chocolate fluff

This recipe has also been found in Bakglädje but for some strange reason (read "lazyness") I modified it somewhat :O),  but if you want to take the "pro" way, you can follow the link here. According to the source, you can decide what kind of chocolate to use. I went for the white chocolate one. Remember: white chocolate contains basically cocoa butter and condensed milk powder. So if you are lactose allergic, be prepared to suffer. I personally think it is worth the suffering... :O)

Ingredients
100gr white chocolate chips (can be enough with 70-90gr if you do not want so much white chocolate)
1,5dl cream suitable for whipping

Instructions
Warm up cream without reaching cooking temperature. Dump in the white chocolate chips and mix until they are completely melted.
Let the mixture rest over night in the fridge.
The day after you will be able to whip it as "hard as you desire".

This recipe tasted very good, but in the cake, it kind of disappeared among the rest of the ingredients.Very likely it comes to its rightful position when eaten by itself or with less other ingredients. Next time I will try it on vanilla cupcakes I guess.

Sugar paste

The first time I used sugar paste, I actually purchased it ready-made. Then following happened:
- I read the ingredients' list
- I tried to work with it and it dried out within a very very short period of time and turned hard
Then I found this recipe at Bakglädje and so I collected courage and gave it a try.
The original recipe with some light modification comes below.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon gelatin powder
60gr cold water (0,6 dl)
175gr white syrup (1,25 dl) (according to reliable sources, it can be substituted with glucose)
1 tablespoon glycerol (which seems to be the same as glycerine)*
2 tablespoons neutral oil or coconut fat (rape oil works)
800-900gr confectioner's sugar (I opted for the 800gr and it seemed to work fine)
0,5 teaspoon vanilla extract
Icing colour can be used for colouring

Instructions
Mix the gelatin powder with the cold water in a metal bowl and let it rest until it absorbs and becomes thick. Now it is time to melt the mixture by putting the bowl over a pot with cooking water. The gelatine will melt down and become fluid. Now add syrup and glycerol and mix together thoroughly. Mix in the oil and remove the bowl from the heat. Note: I did not get any glycerol as the pharmacy I went to did not have it in stock. But the result was doubtful and wrinkled. So I do believe that you do need it. You can also add the vanilla extract now and according to the original recipe also coloring. Personally, I prefer to let it white and color it when ready with different colors (so I only need one batch for all colors). But I guess, it becomes more "pro"-like if you do it as originally thought?! Here again, I haven't tried and probably won't either unless proven necessary first.

I put the mixture in my Kitchen Aid with dough tool and added little confectioner's sugar at the time. Or at least I started out with "a little at the time" and got bored pretty quickly. So I added everything at one time and the Kitchen Aid handled the "little at the time" per default (it takes some time until everything is mixed in anyways). I had only 800gr sugar and I felt it was enough. The resulting sugar paste did not dry out at all during the 5 days the cake lasted. Which I personally think that is ideal. My guess is, the more sugar you add, the quicker it dries. But I haven't really "tested" and I very likely never will on purpose. :O) I have the feeling you want the sugar paste to dry quickly if you do flowers or stuff. But I do not really know...

Do not worry that the mixture is sticky. It will become malleable with time. I personally think it looks very very good after mixing. Had it not been so sticky and sweet, I probably would have eaten half... :O) I took a picture, but unfortunately I probably forgot the memory card in the camera...

Put the mixture in plastic film and cover it up completely with multiple layers to avoid drying out. In the original recipe, it is recommended to put it in a plastic bag and an air tight jar, I didn't as I did not read the original recipe as thoroughly as I should, but nothing "scary" happened.

Let the mixture rest for at least 24h. Theoretically, it can be preserved for a very long time as it is basically mostly sugar. But I haven't tested it myself yet. Probably, here, putting it in an air-tight jar becomes much more important. It does not need to be in the fridge. I let mine at room temperature.

I colored my sugar paste before usage with different colors. I used "gelatin colors" as that is the only edible color I got. The manufacturers of such colors state they are necessary for all cake baking and should not be substituted by caramel color that influence the consistency of the final result. Me not sure. But I believe in all kinds of marketing messages ;O)

But, hey, all summed up, I was rather satisfied with the result apart from the "wrinkle" problem.... Next time I will go out of my way to find glycerol, really!

Note: I found the Glycerol in a Pharmacy. Do not get scared by the fact it tells it is for conservation of leaves and stuff. I have wikied it and it seems it is edible. The result was much less "wrinkly" so make sure you have it in the mixture.

Note: Try to colour into the sugar paste in advance. Ideally directly after you actually have done the sugar paste. I did not do it that way, but it became very difficult to handle and it became cracked. If not directly, at least some day or two in advance so it sits a little before you need to use the sugar paste.

Cupcake decoration course

For this training, the muffins to decorate are handed by the course leader. So that part I cannot influence. The marzipan and the frosting is also handed out by the course leader, so that part I cannot influence either.
Colors are also given.

The decorating part though given the components is purely up to me.
This was the result of a "hard work".....

Scaringly ugly cupcake with an extremely ugly pink color
Exercising small star tip and making flowers....

Ugly flower cupcake
The middle is marzipan. The rest is exercising different tips...

Little less ugly cupcake
Mostly marzipan decoration. But I had to "exercise" some more on piping icing....

Rather neat cupcake (looked better in reality than on the picture)

Exercising swirl tip and trying to create some flowers with some stamps that wouldn't look like everybody else's.

Monster cupcake
This was an exercise on "grass decorating tip", which turned out was not as easy as the teacher made it look. Again, that ugly pink color could have been some other one, but well... Thought the monster was rather cute anyways... Staring at me like that....  :O)