My First SHF! Also - Quite Possibly My Last SHF!

I have always wanted to submit something to SHF, but quite frankly I've been afraid. SHF is HUGE - EVERYONE knows about Sugar High Friday!! Why on God's green earth would I want to put myself and my far from stellar baking skills in with a group made up of so many talented sugary masters?? Hell Nos! Why don't I just sign up for a bikini contest next?? It might be less embarrassing. Okay no, it wouldn't be less embarrassing.. it'd be horrendous - the hundreds of people who would instantly go blind - or turn to salt - once they laid their eyes upon The Flab. Anyhoo.. so then I got to thinking.. "Dude! You're a Daring Baker! You Dare to go outside your normal baking friendly zone.. you bake outside of the box now!!" Well there you have it. How could I turn my back on my Daring Baker status? How could I literally shame the rest of the Daring Baker crew?? I could not! So I am joining in on SHF for the very first time. And I will not be ah-scared! (yes I will) This month's SHF is being hosted by the lovely Domestic Goddess who created Sugar High Friday almost 2 years ago. For this month's theme she chose "Cravings" - the one dessert that you can't live without. This was pretty much a no brainer for me.. because for the past 2 months, ever since the organized chaos of The Martha's Crepe Cakes, I have been CA-RAVING that Italian Meringue Buttercream filling I made. *swoon* and even before that, every now and again I'd be craving "The Mothership" even though she is evil and I have been afraid to mess with her wicked temper again. Look at that.. deep dark (possessed) cake with KILLER buttercream.. and notice how it looks like it just lost a fight with a hoodlum wielding a switch blade? All jagged edges and not balanced well at all.. I think my lil slice o'cake needs a drink. =( But I am a brave and daring baker.. so I got out my sugar, flour, cocoa powder & eggs and I set to making the cake. Everything went smooth as silk, no problems whatsoever. I filled up my two 8" rounds with the extra dark and lovely batter and set them, oh so gently, into my warm and inviting oven. Then I went outside to feed the fish in our pond.. 20 min. later, I'm walking back into my house and I smell something that could not be categorized as "April Fresh". In fact, I was smelling something that was burning. "F*ck!!" I yelled as I opened the oven door to see that The Mothership had landed once again, only this time she did not wait for me to frost her - she decided to explode inside my oven. My clean, warm and what was inviting, oven. That bitch. As I have shared with many of my friends, I now truly believe that this recipe is, indeed, POSSESSED BY SATAN. What I remembered in that 5 seconds it took for me to recognize that I had chocolate cake batter smeared, plopped and ON FIRE in my oven, was that this recipe made WAY TOO MUCH batter for two lil 8" rounds. I had forgotten that when I first met "The Mothership" I had enough left over batter for a dozen (ONE DOZEN) cupcakes. I thought it seemed a lil strange when the batter filled those rounds ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP. Oh yeah, I definitely thought it was strange. But did that stop me from stepping back a moment, assess the situation and think it'd be prudent to maybe bail a cup or two of the batter out of those filled pans? No. No it did not. Hello? I had a batter eruption in my oven for crissakes. No, I definitely did not use any brain power What. So. Ever. Seriously? How does one frost a cake with even layers? Why can I not accomplish this? It looks like The Mothership is sucking all the delicious buttercream into her black vortex of hell. And yes, I do understand that what happened was not the fault so much of the recipe's but more so because I am a complete moron. BUT I STILL BLAME THE DAMN RECIPE. So Shoosh! An hour later after I had scooped and scraped all of the raw batter, as well as the batter that was spot welded to the inside of my oven, into my garbage and had all the dishes washed I looked around at my kitchen and said to my self, "Yo Moron! Are you going to let a silly cake show you who's boss?? Besides, you have a pound + 3 TBS of diced butter in the fridge! You must reign victorious over the hell bitch!" 'kay well I didn't really talk like that in my own head.. it was probably more like a whimper and an emotional fight between making the cake again and going to watch The Bridge to Terabithia on DVD. So after careful consideration, I poured myself a drink. And then I went about rounding up all the ingredients again. I remade the cake, filled the two 8" rounds a little over half way full and instead of cupcakes I made four cute lil cakes with my mini heart and round shaped silicone pans, making sure to fill those only half way as well. I carefully placed the mini's on a cookie sheet and then slid those in on the lower shelf of the pristinely clean oven, then even more carefully slid the 8" rounds in while saying a prayer under my breath. Lotta good that did me. That MOTHER HUMMING cake did it me again!!!!!!! I can't fakkin believe it! I didn't fill the pans nearly as full! WHOT? THE? FRIG? At least this time there wasn't lava like chocolate goo all over my oven, this time the 8" rounds were only dripping down onto the cookie sheet where the minis were - and the lil heart shaped cakes were completely flowing out of their lil heart shaped silicone pans onto the cookie sheet too. Joy. I remember saying that I would get my payback one day soon. Officially? Yesterday was THE day. I did manage to salvage these cakes.. and the taste & texture was spot on.. they did break on me, but that FanFarkingTastic buttercream came to the rescue, just like it rescued my The Martha Crepe Cake. I even have buttercream left over and frozen -so you know, when I feel like an Italian Meringue Buttercream (I just like calling it that) sundae, I'm all set. :P I half expected the tines on my fork to start melting once it made contact with Her Evil Highness You'll notice that my frosting skills have not improved much and that basically, I still ended up shaming my fellow Daring Bakers with my inability to reign victorious over a fakkin cake recipe.. (and if you aren't shamed fellow DB's - you should be!) heee! But I was really jonesin' for a good Kitchen Disaster's installment so all of my cravings were met for this month's Sugar High Friday! I got my cake, I got my buttercream and I got my embarrassing post. Go me. =) You can find the directions for the "Far From Disaster Cake" (Yeah right!) on Molly's blog, Orangette Basic Buttercream Recipe by Jacques Torres (I heart him) I don't know exactly how much this makes - but it's a lot. ;) Scant 1/2 cup water 2 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar 5 large egg whites 2 1/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cubed Raspberry jam, for assembly The first step is to start cooking the sugar. Pour the water and sugar into a 1-quart heavy-bottomed saucepan and place over medium-high heat. When the bubbles start to form around the edge of the pan, insert a candy thermometer in the mixture. Place the egg whites in a large mixing bowl and whip with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until foamy and slightly holding soft peaks. The sugar is ready when it reaches 250 degrees F, what is known as the soft ball stage. Make an Italian meringue by pouring the cooked sugar down the side of the bowl while you continue to whip the egg whites. Do not pour the hot sugar onto the beaters, or it will splatter. Continue whipping the meringue on medium-high speed until the outside of the bowl is warm but not hot, about 5 minutes. Add the butter all at once and beat on medium speed until incorporated. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and whip until the buttercream is thick, smooth, and shiny, about 10 minutes. At his stage, you can add flavoring, if desired. The buttercream can be used immediately or can be stored in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days or in the freezer for several weeks if held in an airtight container. If it has been chilled or frozen, allow the buttercream to come to room temperature before using, then whip it with an electric mixer on medium speed until it returns to its initial volume and is once again thick, smooth, and shiny.

It Is With Great Pleasure That I Bring To You...

Kitchen Disasters 2007 Pt. I !! As always, I'm tickled to present to you the new year's first culinary disaster fresh outta my kitchen.. I think ONE of the lessons learned this time is, not to leave your layer cakes in their pans for more than 10 min. or so after taking them out of the oven. I greased and floured my pans well, the only thing I didn't do was line them with parchment paper as I usually do because I was out of the paper - but I've went without the paper in the past and this didn't happen. No.. I'm thinking it's because I left them in their pans for about 3 hours. Mmm hmm.. A little background - As some of you know, I'm on a quest to find the ultimate chocolate cake. I found this recipe while reading Orangette's lovely blog and knew I had to try it when she said, and I quote, "I will be shocked and horrified if you don’t find this to be the most deeply-flavored, moist-yet-fluffy chocolate cake you’ve ever tried." Well how could I pass this recipe up? I couldn't! Not even when the good angel and the bad angel who reside on opposite shoulders got into a brawl about not baking anything sweet, yummy and bad for my blood sugar. Alas, the bad angel won.. as she usually does. *sigh* The funny thing is, Molly calls this cake, "Far-from-Disaster Cake". *giggle* Apparently the first time she made it, her ganache separated and she didn't notice it until she had poured it on the cake. A frosting problem though, it had nothing to do with the actual cake. So when she re-posted about the cake, she included a different ganache frosting recipe that worked quite well for her. Mmm hmm.. not so much for me... Okay the other lesson learned? Stay away from heavy frostings at all costs. It's not like you like those heavier frostings anyway, you ass. Buttercream has always been your friend, be loyal to your friends!! Actually, in all honesty, I don't believe that this new ganache frosting that Molly offered was necessarily heavy - I think I made it heavy by leaving it in the fridge for so long. I didn't want a glaze type frosting so I left it to chill longer than normal to bring it to a thicker consistency. Which ended up being uhh.. a lil too thick. Okay so what have we learned? Take the cakes out of their pans before they are completely cooled and allow them to cool on a rack. This will better your odds on not having half of your cake stick to the pan. Gah. And.. stick with lighter frostings, even though this was my fault and not the frosting's fault. Just stick with buttercream from now on, for crissakes. And without further ado... Not-So-Far-from-Disaster Cake Ain't she a thing of beauty? I was asked by a friend, after having seen a picture of this monstrosity, if smoke and flames erupted from the cracks to then be followed by demons. Actually, yes. That did happen. I think there was lava too.. I don't remember it all now - I ran for cover and covered my eyes through most of the ordeal. I did hear strange noises though and Nigel cowered behind me with a low growl in his throat. Chloe went running into the bedroom - the big chickenshit that she is. Okay - maybe this was my first clue that impending disaster was on it's way... My cakes had brains. Quite possibly these were actually beings from another world, cleverly disguised as yummy chocolate cakes? Maybe outter-world beings who do not appreciate a nice ganache frosting? Or maybe this was just a sign of the apocalypse. I would not doubt it. Anyhoo.. you can find the recipe on Orangette's blog - go there for it, kids.. I don't trust the bad juju that will certainly rub off on my blog if I were to include it here. And seriously, don't let my unfortunate mishap dissuade you from trying this recipe - because Molly was right. This was the most deeply flavored, moist yet fluffy chocolate cake that I ever had the pleasure of massacring. And as with most really good chocolate cakes, it's just getting better and better with each passing day. The crumb is still off a bit - it's not quite there compared to the ultimate chocolate cake I had that day at the party.. but it's super close, I mean.. really, super close. I'd say that if I didn't actually find that ultimate recipe - that this cake is damn near close enough for me to be happy with for the rest of my days. Although frosted with buttercream from now on.. ;) Okay well.. after having to go through the search procedure to find this recipe over and over again on Molly's blog (because I am a glutton for punishment and make this cake often! hee!) I've decided to slap it in this post - copied verbatim from Molly's Orangette: Far From Disaster Cake Courtesy of Molly and Epicurious 3 oz fine-quality semisweet chocolate 1 ½ cups hot brewed coffee 3 cups sugar 2 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour 1 ½ cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process; I use Scharffen Berger) 2 tsp baking soda ¾ tsp baking powder 1 ¼ tsp salt 3 large eggs ¾ cup canola oil 1 ½ cups well-shaken buttermilk ¾ tsp pure vanilla extract Preheat oven to 300 degrees. If you’re making cupcakes, line the wells of your pans with fluted paper liners, or grease and dust them with flour or cocoa. If you’re making larger cakes, grease pans and line bottoms with rounds of wax paper. Grease paper. Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another (very) large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer until thickened slightly and lemon-colored (about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed, bracing yourself against puffs of cocoa-and-flour dust, until just combined well. Divide batter between pans. Bake in middle of oven 20 to 25 minutes for cupcakes, or 50 to 70 minutes for larger cakes, until a tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cakes completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and remove cupcakes, or invert larger cakes onto racks. If making larger cakes, carefully remove wax paper. Cakes may be made one day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature. Ganache Frosting Again, adapted from Orangette and Epicurious 1 lb fine-quality semi-sweet chocolate 1 cup heavy cream 2 Tbs sugar 2 Tbs light corn syrup ½ stick (¼ cup) unsalted butter Finely chop chocolate. In a 1 ½- to 2-quart saucepan, bring cream, sugar, and corn syrup to a boil over moderately low heat, whisking until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat and add chocolate, whisking until chocolate is melted. Cut butter into pieces and add to frosting, whisking until smooth. Transfer frosting to a bowl and cool, stirring occasionally, until spreadable. You may want to place the bowl in the fridge for a bit, but stir it now and then until it cools to your desired consistency. Spread. One small note.. if you do try this recipe, don't be alarmed if it doesn't look like this one (ha ha no, not the cracks and craters - the color!) as mine is very dark due to the use of Hershey's dark cocoa powder that I wanted to use up. :P