Happy Birthday Rob!

Today is my awesome husband’s birthday!  Yesterday we had a fun bbq with friends and then today we had a small party with just family.

I made him two cakes.

This one for the party:

It’s a three layer, 6” round chocolate cake with fudge buttercream.  Then I made it into a minion!  He turned out way better than I could have hoped.  Not bad for starting it at 6am before the rest of the house arose for the day.

Today I made him his birthday birthday cake, his favourite:

It’s 4” round Black Forest Cake.  Chocolate cake with layers of whipped cream and cherries.

Chocolate Cake (my kids absolute favourite)

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup freshly brewed coffee

1. In bowl of stand mixer, combine dry ingredients.
2. Add buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla slowly until just combined.
3. Slowly add coffee until just combined.  Remove bowl from mixer and fold to make sure all in incorporated.
4. Divide into 4 6” round pans. (I weigh my bowl and divide by number of pans, subtracting weight of bowl)
5. Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes.  Let cool 15 minutes before removing to cool completely.
6. Ice with buttercream.

Chocolate Fudge Buttercream

• 1 cup softened unsalted butter
• 1 cup room temperature shortening
• 7 cups icing sugar
• 1 cup cocoa
• 6 tbsp milk

1. Cream butter and shortening until combined.
2. Add icing sugar and cocoa.
3. When combined at tablespoons of milk one at a time until desired consistency.  The thicker the icing the harder to spread.

Cherries (can be used in Black Forest cake as well as cherry pie filling:

• 1 can tart cherries in water
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp sugar

1. Drain cherries and place liquid into small saucepan.
2. Add sugar and simmer until dissolved.
3. Add cornstarch and sugar and mix constantly until it starts to thicken.
4. Put reserved cherries back into juice mixture and combine.  Set aside and let cool.

We also bought him balloons.  This is Rowan on the trip home.

In hindsight, 38 balloons in my car might have been pushing it!

I think he had a pretty good day!

Happy Birthday to the best hubby!  Love ya

Thanks for looking!

My First Attempt at an Ice Cream Cake

I always like to challenge myself and this past weekend was no different. I’ve always wanted to try to make an ice cream cake but never got around to it and since it was Memorial Day weekend, I thought it was a perfect time to give it a go.

My husband smoked a pork shoulder for a big bbq feast on Sunday and I wanted to make a dessert that would match up with the tastiness!

I made my new favourite chocolate cake from Barefoot Contessa on Saturday and then had to take a break.  Sadly my back has decided to give out on me again and so I can only work on stuff a little at a time.

Sunday we went strawberry picking. Ok, the girls picked and I watched.  But we scored quite a few!  I decided that our cake needed a strawberries and cream layer.

Putting it together:

1. First off, you need a spring form pan.  That’s a pan that you can take the sides off with a clip.
2. Bake 3 thin layers of cake.  I weighed my batter and then divided into 10 oz each.
3. I used Bryers Vanilla ice cream, take it out and left soften about 10 minutes.
4. In the spring form pan place the first layer of cake down.
5. Scoop ice cream onto cake layer and smooth out.
6. Top with another cake layer and put into freezer to firm up.
7. While the cake is freezing up, slice strawberries, whip cream and make some ganache.
8. Remove cake from freezer and pour some ganache over cake.  Then cover with sliced strawberries and whipped cream and the final layer of cake.
9. Put back into freezer until ready to serve.
10. With the remaining ganache, whip up using a hand blender until fluffy.
11. When ready to serve, remove cake from freezer and cover with the fluffy ganache.
12. Slice and serve!
13. Enjoy!

Now my biggest issue was covering the entire with icing.  Most store bought ice cream cakes use a full shortening icing that doesn’t freeze.  I CAN’T DO THAT, WON’T DO THAT.  So I only covered the top.  I liked the rustic look it had and without the icing, wasn’t that sweet, which I prefer!

Was this good?  OMG yes!

Should you attempt?  Absolutely!

It’s a little time consuming but really, what cake isn’t?

thanks for looking!

Going to the chapel…with a Croquembouche!

Nope not me, already been there done that! Ok, it wasn’t in a chapel but under a tree at my parent’s farm, but the result remains the same.

You see, I have a friend.  Don’t be so shocked :)  I have a ton of friends and one of them is getting married this summer.  I can’t go so I wanted to make something for them and since all my cookie decorating stuff is sitting in the back of our car that’s being driven back from Canada, I had to come up with something else. 

I have no idea how it popped into my head but I wanted to make a Croquembouche.  It’s a traditional French pastry that is served at weddings. Perfect!

It’s basically little puff pastry balls filled with cream and then covered in caramel.  Doesn’t is sound fabulous????

Ok, it looks like it might be tricky, but actually it’s pretty easy!

Make some choux pastry.  What’s that you say?  It’s another French word that means cabbage.  Don’t ask, just go with it.

• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs

1. Pre-heat oven to 400F
2. In a medium sauce pan, bring milk, water, butter and salt and bring to a boil. 
3. Remove from heat and mix in the flour.  Bring back to heat and cook until the pastry pulls away from the pan sides.
4. Remove from heat again and add one egg at a time until combined.
5. Put dough into a pastry bag fitted with a size 10 tip and pipe one inch circles onto parchment and bake from 15-20 minutes until puffed and browned.
6. Remove from oven and cool completely.

Next up, make some whipped cream.  No cheating here, cool whip is NOT whipped cream.  So take the 3 minutes to put some heavy cream (1 cup)  into the bowl of a stand mixer.  Attach your whisk and turn it on medium and whip away.  Add 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tbsp sugar and whip until holds a stiff peak.  Don’t over beat because we don’t want butter!  Now take your whip cream and put it into a pastry bag with a size 10 tip and add cream to each of the puff pastries.  Put them in the fridge and take a break.

Ok, back to it!  Let’s make some caramel.  In a non-stick sauce pan (that’s what works best for me) add 1 cup sugar, 2 tbsp water and 1 tsp lemon juice.  Mix and then on medium heat let the sugar melt and come to a boil.  Once the sugar becomes a lovely light brown colour remove from the heat and add 2 tbsp heavy cream.  Careful, it splatters!  Bring back to the heat and stir until it has a beautiful caramel colour.

Now take your filled pastries and dip them into the caramel, careful it’s really really hot, and start stacking them in a pyramid type fashion.  Once all the pastry is used, take a fork and dip it into the caramel and drizzle the caramel back and forth over the pyramid.

Admire your work, take some pictures and enjoy!

Thanks for looking!