Heavenly Cake - Pine Cone Cake

ב''ה

In an effort to put some Jewish twist and meaning into this baking exercise I searched the bible for pine references. About the only thing that came up was this verse:

...נטע ארן, וגשם יגדל. והיה לאדם, לבער, ויקח מהם ויחם, אף-ישיק ואפה לחם...

ישעיהו פרק מד

"...plants a pine and the rain makes it grow. Then man uses it for fire wood, takes from it and becomes warm, even lights a fire and bakes bread..."

Isaiah 44:14-15

I thought this a nice verse as a baker to reflect on. How nice that the only divine mention of pine also mentions baking! Heavenly, perhaps?... :)

I could not find glycerine so I had to skip the fondant. I also could not find a serving platter big enough to hold it, so for now, on the cutting board it remains. 

Le Cake: My wifes reaction when she walked in the room was, "my G-d, what is that gnarly pine-cone thing?!" Needless to say she loved it, asides from the fondant (which I did not make anyways.)

Mis en place: 

I used Richwhip so as to keep this cake parve as it was too big to attempt in the toaster and I did not feel like cutting down to size. 


Speaking of which, I just visited my grandparents in California (for Chanukah) after a long hiatus and found my grandfather had a double level toaster with a temperature thermometer inside. Above the toaster are posted the actual temperatures the toaster reaches on the top and bottom shelf for the different temperature settings. No, my grandfather is not an off the cuff Jewish baker, just a hardware engineer who worked for IBM for many years. Funny how these things work...

The "Ez Man" was with me for moral support.

The ganache cooling in a bowl. As this was parve I was able to use our food processor. What a snap! However, the nuts took 14 minutes, not 7. 

folding in the flour to the chocolate and egg mixture. I hate sifting!!

Ready to go in the oven:

This was the first time I made a roulade and I could not for the life of me figure out if it was done or not. I kept feeling the middle but it just felt like firm delicate egg whites. I finally felt confident enough to take it out after about 25  minutes. The bottom was only slightly overdone which means it probably really took about 20 minutes and not 7 - 10 as stated in the recipe.

Roll it up in a towel.

Spread the ganache.

My rocket ship.

After frosting:

This was a delicious cake but it was also a bit rich. The almonds in the ganache were a nice contrast. I did not have cognac so I used brandy instead and it worked nicely. Yum!