Heavenly Cake - Chocolate Banana Stud Cake

ב''ה

This was a birthday cake for my father-in-law.

Mis en place:

I made this cake parve so we could have it with a bbq. Toffuti and bananas. I also made a double recipe so I could make a real layer cake.

Chavi loves chocolate. :)

The one on the right is a make shift cake strip. One of my cake strips became dairy when I tried to make cheese cake with a cake strip instead of a water bath. It actually worked nicely, but the cake strip got totally spattered with cheesy stuff. Perhaps I filled it too high.

The birthday boy. The hat says "Yankees" in Hebrew.

I used Trader Joe's Chocolate chips which are somewhat largish. The white film went away after the cake sat out in the heat for a while. I used banana liqueur for the ganache.

Have a mental piece of cake. This cake came out rich and chocolaty with a perfect texture. I added 3 1/2 tablespoons of cocoa to the double recipe. I also weighed the dry ingredients on my new scale. Even if you were to find fanaticism in didactic measuring a fault you can't beat the ease of just pouring straight from the box into the mixing bowl.

Heavenly Cake - Vanilla Bean Pound Cake - Post Reference

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Please see the post below for this week's Heavenly Cake post.

Heavenly Cake - Vanilla Bean Pound Cake

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Yummy pound cake...

Mis en place.

pinch the vanilla into the sugar.

"אֶת-חֲטָאַי, אֲנִי מַזְכִּיר הַיּוֹם." -"My sins do I recall today." - Genesis 41:9; All those times I measured the flour with out a scale... Here is my shtotty new scale. It was a gift from the missus (along with a scrape-a-bowl and a williams sonoma apron.) So far it was useful for measuring the flour. ;)

I wonder how this one compares to the beater blade. It's got this sort of curvy thing going on...

Mix mix...

One of the nice things about using real vanilla bean is that you can see the specks of vanilla in the cake.

I could not find the vanilla cognac so I used Amaretto instead. It complemented nicely.

Lemonade anyone?

Heavenly Cake - Chocolate Ice Cream Cake

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This was a real treat! The ice cream cake was still soft even though it was in the freezer. Amazing!

Mis en place

Eggs and chocolate.

Dry ingredients.

Ready to bake.

Smells yum!

I cut it in half and stuck it in the freezer  (rack and all) so it would be easier to work with. 

Cherry chocolate chunk ice cream. 

I used parve Ice cream so I could eat this after the cholent. I was not up for experimenting with the creation of home-made parve ice cream. I'll have to browse through erstwhile HCB Shoshana's recipes next time...

Wrapped in plastic and in a cake pan to keep the cakes shape (so the ice cream does not spread all over.)

Instead of using a double boiler I simply put this bowl with the chocolate on a warm part of the stovetop and wait 10-15 minutes or so for it to melt.

Mix in the coco powder.

Vroom!  I used 99% Sharffen Berger. Oh Man! What a revelation. Now that's what chocolate is supposed to taste like!

I made this in a regular 9x2 cake pan and figured I would just do the sandwich version. Since I messed up in cutting the cake and sort of cut the cake closer down to the bottom, it cake out more like the cake version. In all honesty, I do not see the difference between the two versions or understand why this should be made in a special larger cake pan. 

Server Issues...

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Having some server issues. Ice cream cake coming up Sunday night, vanilla bean pound cake the next.

Been a bit busy and have not had time to read the heavenly cake posts yet...

Heavenly Cake - Rose (water) Genoise

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O.K. So I did not have the specialty Rose shaped pan that this recipe calls for. I did, however, get the heritage bake pan that Raymond and Rose have recommended. I figured, what is the fun of being part of a baking group if you can't get roped into buying some shttoty accoutrements now and again.

However, I still felt bad that it was not actually in the shape of a rose, which was the whole premise of this recipe. I decided that instead of using triple-sec for the sugar syrup, I would reach in to my Judeo-Syrian roots and use rose-water. I have to say that it really did add a delicate and lovely flavor.

Mis en Place:

If you have not had rose-water before I highly recommend it. Its flavor is unique! I used 1 teaspoon for the sugar syrup. It may have been a little too much. Next time I may use 1/2 teaspoon to more closely match the shira syrup flavor.

Strain the beurre noisette.

My, err, double boiler... Watch out, with that much surface area it really warms up fast!

You have to tilt it a bit at the beginning to get it to mix properly. It really did take the full 10 minutes to fluff properly. With a pot this big though you can sort of let go of your hand mixture though and just watch it. ;)

Add the flour. I just use Wondra for any of these types of sponge recipes. I do not have to sift the flour and it blends quickly and easily. You also get a higher rise from your cake (usually.)

Fold in the butter mixture.

Fill it up.

Here, your intrepid toaster baker in the urban jungle attempts to push the art of toaster baking to its limits with a full sized bunt pan. Drum roll please...

Wait until it is peeking over the top and starts to sink in the middle. The heating element was just starting to make its mark on the top...

And voila! "Bil Hana!"

Heavenly Cake - Coconut Cheeshecake

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Delicious Coconut Cheesecake!

Mis en place:

Coconut and vanilla wafers with clarified butter. Before I attempted this cake I only knew about the Israeli style vanilla wafers. My wife was able to clear things up.

Cream Cheese and sugar.

Spin the cream o' coconut in the food processor. Here I made the mistake of putting the whole 15 ounce can in instead of the recommended 8 oz. Thus, I got to make some cupcakes too. :)

Mix in sour-cream and cream of coconut.

Prepared mini cheesecake pans.

Toast two at a time in the water bath.

Mmm.

Baby cakes. I ran out of the cookie crust bottom mixture so I put straight crumbled vanilla wafers. It actually gave a nice extra crunch on the bottom!

The extra cream of coconut did not seem to hurt the flavor too much. It may have had a slightly more languid flavor than it was supposed too. These were easy to make and really delicious. One of the fellows who I shared this with at work stated that it was the best cheesecake he had ever had and said: "You should have a blog!"