Heavenly Cake - Lemon Chinese Crown

ב''ה

As in, "The Great Wall" of lady fingers.

(Hat tip to Monica for the ribbon idea to hold it all in place.)

Mis en place: Lady fingers

The circle is O.K. but the lady fingers lost all semblance of shape. I did use a ziplock bag though. I guess I better brush up on making those real scratch piping things from baking sheets...

I present to you, "The Great Wall." It did make it easier to just wrap around the perimeter of the cake.

It does sort of look like a crown, or a baseball glove...

Mis en place: the filling.

The lemon curd took a good 25 minutes for me, not 15.

Fill with the custard. I wonder, is this considered a Charlotte?

I also wonder what the powdered sugar adds to the meringue? I used the blow-torch for the meringue  as my broiler was not going to be able to accomodate the "Great Wall." I did not wait for all the freezing steps and waiting steps in the middle of the recipe. I just made the whole thing and stuck it in the freezer.

Here are some of the better looking ladyfingers. You can see the seepage from when I attempted to take off the spring-form before it was frozen. 

It was really yummy. The ladyfingers and the billowy lemon really balance each other nicely.

Heavenly Cake - Chocolate Genoise with Chocolate Peanut-butter ganache

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This was a really terrific chocolate cake, one of the best genoise recipes we have had yet. We were a bit wary about adding the black raspberry syrup but it really adds an oomph and takes the cake beyond the ordinary.

Mis en place:

Sorry I did not take pictures of the genoise process. You can find a description of how I do it in a previous post. Since my first chocolate genoise attempt from the Cake Bible a while ago was less than extraordinary, I feel this is a big improvement.

I made two cakes since I have noticed that all of Roses ganache and syrup recipes are for a full two layer cake. Also, I figured that this cake would go really fast (and it did!) I used a bit more peanut butter in the ganache than the recipe called for and was not sorry.

I had a slice of this in the morning before work and found myself craving it the whole day. Now that's good cake!

Heavenly Cake - Free Choice Cake - Golden Lemon Almond

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After all the praise this simple cake has garnered I knew it would have to land on our free-choice plate at some point before all things come to an end.

Dry ingredients.

Batter less the eggs. I find that the beaters tend to overly attract lemon zest whenever it is called for. Make sure to scrape all of it off the beaters, it hides there under a blanket of the batter!

Ready to go.

I added some amaretto to the sugar syrup for some extra almond flavor. 

It was golden and it was glorious!

 It totally lives up to all the hype.

Heavenly Cake - Swedish Pear and Almond Cream Cake

ב''ה

I was California Dreaming this morning with a slice of this lovely cake.

The delicious "almond gunk." I could not get almond past so I used marzipan. Thanks to Jennifer  for the tip!

I used Anjou pears. I would have preferred had they been softer.

Batter, stage 1.

Making my "ring" depression.

Fill with said almond gunk.

Layer the pears. Did I do this right? 

As you can see, the pears did not sink to the bottom as they were supposed to. Perhaps my almond gunk was to cold or perhaps the shape of the pan restricted them from sinking? At any rate, the almond gunk did not sink either.

Pop her in the toaster.

I  made this for the community service kick-off at a local girls High School. The cake on the left

 is a whipped cream cake. I also made a third cake, another Swedish Pear, so we could try it too! :)

Conclusions: Delicious! My wife felt that it was too much like a plain butter cake and the little almond pocket was to intense. Next time, she says, we should just add the almond gunk to the batter and mix it in. I dunno, I am perfectly satisfied with it.