The Making of a Cake

I have been making cakes for friends and clients for a while. This doesn't happen too often, but once in a while I get asked. While I didn't go to baking school, I had some "formal" training on cake decorating while working for this insane but very talented woman who will remain unnamed. She made very traditional French cakes, and her decorating techniques were amazing. Decorating cakes is such a work of patience and you need hours and hours of practice to get the manual skills you need to execute perfect piping. I am a little of a perfectionist so it is really stressful to decorate a cake because I keep trying to get that perfect smoothness and perfect edges. By no means I am good, and I haven't mastered any of the designs that some people like on their cakes, however I can make cakes that taste really good and are simple but beautiful.

Throughout the years I have learned that planning is essential for my sanity and to avoid disasters. The more prepared I am the better the end result (sounds simple, right?). The cake layers are made two days before the event (this in case a baking disaster happens and I have to start again), assembled the day before, chilled for hours in the fridge so the flavors can come together. The cake is then crumb coated, chilled again, and frosted with a rough layer. The day of the event, the cake is "polished" and any final decorations are piped on. Then comes the most stressful part, the delivery. Moving the cake to the car is the first hurdle, then comes the ride of the precious cargo, then the walk from the car to the final destination. Imagine walking in slow motion, checking steps, people around you, doors that can swing open at any minute, all carrying a very heavy cake and sweating cold bullets. The sense of relieve when you finally lay that baby down and you admire the final product is priceless.

I made this cake for a very special person, a woman I met when she waited tables at a restaurant where I worked six years ago. She was my favorite person there, her attitude was remarkable, without an ego and no sense of entitlement, a very mature young person indeed. She is also a phenomenal babysitter, who comes with two huge tool boxes full of things to make fun projects with the kids. She also believes in saving and recycling, and uses salvaged items for her art work. She chose a vintage dress for her special day, how cool is that? She is also always smiling, I actually think that she walks few inches above the ground, I kid you not.


When she asked me to make this cake for her wedding I was really touched, and I put lots of love into it. The cake consisted of a lemon raspberry bottom tier and two tiers of chocolate cake with a chocolate mousse in between. Then I made a second little cake because she also wanted an amaretto cake. I always fear that the cake I made was not perfect, so I was waiting patiently to hear back from her. Bre loved the cake and since she didn't get to try the amaretto cake I promised to make one for her first wedding anniversary.


Congratulations Bre!

Daring Bakers' August Challenge-Dobos Torte

I found myself doing this at the last possible minute, actually a day late now, and obviously the heat in the Bay Area decided not to cooperate for the second month in a row, and it was brutal! I missed the deadline yesterday because of serious time mismanagement so I decided to make the cake for a birthday celebration which means that I only could take pictures with the flash, but I have a miniature cake waiting for me tomorrow to be finished.

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

The cake we were challenged to make is called The Dobos Torta, a five-layer sponge cake, layered with chocolate buttercream and topped with cake wedges covered in caramel. The cake first appeared in 1885 created by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker. The recipe, kept secret until Dobos retired in 1906, was donated to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, with the provision that it could be used freely and obviously publicly. The recipe is very long so you can find here.

The original cake is round, each layer made individually as a disk, but to save time, and to give a spin to the classic round cake, I decided to make a rectangular one. We are supposed to be daring, but since I like chocolate I make the original chocolate butter cream from the recipe but instead of the classic hazelnuts, I paired it with pistachios since I love the green of pistachios against the dark chocolate color. The cake was easy to make, but I ended up over baking it so I think that the 400F baking temperature is an over kill, especially when the cake layers are so thin. The other big problem I encountered was with the butter cream. The execution was simple, and it looked very velvety, and it tasted ok (note here, just okey). The problem lied in the consistency, made worse by the heat. Even chilling the butter cream didn't help, as soon as the cake was out of the fridge the butter cream started running, and the weight of the nuts brought the cream down the sides! The cake looked nice, but it was not one of those cakes that knocks your socks off in my opinion, in fact I don't think I will try it again unless I try another recipe.

I was intrigued to try a new butter cream recipe that calls for whole eggs, instead of the butter cream I normally make which has only whites, sugar and butter. I wasn't impressed at all by this recipe, it is too sweet and it tastes too rich. I think that it works well as a filling but as a glaze is way too soft, and I know it was not just my mistake, other DBakers had the same problem. I had fun making the pistachio star decorations with the extra caramel. To make them, warm up the pistachios slightly so they won't cool the caramel too much. Add the pistachio pieces to the hot caramel, and pour the hot and still liquid caramel onto a silicone mat, or an oiled parchment paper. When the caramel is setting but still soft, score it with a wheel or a cookie cutter. When the caramel is cooled, separate the pieces and let cool completely until hardened.