Pink Cakes, Green Cakes, and Yellow Pies

When it rains it pours. Was swamped with cake orders on Saturday, which hasn't happened in awhile. Maybe the novelty has worn out, maybe the increased fuel prices have driven people to austerity, maybe sigh, my stuff is inedible, .... haha, but oh well, yeah, last Saturday, the convection oven must have complained to the microwave who lives in the apartment above, about how overworked it was. And the refrigerator couldn't have been too thrilled about being stuffed to its full capacity.

However, I'm not here to talk about those orders. Last Monday, my mother announced that green apples were cheap in Giant. Those kind of annoucements are usually a euphemism for "apple pie would be nice". Indeed, it would. So for Tuesday dinner, (family dinner night), tah dah.

I actually love my apple pie very cinnamony, with a hint of clove, and some lemon zest. I also like it with raisins, but unfortunately, I am the only fan of dried grapes and dried up old queens, (sultanas), so they're usually omitted from the party. With Haagen Daz now RM30.90 a tub, I think I shall just have to wait for my birthday month (when I get a 30% discount voucher) and buy a year's supply. Where shall I put the freezer?

After the resounding success of the colorful cupcakes, friend who was at that party asked if I could do a birthday cake for her daughter. Alarm bells ring in my head like a fire drill in the hotel as you're about to enter the shower naked, whenever people ask me to do birthday cakes for children, and my first response is NO. However, she insisted all she wanted was a good old fashioned butter cake with some pink icing, and some princess figurines plonked on top. Okay, that didn't sound too hard, except, by Thursday, I couldn't find ANY princess figurines, apart from those Barbie ones, (eugh). Barbie, now talk about versatility, here is a chick that can be ANYTHING she wants to be. Princess, waif, trollop, mermaid, .....

So I call the friend with a distress signal, and she placates me by saying she'll provide the figurines. Phew. That was one girly task off my plate. Then came the day of the icing. PINK. Argh, I swear by the end of it, I had grown an entire cup size, one letter downwards in the alphabet.

With a shaking hand, as a result of allergy to pinky and girliness, I quickly iced the cake and sent it on its merry way. Why doesn't anyone ever have birthday cakes with Disney Villains? If I had a birthday cake, I'd want all my favourite villains on it. Maleficent, Ursula, Snow White's Step Mother.....that reminds me, have any of you read the "The Story from My Side"....it's a account written by the villains.

I love the evil queen's one. It went something like, "That lousy husband of mine, died leaving me to raise his daughter, without so much as a dime in my name. As the years went by, I noticed Snow White was getting a little tubby, so I decided some aerobic household chores would do her good, afterall, we were short staffed and these palace walls are not going to clean themselves".....you get the gist. When you have children, you inevitably pick up these things.

Since the oven was already running, I thought I'd try again to make the Kyoto Matcha Chiffon Cake, and see if my first success was beginner's luck. Turned out quite well, although I have to tweak the recipe again for the quantities, coz my recipe yielded 1½ swiss roll tins...which is neither here nor there. And sssh, I did the unthinkable. Look at the snow white cream! One look and you'll know its fake non dairy. Gasp. That's a whole other story, but rest assured, I do NOT ever use fake cream. All my cream is pure thick creamy gobs of fattening milky goodness.

And yesterday, I thought I'd whip up a lemon meringue pie for Tuesday dinner, since I reached home early, and had time to make it. It doesn't take much time as such, but the waiting time, ie, letting the pastry sit in fridge for 30 minutes, etc....does require chronological time frame. If you had a ready crust, the process will take 10 minutes. (for me that is). Excluding the baking time for the meringue. But once its in the oven for meringue to bake, you can basically go off and perform your chores.

Lemon Meringue anyone?

Baking Class - The Art Of Superfine Baking, Japanese Cakes

Twas a lazy afternoon, the first day of the long weekend. With great effort, I lugged my posterior to the bake class that I had signed up for, some weeks back, at my favourite "Learn to Cook" place, the Cooking House. Earlier that morning, we were at a Brunch birthday party for a friend's kid. Usually, I avoid kid's parties like the bubonic plague, but I knew this hostess would ensure we had proper nourishment. In any case I had to supply two chicken pies, so I thought I'd drop by anyway and check out the spread. And I wasn't disappointed. Gourmet sausages, imported streaky bacon, grilled mushrooms, designer bread and real butter, and chunky marmalade, and of course, my chicken pies. Hostess with the mostest in question actually has the same birthdate as me, which begs the question, are people's personilities REALLY defined by their birthdates?

Anyway, as the kilos of pork produce settled in my stomach, I braced myself for yet another culinary caper. To my horror, I realised I had left my camera in wife's car and she had already gone off to work, (on a Saturday afternoon), leaving me with no camera for the class. So I had to make do with the cheap obsolete Kodak camera that my dad normally uses.

The three items on the syllabus were Matcha Cake, Jap Moist Chocolate Cake, and Honey Cake. A cursory glance at the recipe told me that Japanese are very health conscious, because NONE of the recipes contained butter. Immediately alarm bells went off in my head. However, what they lacked in cholesterol from butter, they certainly made up with eggs. The chickens in Japan must really have a tough life, especially the hens. Look at that bowl of yellow, its ALL yolks. I think about 30 eggs went in there.

Cooking classes are very interesting by virtue of the composition of people. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say there's a mishmash of people, predominantly females, save for the chef, and me, some of whom, despite attending the class, will probably never get beyond cracking eggs for an omelette, to those who probably tried out the recipe that very night itself. One particular lady showed off her culinary knowledge by wowing us with questions like, "Oh, how much are those eggs? 28 sen or 29 sen each?" I'm sure such precise knowledge of egg prices will go a long way in helping her make those chiffons rise. Boo, Paprika and I exchanged rolling of eyes.

With not a lot of previous industrial bakery exposure, I have never seen this method of folding egg white. With hand. Somehow the entire motion reminded me of a hairdresser going through a lot of lather on the head. Ignorance IS bliss. Not that I'm particularly queasy about where my food has been, or whose finger's they've run through...but yes, some people might find it disconcerting. Apparently however it is normal to fold chiffon with your hands, like some people use their hands to toss their salads, including Domestic Goddess. Also, his method of separating yolk emulates Nigella's method somewhat, ie, using hands, BUT he breaks all his eggs into one bowl and fishes out the yolks.... which to me, with my clumsy fingers, is like unsafe sex, for one of those little yolkies is bound to explode on me, rendering the egg whites useless.

The next cake was the famed honey cake. I finally got a chance to see the The Role Of Ovalette As A Rising Agent In Sponge Cakes. How's that for a dissertation title. Yeah, so there's local ovalette, vs Australian Ovalette, for the Japanese Cake. Even baking is a borderless world.
It's quite amazing to see how the batter rises, it reminds me of that childhood story we read about that magic porridge pot, and how it flooded the entire town coz the silly girl who was operating it forgot the password to stop the pot. But just before the mixing bowl looked like it was gonna do a Mt Vesuvius, it was done. Again, the sploshing about with bare hands, even ladelling it into the cake pans.

The moist chocolate cake employed more or less the same technique, all very chiffony, and using egg whites to incorporate air.

The green sponge cake, dotted with red beans, prompted Boolicious to exclaim, OOOH, LIKE SPOTTED DICK. Immediately thought of diseased appendages that turned green with purple pocks sprang to mind.

Verdict: The matcha cake, layered with non dairy cream (ugh) and made into cake form as well as swiss roll, is probably the winner of the 3 contestants. The distinct green tea flavour goes well with the red bean. I could have done without the fake cream. I would try to make this.

The famed honey cake apparently was the wrong texture. It tasted like a very light sponge with a hint of chemical. And as I am not a honey fan, this cake got struck off my list. For this kind of cake, supposed to be more dense, I think I would like some aromatic butter.

The Jap Choc Cake, not bad, very chocolatey, probably because of the fairly good quality couverture chocolate used. Again, its basically a sponge. So it would be okay as a base cake, with some other unhealthy embellishment, such as choc ganache, or choc cream, but not something I'd eat on its own.

Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon, then again, I always enjoy my sessions at the Cooking House.