Last Cake, Next Cake

The apple upside-down cake was a winner! There was a wide variety of apples in use (Cortlands, Honey Crisps, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, Cox (from England), and Ginger Gold). There were also a few people who didn't know what kind of apples they had, but everything worked.
The featured baker this week is Sugar Chef. When you look at her blog, you won't be surprised to learn that she's a professional pastry chef. All the Heavenly Bakers turned out lovely cakes, but not all of them are decorated to the nines, as Sugar Chef's is. Her apple pattern is perfect, and she also shows a piece of the cake plated with an amazing-looking icing flower and green leaf. How did you do that? But what can you expect from someone who's won a L'Affaire Chocolat competition and who markets her own homemade peanut brittle?
From the sublime to the very funny, I must also mention Nicola's account of her dinner party disaster wherein she bakes the upside-down cake in a springform pan that is not fully leak-proof. To quote her blog: "Our poor dinner guests had to listen to me witter on about the bloody oven (it is atrocious), while sitting in an ever increasing smoky haze, in the cold (had to get rid of the smoke by opening the door and windows!). They were even more surprised when I started to take photos of the disaster. After all, who would blog about smoking a cake?"
Finally, a little shout-out should go to Raymond, who gamely used his cell phone to take pictures of his upside-down cake because his camera was out of town.

Next week's cake, the Almond Shamah Chiffon, is not on the quick-and-easy list, and that generally means that there are a lot of steps involved. And, being a chiffon, it generally means a lot of eggs are involved. Again, no oddly-shaped cake pans to purchase, although it's time to start thinking about whether you're willing to pop for the pumpkin pan. (Check EBay). There were only five cans of Libby's pumpkin on the shelves of Whole Foods when I last checked, and I took three of them, feeling mildly guilty for being a hoarder. I'm very sorry if I got there before you did and bought up the pumpkin.