Feb 11, 2010

Last Cake, Next Cake

We've been talking about making the True Orange Genoise for such a long time, that, as Nicola said she feels like she's "been baking this cake for a month." I know what she means. By the way, Nicola has a beautiful photo of the Seville oranges on her blog. Reviews on the genoise itself were mixed. So many people had trouble creating the full two-inch cake, instead ending up with one-inch or slightly higher cakes that it can't be a coincidence. Lanier thinks she gets the award for the "shortest cake," but I think others would vie for that honor. There was some talk about genoise made with Wondra flour not rising as high as those made with cake flour. I think we need a volunteer to do a side-by-side comparison. Still, I must point out that Gartblue's genoise--her first ever--looked perfect. Beginner's luck?
A few other random notes: Rozanne made this cake for her husband's birthday, which turned out to be a good choice. In an admirable attempt at portion control, Jenn vows that from now on, she is making only half recipes. Good luck--I hope that vow works out better than my one-piece-only vow, which has gone by the wayside. In a similar vein, Lisa joined this baking group about the same time she decided to lose 50 pounds. I actually think you can bake and still lose weight, but I agree with Jenn that you do have to do some kind of portion control.

By the way, lanier used a Florida sour orange for the cake, and Rachelino got some Bergamot sour oranges.
Speaking of oranges, I think everyone loved the curd, which Jennifer described as "the bomb."

Vicki
became so enamored of Seville oranges that she promises to start a Seville orange festival in Sacramento, where the sour oranges grow wild. When you go to your first Seville Orange Festival, look for Vicki. She says you'll recognize her because she'll be "the lady with oranges atop her head doing the merengue."

I don't think I've ever named a brand-new baker as the FEATURED BAKER before, but I was so taken with Jill's beautiful four-layer, six-inch true orange genoise that I couldn't help myself. Okay, so Jill is a professional baker--the owner of Jillicious Desserts--so she does have an advantage, but you've got to give credit where credit is due. Not only did she make four layers, which makes for an entirely different look, but she also decorated it with chocolate shavings and chocolate curls, with a few artistically placed orange slices on top. It really is a work of art. Jill didn't have access to Seville oranges, so she used a combination of navel oranges, blood oranges, limes, and lemons. The use of blood oranges gave her orange curd a particularly intense color.

Also, a warm welcome to Wafae, who has baked several other of Rose's heavenly cakes, but just joined the group. She is making her introduction as well with a version of the true orange genoise that's so perfect that it could be a stand-in for the cake that was photographed for the cookbook.

Our next cake is the Double Chocolate Valentine, which can be made in a 9-inch heart-shaped pan (if you're cutting the recipe in half, in a much smaller heart-shaped pan) or just in a round pan. I'll bet the recipe would also make good cupcakes. By the way, I noticed that as soon as I noted that nearly every cake we've made so far has been turned into cupcakes by someone, no one made cupcakes out of the True Orange Genoise. In the book, this cake is beautifully decorated with sparkly fresh raspberries in a currant jelly glaze. I know that some of you are rebelling against buying out-of-season raspberries (although at least they're not hard to find--just expensive). I think this cake would also look stunning with the raspberry whipped cream that we've made on several occasions.
The week after that will be our first "free choice" week. This will give you a chance to bake any of the cakes that I baked on this blog before we started the bake-through, on September 29. I think that's a total of 22 cakes. You can look at these results by browsing through my June, July, August, and September posts. or just check the Archives.
You could also bake one of the HCB cakes that you didn't get a chance to do the first time around OR you could bake one of the variations for an already-posted recipe OR you could try again if you made a cake that you weren't satisfied with the first time. Lots of options for you.
Happy Valentine's Day!

31 comments:

Monica said...

Marie, I love these recaps...

I'm looking forward to this week Double Chocolate Valentine cake...and if you need an extra instructions push: check out a video that Rose posted on her blog: http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2010/02/the_perfect_chocolate_valentin.html) making this cake.

Gezzz, my "cook fruit with cake" hindrance is being tested in the next few weeks, since 3 out of the next 5 cakes have a combination of fruit and cake. I'm seeing a pattern here... :)

BTW, I thought I read somewhere in here that there is a list of the cakes already made? Anyone? anyone?

Vicki said...

The picture of Nicola's Seville popped out of the computer, it was so beautiful. I thought these California Sevilles look absolutely anemic by comparison.

Jill's cake was stunning! Maybe she bake tutors online? Jill? Hello Jill?

And,if you would please explain, how exactly is it possible to lose weight baking these cakes? Perhaps we should request Woody post a weekly calorie content?
But why ruin a perfectly good week!

Patricia @ ButterYum said...

Monica beat me to the punch (youtube video on Rose's blog).

I'm blown away by the number of bakers who made the True Orange Genoise cake this week. I couldn't find Sevilles, and toyed with the idea of substituting navel oranges and meyer lemons, but actually, I'm not really a fan of chocolate and orange together so I decided to pass on this one.

Looking very forward to next week's cake though!

:)
ButterYum

Hanaâ said...

Monica,
Kristina used to have a nice list of all the cakes here: http://www.eatsndrinks.ca/heavenly-cake-list/. But I don't see it anymore. Where did it go, Kristina?

Marie, great recap. I was thinking of making a raspberry whipped cream too. Oh, and have fun in Hawaii. I wish I could get away from this snow for a few days :o)

Jenn said...

Kristina removed her list because she checked with Rose who said her publishers would prefer that there's no list of cakes on the website. So Kristina removed it. This happened a couple of weeks ago I think.
Marie - thanks for my mention. Well I'm pretty good and strict at portion control so hopefully it will work out. Though for this coming week's I bought the Wilton 9 inch heart shaped pan already, so I would have to improvise to make the 1/2 recipe.
Vicki - I think the only way to lose weight baking is to not eat the cake at all. Which is gonna be super hard (not to mention a shame) since Rose has created such wonderfully yummy cakes.

anitsirK said...

Hanaâ, Jenn's right. I removed it per Rose's publisher's request. I'm still keeping a copy up-to-date for my own record keeping, but it's no longer publicly accessible.

All you in the US with too much snow should send it here to southern Ontario (or to Vancouver for the Olympics). We've had hardly anything this winter, and my husband's getting annoyed. We bought a snowblower last fall, and he's only used it twice, and even those times we didn't really have enough snow to bother with. Being an American transplant, he still gets excited about snow.

Patricia @ ButterYum said...

I wish I could send all our snow to you Kristina. We we first moved to Virginia from Minnesota, I thought we should sell our snow blower, but hubby wanted to keep it and it's a good thing! We'd never get out of here if we didn't have it. We've had over 60 inches of snow so far this winter. It's crazy!

:)
ButterYum

Hanaâ said...

Jill,
I can’t believe I forgot… Congratulations on being this week’s Featured Baker. Your 4-layer cake looked beautiful!

Kristina,
I hope Rose is reading this because that’s not what I understood from Rose’s publisher’s response. I gathered that the publisher took issue with the fact that your list contained direct links to the actual recipes. Basically becoming a central place for all the available recipes online. I don’t see how displaying a list with the cake names only (directly imported from Amazon.com), would be an issue, when all you do is cross out the cakes we’ve made. In fact, seeing the cake names alone will make you want to buy the book :o) Just my $0.02. But then again, I’m an engineer, not a lawyer :o)

anitsirK said...

Hanaâ, that's what I thought too, initially, but then Rose commented again on that post and requested the list of cakes be taken down, so I complied. I'd be more than happy to put it back up if clarification comes back that taking down the list in its entirety wasn't necessary.

Jenn said...

Hanaâ,I checked amazon.com - they don't have the list of the cakes. It has a brief mention of the names of several cakes and has 3 recipes of the cakes in the book (along with the picture).

evil cake lady said...

The seville orange curd is the bomb! I stopped serving it with the cake so I could have more for my morning toast.

I made the double chocolate (non-)valentine's cake without the raspberries, just topped it with the whipped cream and it was quite tasty. Wish I had thought of the raspberry whipped cream, that would have been great!

Welcome Jill and Wafae! Happy baking!

evil cake lady said...

Oh, hey Marie, what happened to all the Heavenly Cake Place graphics?

anitsirK said...

Jenn, the list I copied from is in this review.

Hanaâ said...

Jenn,
Amazon has a "Look Inside" feature and if you click on the book, it shows you several pages from the book, including a list of all the cake, as well as the Index (which also contains the names).

Monica said...

Guys.. I never knew that asking if there was list would bring such a debate. Just figure there was a list somewhere, but no worries. I'm just going to go back and write up on a list form based on Marie's archives... for my records.

I do like the idea of having it and as we bake it we cross it off, and also mark the page number (because as you can see I'm way to lazy to go to the book index to find the next cake!).

And Jill congratulations on the feature baker this week! Way to go.

Hanaâ said...

Monica, this is not a big deal, just a minor misunderstanding. The reason why I pursued this (and asked Rose about it just now) is because I'd like us to have that list too, as long as Kristina doesn't mind maintaining it.

Here's Rose's response I just got (it's also posted on her blog along with my question):

thanks hanaa. absoutely it's fine to list all the cakes being made by on the bake along. please tell kristina it's just the recipes or sites that list them that the publisher didn't want listed. Author: rose Levy Beranbaum

Hanaâ said...

And for those who don't believe me (just kidding):

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2010/02/got_snow.html#comments

anitsirK said...

Ok, in that case... It's back up!

:)

Monica said...

OMG.. I got the list back UP! Yikes! You guys baked a lot of cake!

So on the Free choice.. (remember lazy me? don't want to go back and read all the post)... which one would you guys recommend is the best one for a do over?

I have my eye on Chocolate Streusel coffee cake or the Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake.

Ready? set.. GO! VOTE

Lisa said...

Jill-Your cake is amazing! I had to show my cake-eaters your for comparison while they were eating my (not-so-pretty) cake.

It is definitely possible to lose weight while eating cake. I have a slice of cake to look forward to at the end of the week, so I can easily pass on the cookies and candies I love to snack on. I've lost 10 pounds so far...And there are always plenty of people willing to take the rest of the cake off my hands!

faithy said...

Congrats Jill & Welcome Wafae.

I was hoping to bake the Double Chocolate Valentine but i'm not too sure if i am able to do it now. My husband has 'banned' me from baking till after the Chinese New Year (on Valentine's Day) since we are suppose to keep the house sparkling clean for the New Year... Perhaps i'll bake this for the free choice week.

Jenn said...

Faithy, does that mean you can't cook either? I've never heard of the sparkling clean rule, is it a Chinese tradition or particular to Singapore?

Mendy said...

ב''ה

Congrats Jill, well done!

I made the chocolate cake and had some dryness issues. Make sure you weigh/sift/measure your ingredients properly as it does not seem to be very forgiving...

faithy said...

Hi Jenn, it is a chinese tradition to keep the first day of the house sparkling clean so we start by a thorough house-cleaning before the new year. And we are not suppose to clean or sweep the floor on the 1st day supposedly sweep away the good luck. (usu. i don't follow..) but cooking is allowed. There are a lot of stuff..like we have to turn on the lights on the eve till 12am (to chase away the 'nian' - some beast)...etc.

The reason why my husband doesn't want me to bake is because when i bake, i work at the dining table since my kitchen is way too small for me to put all my ingredients etc. And my husband has decorated our dining table with mandarin oranges, "nian-gao" (sticky cake?), red-packets & cny goodies like my pineapple tarts.. so he doesn't want them to be 'mis-placed'

evil cake lady said...

Monica, I certainly loved the heck out of the chocolate streusel coffee cake, but the whipped cream cake is an all-around winner and crazy easy to boot. Just my $0.02

Marie said...

Hi everyone,
By the time I got around to writing on here, Kristina's list of cakes was back on her blog, so now everyone knows what's past and what's future.
About the graphics--I don't know what happened, but Wiley & Sons, Rose's publisher, who designed the pretty badges and background, is looking into it.
Faithy, happy Chinese New Year's!

Bungalow Barbara said...

Re the raspberries on top of the Valentine's cake -- I'm definitely going to treat them as "optional!" Just plain chocolate would be great, but you could also try variations with nuts -- how about Marcona almonds, flavoring the ganache with almond liqueur? Or toasted coarsely chopped hazelnuts, or hazelnut praline, with hazelnut liqueur?

We have lots of frozen home-grown black raspberries so I'm thinking of raspberry coulis and dollops of raspberry compote. And yes, Marie, I'm thinking of making mini-cakes!

gartblue said...

marie .. great recap .. and what a lot of fuss about a list of cakes aye?

wow! glad the list is out as I've missed a few, I think.

Cheers on the raspberry whipped cream and fresh raspberries are super-expensive here .. and to faithy happy chinese new year.

p/s I used all cake flour to the genoise and the height was phenomenal. Should it be ?

Nicola said...

Congrats Jill - such a lovely lovely cake. I think that would *nearly* be the right ratio of cake/curd to chocolate!

Great recap Marie... I think it is a good idea to keep to around 30, otherwise you will be requiring a Hawaii vacation every three months.

Wish I was joining you, but I don't think Jim would appreciate me hanging out on the sofa in your hotel room.

Happy Chinese New Year Faithy. I love that your husband is all organised and decorated for it.

Virginia Taylors said...

How do you all keep up with everyone's blogs? I am a tad overwhelmed with all the sites I am now following and are in my reader!! Yicks.
Monica- Chocolate Streusel is my vote!
Jill- Welcome Welcome
Wafae- Welcome to the group
Faithy- Happy Chinese New Year
Marie- Thanks for keeping me organized

Jill @ Jillicious Discoveries said...

Thank you all so much for the welcome to the group! WOW--I can tell this is going to be a fantastic experience and I'm looking forward to getting to know you all. :)