Quail Egg Indulgence Cake

Before I start talking about cake, let me apologize for not getting the mid-week blog done this week. By the time I got home from New Orleans, it was the end of the week, and too late. Of course, I read everyone's blogs when I got home. I was so surprised to learn that chocolate-pecan-caramel is not at the top of everyone's flavor combinations! When I was a little girl, there were two kinds of candy that made me happy: chocolate-covered cherries and pecan turtles. I think they were made by either Russell Stover or Fanny Farmer. At the time, those were considered (by me, anyway) high-class chocolates. Now, of course, I'm much more finicky.

So finicky that I must have quail eggs in my cakes! I thought I might end up just using chicken eggs since the first Asian grocery store I went to only had canned quail eggs, but I hit the jackpot on my second try. I had no idea they were going to be so goldarn adorable!

And produced locally on a quail farm, so I didn't have to worry about my quail egg cake decimating the wild quail population.

Yes, they are hard to crack open. It's not so much that the shell is hard; it's just that the inner membrane is tough and stubborn. If you whack the egg too hard, the yolk will break from the knife's force. If you tap it too gently, you may break the yolk with your fingernails when you're trying to pry open the shell. I think it took me seven eggs to get the requisite 28 grams. But I still have a kazillion eggs left. (A dozen or so anyway). I'm going to hard boil some tomorrow and use them as a garnish for a salad. Then maybe I'll have 3 or 4 for breakfast.

The yolks are actually bigger than I expected. I think that the yolk:white ratio may be a little different than with chicken eggs, with more yolk than white. But I'm just guessing about that.

Once the eggs are broken, the batter is easy to mix up. (It's not on the Quick &Easy list, although it would be if you didn't have to 1) drive all over town looking for quail eggs, and 2) spend a lot of time trying to break them.
The batter is thick and rich-looking, not surprising because of the butter/cream/egg yolk factor.

The crust promised a lot of crunch.  It delivered on the promise, too.

I actually had more trouble finding a small heart-shaped cake pan than in finding quail eggs. Since I was in New Orleans, Jim volunteered to buy me the pan, so he set off on a cake-pan quest. He tried Williams-Sonoma, Kitchen Window, and several other likely places before giving up. When I got home, I made a quick, equally unsuccessful, trip to Cooks of Crocus Hill, but apparently no one bakes heart-shaped cakes any more (there are lots of heart-shaped cookie cutters available). So I bought a six-inch round pan, which I guess I should have anyway. And then I ended up stencilling a powdered-sugar heart shape on the round pan.

Since the cake only served two, I didn't have a tasting panel. Jim and I ate the whole thing. We decided we might as well eat it today, one day ahead of Valentine's Day, so that we'd taste it at its freshest.

My only complaint about the cake is that half of it was too much--not that I didn't eat every crumb of my half. We both liked it a lot, and agreed on the appropriate adjectives: rich, moist, tender, good.

It's just a plain cake--sort of in the way a simple Chanel suit is a plain outfit.

Mud Turtle Cupcakes

As you can imagine, when my very nice dentist put in a temporary crown and told me that I couldn't eat caramel, the first thing I thought of was these cupcakes.  How was I going to test gooey, caramely cupcakes if I couldn't eat caramel?  I made one cupcake for myself, topped only by ganache and pecans, neither of which was on the dentally forbidden list, and felt sorry for myself. To make myself feel better, I put one cupcake in the freezer, where it awaits me coming home with a permanent crown and permission to eat caramel once again.

These little cakes can't really be on the Quick and Easy list because of the piping, smoothing, caramel-making, pecan-placing, etc. But the cupcakes themselves are nice and easy. Just mix up cocoa, eggs, and sour cream. (You know they're going to be good).

Then everything else (flour, sugar, butter, etc.) is mixed together until you get a nice, smooth light brown mixture. If you're feeling daring, you can taste it.

I wanted to be sure not to overbake these little cupcakes, so I took them out after 16 minutes--perhaps still a bit underdone in the middle, but I figured the continued heat from the cake itself would take care of that. I think I could have baked it one minute less and it would still have been okay. If I were testing, I'd try them at 14, 15, and 16 minutes. I think I could get into this testing idea!

The caramel was the maiden voyage for my new Thermapen. I did the same thing I always do with caramel. I wait just seconds too long. I see that the temperature has somehow gone above 360, and goes even higher after I turn off the heat. Now, however, I've written "LOWER" in the margin of the cookbook, because Woody has advised me to write more notes to myself in my book, and I always take Woody's advice, even though I was brought up not to deface books.

Adding the cream causes the caramel to "bubble up furiously," just as advertised. And the butter melts in easily.

I even pipe the ganache "mud" over the top of the cupcakes in a little circle, leaving the middle bare for the caramel placement. The caramel looks and smells so delicious that I'm undergoing a serious bout of self-pity. On the other hand, it doesn't stay as soft as I'd like to it be. Although it softens easily in the microwave, I can tell that it's not going to remain as soft as I'd like it to be on the cupcake. It would surely rip my temporary crown right out of my mouth. How embarrassing to have to return to the dentist with the crown stuck to a big hunk of caramel. Apparently temporary crowns fall off with alarming regularity, or so I assume based on the many hits I got on my Google query regarding what to do when your temporary crown falls out.

Based on the caramel's consistency, I thought it would be a bad idea to pipe it, so I just used a spoon to place a glob of approximately one teaspoon in mid-cupcake. I reminded myself they were supposed to be turtles, and part of their turtle-y charm would be based on a casually careless look.

Top with five--no more, no less--previously toasted pecans. That should be enough to get a piece of pecan in every bite. If the caramel were softer, the pecans would stick better. I tell myself to quit obsessing about the danged caramel.

And finally, more caramel and more chocolate ganache (mud, if you prefer). I love the picture in the cookbook of the little girl looking completely entranced as she gazes at the cupcake she's getting ready to eat. We took a plate of cupcakes to our neighbors, who have two small boys. They looked equally entranced.

I loved the cupcake I'd made for myself without caramel.  It was moist and chocolatey, and you can indeed get a piece of pecan in every bite if you carefully plan your attack. I'm sorry not to be able to sample the caramel, but I can see it's not really "soft sticky," although it's plenty sticky. The ganache is delicious, but bears very little relation to mud. This is not a bad thing. I hope that someone requests these cupcakes to give me a chance to try them again.

TASTING PANEL
Karen: "Yummy. It's the best cupcake I've ever had. A wonderful chocolate treat."
Jim: "It's pretty messy. I'm spilling cake all over the floor. The caramel is very chewy. I sound like I'm complaining, but I'm not. The cake is light, but still chocolatey. It's very good."
Gabe and Nat: "Thanks for the cupcakes!"

Last Cake, Next Cake

Remember the old story about the blind (or blindfolded) men who all touch an elephant and then describe what they've just touched? The one who touches the leg says the elephant looks like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says it's like a rope. Then they have a violent disagreement about the elephant's looks until some wise person comes and straightens it out.

I felt like I was reading that story when I read through the blogs this week. The reactions were so different you'd hardly know that everyone baked the same cake Some people thought it was excruciatingly difficult to make; others thought it almost too easy. Some people loved the dacquoise; others thought it was too sweet. Some put it on their all-time favorites list; others were lukewarm about it. But it was the same cake. Chacun a son gout, right?

Hanaa was one of several people who had been hinting broadly that they wished I'd hurry up and schedule the cradle cake because they wanted to make it so badly. However, before she started making her own version, she heard about Monica's difficulties, and approached the cake with "caution," even cutting the recipe in half in case things didn't go well. But she ended up liking it "a lot. The dacquoise was crunchy and chewy at the same time (like a macaroon), and the cake is so soft and tender, it just melts in your mouth."

Monica's experience--the one that scared Hanaa--was described like this on her blog: "The whole middle of the cake was one hot mess. The whole thing had collapse on itself and I had a thousand little heart attacks in front of my oven. I took it out and for the longest time just stared at the ugly mess in front of me." Well, you can see how this would make both Hanaa and Monica nervous. (Monica's second attempt turned out to be quite successful.)

Unlike Hanaa and Monica, Raymond was not at all intrigued by the idea of the cake, and thought it looked like a "simple snack cake and nothing more." But he ended up giving it "high marks for ease of assembly" and "on the taste scale."  "It is richly flavored with butter and vanilla and the nut dacquoise adds a very nice chocolatey, nutty crunch to the exterior." He gave it low marks on the presentation scale, however. . He thought he had to slather it with leftover ganache to make it presentable.

But Jenn was so happy with the way her little heart-shaped cradle cakes looked that it "made her happy to look at them." She was less pleased with the taste, which she thought was "pretty good" but "too sweet."

The ever-cheerful Mendy thought "this fantastic cake was fun to eat and fun to make." He even wished he had made two!

Lois was in the group that thought the cake tasted good but wasn't very pretty. Although she thought the "flavor was wonderful," her heart sank when she saw how much the cake sank.

This cake tied Lola "in knots." Her first try was "a disaster," and her second was "not as big a disaster as the first," but it still sank in the middle. In fact, she decided that "although it tastes really good, I[she] really cannot gift this cake to unsuspecting neighbors." (My personal opinion is that the neighbors would have ben happy to have it.)

On the other hand, Gartblue really had no trouble with the execution of the cake, and thought "the dacquoise was superb, crunchy and sweet and much loved. The girls, literally stripped it naked of its cradle." But she wasn't as enamored with the cake, which "left an aftertaste" in her mouth, reminiscent of an overdose of baking powder.

Nancy disagreed: she described the cake part as a "nice moist buttermilk cake in the middle." In fact, she added the cake to her all-time favorite list but wasn't sure she'd ever make it again because "it was a lot of trouble to get that nice crunchy chocolate-pecan cradle."

No trouble for Kristina, who found that "it comes together super quickly once you have everything ready. I actually managed to make this after I got home from work and before my guests arrived on Friday evening."

Jennifer falls firmly in the category of big fans who had no trouble with the cake at all. Or, as she put it, "this week's Heavenly Cake is magical cake alchemy at its best. A tender, buttermilk yellow cake is baked inside a crispy, nutty dacquoise--something I would never have thought possible. Magic, I tell you!"

Our FEATURED BAKER this week is Andrea. She had not been looking forward to making the cradle cake, and wasn't sure what all the fuss was about, but found that it tasted "amazing." Once she got the cake out of the pan, she decided "it definitely needed something on top. I decided to go with the glaze because it was much quicker, and Daniel wanted some cake." In fact, it was a good thing she fed Daniel, because he thought it was the "best cake so far."
Not only did Andrea make a super-looking cake, but the good news is that she also found a new job! Congratulations, Andrea--glad you found a new job so quickly!

Next week, we're back to the Baby Cakes chapter, with Mud Turtle Cupcakes: chocolate, more chocolate, caramel, and pecans. I'm going to New Orleans this weekend, so I've already made my cupcakes, and they are fantastic. My caramel got overdone, and I'll be very curious to read the blogs to see how everyone else's turns out.

Following that, another cake from the Baby Cakes chapter! (Sorry Raymond--don't know how that happened). This Quail Egg Indulgence Cake is only big enough for two (a perfect Valentine's Day cake!) and calls for, as you might suspect, quail eggs.
As we say in Minnesota, "Well, that's different."

Cradle Cake

There is a cake under all that greenery--a Christmas Cradle Cake. I had planned to make the cranberry cheesecake for our family's Christmas dinner dessert, but I made it ahead of time for an office potluck. Not wanting to repeat, I looked at the list of upcoming cakes and decided the Cradle Cake was a likely prospect. And so it was.

This cake has two distinct parts: the soft, tender buttermilk cake inside and the crisp, pecan-chocolate-egg white dacquoise on the outside. If you're smarter than I am, you already know that the word "dacquoise" comes from the French town Dax, the home of the famous "Dax spa" and of lovely meringue cakes. Those Daxians apparently like the sybaritic life.

My daughter Liz was home for Christmas, and she suggested that we divide up the components: she would do the dacquoise because that was the interesting part of the cake while I would do the boring part. She had never made a meringue before, so I kept checking on her progress..

Egg whites beat until glossy? Check.

Pecan mixture carefully folded in? Check.

Egg white mixture spread into pan so that it forms a rectangular hollow? Check.

Meanwhile I was making the cake batter. But as we put the cake in the oven, and I began putting things away, I realized that there was no half-stick of butter on the counter to put in the refrigerator. And that meant ... that I had added the butter twice. And that meant that the cake that was supposed to have 4 tablespoons of butter now had 8 tablespoons.
"Well, I hate to say it, Mom," said my daughter, "but that's what you get for back-seat baking. If you'd focused on your own part instead of hovering over me, that never would have happened." Hmmph. Back-seat baking indeed.

I had hopes that the butter incident wouldn't adversely affect the cake, but no such luck. The cake sank down in the pan and a small testing bite revealed that the cake had a heavy, lumpen quality that wasn't going to impress anyone. Proof positive that there can indeed be too much of a good thing. We had plenty of ingredients and enough time, so we started over. This time, the chastened chief baker stayed focused on her own job. We also put the first attempt out in the back yard for the birds and squirrels. They seemed quite jolly about it. I almost expected them to burst into song.

No problems at all the second time around. The cake didn't sink. We unmolded it without incident. The sous chef decided it looked boring and needed considerable spiffing up to make it worthy of its status as Christmas dessert.

My so-called assistant decorated the cake with stripes of chocolate drizzle glaze, and decorated the sides of the platter with various holiday greens. Then she decided that even the side greens and the drizzle weren't festive enough, so she added more on the top of the cake itself. Finally, she pronounced it gala enough for the occasion.

I personally loved the simple but flavorful buttermilk cake that is the backbone of this dessert; others preferred the taste of the dacquoise. In the end, it's the combination of creamy and crunchy, mellow and complex, that makes this cake so special.

TASTING PANEL:
Liz: "The outside crunchy part is really good. The cake itself is more boring."
Danny: "Aren't we supposed to say things that will sound good in print? This pleases my palate."
Lisa: "I really like this cake. I know I'm supposed to say something witty but I can't think of anything."
Jim: "I hate to say this, but the outside part with chocolate and pecans is really good."

Last Cake, Next Cake

In Mark Bittman's farewell Minimalist column in Wednesday's NYT, he praised the virtues of cooking with others: "And I discovered that you never cook with someone else without learning something. In every case, there's a two-way transfer of knowledge. If they know less than you do, you grow from teaching. If more, of course, you grow from learning."

It's this "two-way transfer of knowledge" that I've grown to appreciate from this blog and the wonderful bloggers who have devoted their time and passion for baking to this project.

Of course, we all know and love how Rose manages to work in techniues and instructions in every recipe. When we follow a "Rose rrecipe," we don't just end up with a final project; we've taken a class on the subject.

And we teach each other. This week's blogs about the Tres Cafe Genoise are a perfect example.
Some people had problems with the whipped ganache in this recipe.

Monica, for example, "trash talked" the cake, and the cake trash talked Monica right back, forcing her to make the ganache five times until she got it right. "It probably would have been six, but it was eleven at night and I totally threw the white flag at the cake."

Not far behind was Lynnette, who took "three tries" for the ganache and still ddidn't think she got it "perfect," although she liked the way it tasted.

Jenn also put herself in the "third time's (almost) a charm" category. Her first attempt curdled, but she saved it (thanks to Rose's instructions), only to have it curdle again. The third time was perfect - until it threatened to curdle once more. But there was "no way" she was going for a fourth time.

Vicki also credited one of Rose's hints ("continue whipping ... just until very soft, floppy peaks form when the whisk is raised") with keeping her ganache in shape.

Mendy reported that his ganache was a little grainy, but he blamed that on his chocolate, which he thought was subpar. (No brand given--to protect the guilty?)

Nancy B. started out with a "lovely, smooth" ganache, but by the time she was ready to frost the cake, she had "an instantly grainy mess. At this point I wasn't putting more effort into it (hey, the ganache still tasted fine, and didn't have an objectionable mouth-feel), so I frosted away regardless."

Not only does Rose give helpful hints in her recipes, which are read and repeated by our bloggers, but along comes someone like Hanaa, who has perfected her own shortcut to the whipped ganache. (I know it works--at least for Hanaa--because I watched and tasted).

After Hanaa posted her 25-minute ganache pointers, Jennifer had a chance to try them out. The result? "A curdle-free whipped ganache, for the first time in my life. Thanks Hanaa!"

We traded hints and suggestions on more than ganache. Jenn suggested to Andrea, who resisted the Tres Cafe cake because she's cut out caffeine, that she give it a try using decaf coffee. (The very same Jenn, always helpful, also reminded Monica, who was making noises about moving to Minnesota from Florida, that it gets considerably colder in MN than in FL).

Surprisingly, we had a few people who baked this "tres" coffee cake when they don't even like coffee. Kristin put it as plainly as possible: "I just don't like coffee." And yet, she liked this cake. In fact, she "really enjoyed" it: "I guess if you put enough sugar and chocolate in anything I can probably be convinced to get on board!"
Jennifer doesn't like to drink coffee, but she does like its smell.

Now Raymond--well, he just liked everything about this cake: the beurre noisette, the vanilla, the coffee, the cake, the ganache. I think this week Raymond was one of of those who was transferring his knowledge outward.

Special appreciation to Maria, who made this cake after recovering from croup (I thought you only got that when you were under five years old!) and after saying goodbye to her beloved dog,Bruzer.

Our FEATURED BAKER this week is Lola. Her post was short, but sweet, and her picture of the cake, resting on colorful Mexican pottery (at least that's what I choose to believe it is), was an appetizing sight to behold. Good enough reason right there--but there's more. Lola just returned from a trip to Guanajuato and San Miguel Allende with some frostbitten friends from Toronto. She generously offered to share her "information on absolutely perfect B&Bs and restaurants in that area." If anyone is interested, just let her know.

Next up: the delightful Cradle Cake. It makes a very nice Holiday cake (any holiday will do). If you don't have a holiday, it makes a good non-holiday cake too. If anyone feels like tackling the mocha ganache again, one option for decorating the cake is to frost and swirl the cradle cake ewith the ganache. If that idea makes you scream in frustration, I would suggest the Drizzle Glaze option.

The following week we'll be doing Mud Turtle Cupcakes. I can't wait to try the combination of caramel, toasted pecans, and ganache.
Raymond, you'll be glad to know that after these cupcakes, we have only two selections from the Baby Cakes chapter left.

Genoise Très Café

I won't even try to pretend that I'm the one who did the beautiful piping on this cake.

Once again, the fearless Minnesota Threesome baked together, and Hanaâ the Magnificent is responsible for the piping. She also patiently gave me an introductory lesson in cake decorating, which I resisted (to no avail).

Hanaâ, Woody, and I did a blind chocolate taste test. Neither Hanaâ nor I had found 53% cacao chocolate (although when I was at Whole Foods the next day, I saw that they had bulk 53% chocolate). I provided Lindt 50% and Paul Newman 54%. Hanaâ brought a big brick of Cote d'Or, which she had bought at an airport in Europe.

We all preferred the Cote d'Or, even though it had the lowest percentage of cacao. It was smooth, yet had a bold chocolate taste. The Lindt was smooth, but a little too fruity, and the Paul Newman wasn't bad, but had an aftertaste.

After we chose our chocolate, we got to work on the genoise, which we could (almost) do without looking at the directions. After baking cakes for a year and a half, I have gotten very fond of a genoise. When I first started baking, my preference was definitely the butter cake. Every time I make a genoise, though, I see its virtues more clearly. Delicate, light, and moist, with a chameleon-like ability to take on other flavors, it is now perhaps my favorite cake.

As usual, I am amazed by the transformation of eggs to genoise batter:

I had made the beurre noisette ahead of time. I cooked the butter for a few minutes longer, hoping to get a nice, rich brown and not a burned mess.
Fortunately for me, I did; I think this is the best one I've made so far.

Just 20 minutes in the oven yields a lovely, golden layer.

I put myself in charge of syruping the cake and Hanaâ in charge of the whipped mocha. That's because all I had to do was cut the top off the cake. Hanaâ got the hard part.

I also got to fill out the testing form that Woody had brought for us. I couldn't find a ruler. Woody told me I should always have a ruler at my side when I'm baking. Jim was pretty sure he had a Ruler App. Luckily, I found a ruler before Jim could start talking about Apps.

Woody warned darkly that we had not allowed enough time to make the ganache. Hanaâ smiled sweetly and told him we could do the shortcut in no time. She briefly zapped the chocolate, and quickly cut it into small bits. She is no slouch with a knife.

Before you knew what was happening, she'd melted and cooled the chocolate, and whipped the cream--voila! light whipped mocha ganache.

We had a little discussion about who was going to frost the cake. Since Hanaâ no longer had the knife in her hand, I felt free to be stubborn and tell her there was no way I was going to do it when she was in the same room. I admired her skill, not to mention the results. She could have been a surgeon. Just as well she went in a different direction--she'd probably want to decorate people's midsections after doing appendectomies.

In no time at all, we were ready for tasting. Woody brought along another top secret cake. Since it's a secret, I will only say that it's over-the-top chocolate. Or, if you don't want to say it's over the top, you'd have to say it's at the very top of the chocolate heap--the Pinnacle Cake?

Although, come to think of it, the Tres Café Genoise could give any cake a run for its money in a contest for top-of-the-heapdom. When you've got a delicious genoise with just a hint of coffee (Hanaâ and I opted not to add coffee powder to the cake itself, so I guess ours was really a Deux Café Cake), that you top with a sinfully smooth and delectable whipped ganache, you have to bow to no cake. I loved this cake so much I was glad to cut it in half. I'm still trying to lose that stubborn holiday weight, and having this cake around would do me no good at all.

TASTING PANEL:

Woody: "Dee-licious. You two done good."

Hanaâ: "I think this is one of my favorite cakes."

Karen: "This cake has such a nice texture, and it's very moist. The coffee flavor is wonderful--and I don't like coffee. Very, very good cakeJim: "The cake is so moist it doesn't really need the syrup. I really like the ganache because it's so light but it still has a good chocolate flavor."

Last Cake, Next Cake

I believe that the last time we had a Free Choice week, I mentioned that no one ever did the Pinecone Cake for that occasion. Now I'll have to eat my words, since Jenn made not just one, but two of them. Okay, so they were mini-pinecones, each one a quarter of the full recipe, but still. Jenn reported having trouble with both the cake and the fondant, but you couldn't tell it by looking at her photos.

Nobody else made the pinecone cake. In fact, there were no duplicates at all this week. If I were a statistician, I could tell you the odds against that happening, but I'm not, so I won't. I will say that the most popular catch-up cakes tend to come from the Quick and Easy list, and this week was no exception. Even though this group doesn't shy away from challenges, it's always nice to bake something easy, not to mention something that's almost guaranteed to be a success.

For example, Mendy made the chocolate butter cupcakes, which his whole family "enjoyed immensely." Unfortunately, after making them as a catch-up cake, he remembered that he'd already made them. But it's hard to be too unhappy about making chocolate cupcakes.

And Katya made the lovely carrot cake for her lovely sisters. She's also going off to lovely Lisbon next week. Bon appetit and bon voyage!

Andrea wanted a quick and easy cake to take her mind off her job search. She was a little wary that something as decidedly easy as the Whipped Cream Cake might not be worthy of her new cake pan. But, as almost everyone else found out with the whipped cream cake, sometimes simple things are the best.

Kristina made the Apple Cinnamon-Crumb coffee cake--a popular Free Choice selection because what's not to like? Kristina let her husband choose this week's cake: "I gave him a few choices from the list of cakes I have left to bake. Heavenly Coconut Seduction, Red Velvet, Apple Cinnamon Crumb Coffee cake and Sicilian Pistachio cake were all on the list. He stopped me at the Coffee Cake and said 'That’s it. Don’t bother going any further.'” He loved it--as soon as he recovered enough from his cold to taste it.

Nancy's choice was the Banana Refrigerator Cake with Dreamy Creamy White Frosting. All she had to do was wait for the ice in the streets to melt enough for her to venture out of her house. It was "a hit" with her entire extended family, so it was worth the trip.

Finally, Raymond picked the Black Chocolate Party Cake from the Q&E list. He thought the flavors were a little "too intense" for a party cake, and that if he made it again he might omit the nuts and try using plain white superfine sugar instead of the turbinado sugar recommended in the recipe.

The cakes that were not on the Q&E list all ended up varying in some degree from the original recipe.

Sarah made Woody's Lemon Luxury Layer Cake--sort of. Part of the cake was an extra layer of the Southern (Manhattan) Coconut Cake that she had "lying around." (It's a true baker who has cake layers "lying around.") She made the lemon curd from The Cake Bible instead of Rose's Heavenly Cakes because TCB's curd has "more lemon juice and butter--very important." She also conquered her disdaim for white chocolate enough to make two batches of white chocolate frosting (she thought she'd ruined one, but resurrected it through the judicious use of eggs). Most importantly, this was the recipe that caused the "frayed jacket" of her cookbook to "rip right off."

Faithy opted for the Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache. The only problem was that the caramel didn't turn to caramel because she stopped cooking the sugar before it turned to caramel. Even with that mishap, though, Faithy received kudos for her baking skills, which she modestly tried to shrug off. And she loved the ganache even though it was a "mistake."

Faithful Gartblue posted from the airport on her way to Bandung, Indonesia, about her "chocolate-filled strawberry cake." But I'm pretty sure she meant the strawberry-filled chocolate cake. She promises to write more when she gets home, so we'll find out for sure when she returns.

Back on schedule next week: it's the Genoise Tres Cafe. As you might guess, it has coffee three different ways: cake to which coffee has been added; coffee-flavored syrup, and mocha whipped ganache. Remember, this whipped ganache specifies 53% cacao. I don't know about you, but I have totally forgotten to search out the 53% cacao. My guess is that we'll see quite a range of percentages among the scofflaws among us who don't care what percentage is specified in the recipe.

The following week is the Cradle Cake. Hanaa and Monica have been begging for this cake for about a year now, and I finally relented. I think you'll love it.