Cake thirty-one The Duchess Cake

Get inspired

It sometimes happens I have an idea in mind which I think it’s perfect but then when it comes to the actual realization .. it turns out totally different... Do I get mad about it? Of course I do.... but I try to keep calm and consider it like a challenge between the cake and me: I must win anyhow! No good reason to give in.. anyway, a good chance to use my creativity and make something even better.The Duchess Cake is an example, in fact. It was my elder son’s graduation family dinner and I wanted to make a splendid cake for the occasion.

 I let him choose the cake, and I liked it too, quite a solemn cake, suitable for the event. But, while making it, I got more and more disappointed: the cake was nearly ready and looked like a white omelette tier cake! I felt desperate at first, but after a few minutes I had a new plan..  I baked some eclairs, and used all the former cake components to make a totally new cake, an elegant and quite sumptuous cake: no doubt about the name to choose - it was a duchess cake. Why duchess? No logical explanation, simply a stream of thoughts of pictures in my mind: in a moment’s time a flashback from some fairy tale books, royal receptions with ten meter long tables full of cakes and young princesses strolling along huge ball rooms. There it was my cake, the cake for a duchess, for sure!

Here’s what you need to make: (preparation’s quite long, I must say...)

Meringue Cake

Éclairs

Pastry cream

Choco Cream 

Chocolate decorations

Step 1 - Meringue Cake

6 egg whites

200 g icing sugar

1 tbs starch

80 g icing sugar

80 g grated almonds

Preheat the oven to 110° C. Pencil a 24cm circle on four baking paper sheets. 

Beat the egg white on medium speed with an electric mixer until the mixture resembles a fluffy cloud and stands up in stiff peaks when the blades are lifted. Now add icing sugar, a spoonful at a time, continue beating for 3, 4 minutes between each addition. Continue to fold in the remaining icing sugar until the mixture looks thick and glossy. Fold in starch and grated almonds. Spoon the meringue on the 4 circles and bake them for about one hour, until they’re crisp and you can lift off the paper easily. Leave the oven door slightly open with the help of a wooden spoon. Leave to cool completely.

Step 2 - Chocolate decorations

200 g dark chocolate

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Allow the chocolate to melt so that it is smooth, shiny and glossy. Spoon some on an aluminum foil paper and make 20 small thin rectangles of different sizes.

Step 3 -Pastry cream

3 egg yolks

250 ml milk

75 g sugar

2 tbs flour

Bring milk to a boil in small saucepan. Meanwhile beat egg yolks, sugar and flour in small bowl with electric mixer until thick. Gradually beat in milk. Return mixture to saucepan and stir over heat until mixture boils and thickens. Cool to room temperature.

Step 4 - Éclairs

40 g butter

120 ml water

70 g flour

2 eggs

60 g melted dark chocolate

Combine butter with the water in small saucepan, bring to boil. Add flour, beat with a wooden spoon over heat until mixture comes away from base and side of saucepan and forms a small ball. Cool. Beat in eggs with electric mixer until mixture becomes glossy. 

Spoon mixture into piping bag. Pipe 5cm lengths of mixture 3cm apart onto prepared trays with baking paper. Bake at 220° C for 7 minutes, then reduce heat to 180° C and bake further 10 minutes or until they’re browned lightly and crisp. Carefully cut éclairs in half, removing any soft centre. Bake further 5 minutes or until they’re dried out. Cool to room temperature.

Spoon pastry cream into piping bag fitted wit 1cm plain tube. Pipe cream into éclairs halves, top with remaining halves. Spread with melted dark chocolate

Step 5 - Cream cheese frosting

300 g cream cheese

200 g icing sugar

Mix cream cheese and icing sugar in a small bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Step 6 - Assembling cake

Centre one meringue circle on serving plate. Spread with some cream cheese frosting. Repeat with second layer and some of the pastry cream. Place third layer on top and spread with cream cheese frosting. Top with remaining cake layer. Cover top and sides of cake with pastry cream. 

Decorate top and sides with éclairs, chocolate rectangles and small cream cheese dollops.

also visit: http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/11/cake-thirty-one.html

Cake fourteen - Scary Halloween

 Get inspired

I’d have never thought a graveyard could have been a cake decoration! But it is and it also tastes  delicious! I find the tombstone particularly good and the grass is incredibly yummy....

Cupcakes really set your imagination free!!! 

For this cake we’ve chosen two recipes: lemon and choco cupcakes.

I think chocolate is the best choice both for the colour - as brown as the ground - and for the flavour combinations.. 

The cream cheese frosting we’ve used here is definetely my favourite topping.

Quick Choco cupcakes

150 g self-raising flour

75 g plain flour 

35 g ccoa powder

165 g sugar

185 g softened butter

3 eggs

125 ml milk

Put all dry ingredients into a medium large bowl, add remaning ingredients. Beat with electric mixer on low speed until ingredients are combined.. Increase speed to medium and beat until mixture is smooth and has changed to a paler colour. 

Fill paper cases to 2/3 full so as to have nice mound-shaped cakes. Bake about 20 min at 180°.

4 choco cupcakes

1 quantity cream cheese frosting

80 g white fondant (see recipe in cake twelev

green,, yellow and red food colouring 

8 ‘Pavesini’ cookies

100 gr chocolate

Cream cheese frosting

100g cream cheese

50 g icing sugar

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat together with a wooden spoon until smooth and creamy. Cover and chill for at leat an hour to firm up slightly before using..

1) Grass

Put two tablespoons of the cream cheese frosting in a small bowl, you’ll use it to decorate the tombstone.

Beat green food colouring into the remaning frosting, add a little at a time until the desired shade is reached. Spread the frosting over each cupcake. 

2) Tombstones

Carefully cut two straight sides off each Pavesino. In the meantime melt 80 g chocolate in a bain-marie. Dip each Pavesino in the chocolate both sides, leaving the bottom end free.. Refrigerate them for at least half an hour. Put the reserved frosting in a paper bag and pipe a thin line of frosting around the edge of each cookie, then a second line and a small cross in the middle of the ‘tombstone’.

3) Arms

Take a little piece of fondant and mould it into a sausage shape about 3 cm long. Flatten one end to shape a hand, pinch in at the wrist. Cut out finger shapes using a toothpick. Make a hole into the middle of each cupcake. with the back of a teaspoon or your finger and then press the arm into this hole.

4) Finishing touches

Make a hole into the frosting behind the arm and press a tombstone there. Grate some chocolate over the grass mound, pressing it down gently. Sprinkle more chocolate over the hand area. 

Colour some of the remaining fondant in yellow and red and make tiny balls for the flowers, which you will position on one side of the mound. Use some green cream cheese frosting to decorate the edge of each cupcake. 

also visit:

http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2012/10/cake-fourteen.html