Mindy's "Cake Full of Possies" Birthday Cake

Finally, my own photo. I need to update the other blogs with my own photos. 

Having received a plethora of cake baking books for Christmas from my partner's sister, Mindy, I offered to make her a cake. I find it hard to bake without inspiration. When I have my mind set on making food for someone, it always turns out the way I envision it. There have been times where I cook for no reason, just to practice something or try something new and most of the time, it turns out a dud. For this reason, I always ask people what  their favourite dessert is so that when I do make it on a whim, I have them in my mind whilst I make it. Food association. I associate my family and friends favorite foods with their face so my feelings and thoughts for them get transferred into my cooking effort. I know it sounds weird but it is true.

In saying all this I am having a hard time writing clearly.

So anyway, monumental task number one: Making the fondant. This is the smooth covering on the outside of wedding cakes and fancy birthday cakes. It is being used on every celebratory morsel of food lately... little old butter cream has been getting no love, although it is making a comeback with some fabulous recipes (MasterChef Opera cake: http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/masterchef/recipes/gateau-opera). I have been slowly getting better at noticing trends in food, definitely not fashion. Having a strong background in mathematics and being fond of numbers I do enjoy picking up on similarities and differences as the seasons pass by in particular.

The recipe I used was from Plant Cake's cook book. The recipe works a treat, as long as you are calm and relaxed as I mentioned in my earlier post about making pastry (insert link). It says to use 1 kg of icing sugar but I use 500g at first. Once most of the icing sugar has been incorporated with the wet ingredients, I slowly add 200g more of icing sugar a table spoon full at a time. The fondant mixture may seem dry but it can absorb a lot more sugar. This is important because the cake will then have a nice smooth coating once it is dry, not a sticky surface that absorbs more water from the air (hygroscopy).

I have all these cake books and I have always wanted to at least make one cake or item from each book and pay tribute to the authors that created these.

This cake I made is called A Cake Full of Possies. Or something. It sounds very girly and indeed it is.

This cake came from the Women's Weekly decorating cakes. I didn't follow the instructions too much but just copied the lay out design of the cake as it was quite straight forward. I did follow the instructions for the cake recipe. Plain old vanilla was the order of the day. A great part of the book is recipes for each type of cake with quantities and times for various sizes and shapes of the desired cakes. Very helpful.

The cake is vanilla encased in a chocolate ganache then covered with fondant. The ball itself is made of styrofoam and the supporting stick was a chopped down chop stick. The support for the top tier were 3 bamboo skewers cut down to the height of them bottom tier. In saying this, when some recipes call for fancy equipment and tools, just use what you have and be creative as most of the time some of these "neccesities" will cost too much. An example I can think of is the cardboard lined with baking paper tower I used for my croquembouche construction, which I shall save for another post.

A Timeless Treat... the famous Tart Tatin.

These photos make me cringe, I promise to use better ones in the future!

 El classiquo (I just made that up. Who am I not to be able to create new words =)

The timeless Tart Tatin. What is so special about it?

It is like a pizza, made upside down, for the sweet tooth, using puff pastry.

I can be sure when I say, that all the life changing scientific discoveries were not found by defining a problem and then coming up with a solution.

"example". 

Most scientific/technological developments have come from seeing the problem first and then scratching the noggen thinking about what we have in our little heads to fix this.

"example".

We all know the story. Some lady screwed up some apples burning in caramel sauce so she covered it with puff pastry and left it in an oven as she had guests at her hotel.

The problem was caramel burning in a pot, getting the better of some apples that deserved some loyal attention.

The fix came with the blanket of buttery puff pastry.

The win, is for mankind.

I heard about this for years but never thought twice about giving it the time of day in my kitchen.

I first made it from Curtis Stone's cook book he made with Coles. Just from his 2 sentence blurb on the dessert I gave it a crack. I made it for my partner as she was sick and wanted risotto and I wanted something for the both of us. One hour later, a little bit of history wafted through my kitchen.

So back to the original question, what makes this so special?

Simplicity... fruit, caramel, pastry. It is like a holy trinity for that of a pastry chef. Similar to that of an Italian chef with carrots, onions and celery or an Indian cook with corriander, cumin and turmeric.

Blessed are we that in this country we have great quality fruit available all year round. In conjunction with caramel of the simplest form, sugar, water and butter, then glazed over fruit is already a winning combination. But, with the addition of ye old faithful, carbs, to complete the trifecta of a winning ticket. The puff pastry that seperates its layers as it protetcts the fruit poaching in the caramel is then filled and soaked with the caramel and juices of the fruit as it is flipped over to be served.

I know a good thing when I taste it. When I get excited about something, my voice level increases drastically. When I see someone I am fond of, I feel like squeezing them till they pass out. When I taste something I know is a fine piece of work, I want to break a plate over my head and take another mouth!

I get excited very easily.

That and too much testosterone.

Lemon Tart made from Heston Blumenthal's "Heston at Home"

I have been thinking about shops and companies that create one thing and do it well. The perfect example is the Aussie staple of chicken and chips. Made by many and  tasty to some, but there was always space for improvement. Then came El Jannah in Granville making the charcoal-iest ( i just made that up) chicken, Lebanese style. I also need to add that they do a damn fine potato chip too which I believe is under rated but is just as important as the chicken. Bourke Street Bakery have taken many goods over the years and crafted them to perfection, although their prices are inflated rather exponentially. My point is, do one thing and do it well.

The Lemon Tart I made from Heston's book is such an example. Something that is thought of as a staple in the Australian dessert culture but often over looked and accepted for what it has been. I present to you this Lemon Tart I believe a business empire could be built on.

On Tuesday the following night, I calmed myself to a meditative state as working with pastry, a Zen like state of mind is required. Any small feeling of anxiety and stress will be apparent as soon as my hands touch this sensitive little square of dough.

Two sheets of baking paper.

Roll.

Freeze for 30 minutes.

Leave on top of the tart for 30 minutes to line and let sink in slightly, then minimally touching the pastry to line the tart tin.

Freeze for 30 minutes.

That's an hour and a half of just rolling and lining the tart tin. I know it seems excessive but I believe the tart case to be more important than the filling as it is the packaging for the recipients of such fine work. That and I am paranoid of ruining a good thing. Lucky I was born with patience.

It came out a treat. I mean, as I did not trim the edges of the pastry in cases of shrinkage (if you are smiling you have a dirty mind, yet imaginative) the pastry fell over the tart tin edge and fell off leaving small biscuits in the oven tray. The lemony smell of these small biscuits burnt my tongue as I there is no better taste of fresh biscuits as they crumble in your mouth and the whole things pretty much turns back into sugary lemony butter. Just like a good chip being over looked to eye the crowning glory of a charcoal chicken of any dinner table, the tart case is the means and packaging of a seriously good lemon tart.

The other winning factor for this lemon tart is the lemon filling itself as it is cooked precisely to 70 degrees C. Like any good dish, controlling the temperature is imperative to acquire a premium taste. Examples include Hai Nan chicken where a whole chicken is immersed in a master stock that has reached boiling point and allowed to cool for an hour.

As you can see my temperature probe fell in at precisely 70 degrees C 

so that the lemon filling set around indentation.

Shane Delia's 12 hour slow roasted lamb dish from his restaurant Maha is another gorgeous example. The lamb is cooked for 12 hours at a temperature of 75 degrees C which means the meat will cook slowly and uniformly. This creates meat that flakes away from the bone, becoming drop dead gorgeous as it breaks off. The key is that the meat never actually goes past the set temperature which means it will not dry out. Twelve hours at 75 degrees will surely cook through any meat, especially if it attached to the bone.

The same can be said about anyone that makes their steaks with a scientific probing thermometer...65 for rare, 70 medium, 75 well done.

The simple boiled egg with a par cooked runny yolk that does not give us any scares is precisely cooked at 65 degrees, with egg whites cooking at a lower temperature.

It is for this reason the lemon filling is cooked to 70 degrees allowing the lemon concoction containing egg yolk to set without over cooking or making the filling too firm. This is how a perfect finish is achieved. Jewel like. That velvety finish everyone goes on about regarding ganache and ice cream. In this dish is where the true meaning lies.

After 20 minutes the lemon filling was checked as the required temperature was closing in. Twenty five minutes hit the spot. The tart was allowed to cool in the tin as I didn't want to run the risk of the filling being too heavy for the pastry walls, as it had softened under the heat but would harden up as it cooled.

For aesthetics, each slice was sifted with icing sugar and caramelized for that amber crunch to flourish alongside the other textures and tastes.

The filling was opposite to that of sucking on a lemon warhead. It did not make your face implode like too many good Australian citizens have come to expect of this country's culinary staple. It was half way between a butter and a jelly, flavored for days with lemon that made the glands in your body salivate. Not just the ones in your mouth.

Friends of mine were the ones to benefit from this dish that I was sure to be a hit, as I raved on about how good it was as I gave it to them. They told me it was good. Hopefully not because I had told them it was good before they ate it. Maybe. As the dish came from the mind of Heston and followed to a T by moi, you can be assured that it was at least better than the norm.

It was freaking A-mazing, I promise!

O.k. that's enough of that.

Just trust me ; )