From tragedy to triumph

Or from cake disaster to delicious dessert, at any rate: bombe cake to the rescue!

My baby sister's birthday is New Year's Eve. She loves chocolate, but we were going to celebrate her birthday in the evening, and frankly, too much chocolate in the evenings makes for a really impossible bedtime for us. When I saw this new recipe for a moist yellow cake (better than a box!) with a fudgy frosting from KAF, I thought it might be just the thing.

Late the night before our party, I baked up the cake. I followed the recipe exactly, but when I opened the oven, I saw this:

My cake had completely fallen in the center. I'd never seen anything like it; I'm not sure the picture does it justice, but the sides were a full 2" high and the center had sunk to maybe 1/2". There was no way frosting could salvage this cake. I was really bummed; I definitely didn't have time to make another cake. What to do?

Suddenly I was hit with inspiration: what if I tore the cake apart and used it to create something like the ultra-successful devil's food bombe I made this summer? I knew it would need a thicker frosting than the fudge frosting that was posted with the cake recipe, so I browsed around some more on KAF's website and found this one: super-simple chocolate frosting, supposedly quick and easy, and should be thick enough to hold the cake together. With my plan in mind, I went to sleep.

The next morning, I got to work. I sliced the cake into layers (because of the sunken middle, most were missing a center) and used pieces to fill up the bottom of a small mixing bowl. I spread some frosting (which really was quick and easy...and delicious!), then more cake, more frosting, more cake, and on, until I reached the top of the bowl. I was able to get two slices that were big enough for the top of the bowl and actually had centers, so they covered the top of the bowl. After several hours in the fridge, I slipped the cake from the bowl and used the rest of the frosting to cover the cake.

The kiddos were very excited to decorate Auntie R's birthday cake.

It was a huge hit, and no one knew that this cake was not what was intended (until I told them, of course). :)

Happy birthday, little sister!

Mellow Bakers: Olive levain (July)

Here's my last Mellow Bakers' bread for July: olive levain, the first fail I've had in a while.

The bread is made with a liquid levain (left out for 12 hours), bread flour, a little whole wheat flour, salt, and water, and then some olives are added at the very end of kneading. My kids love olives but aren't fans of sourdough, so I just made a tiny loaf again. It had a 2 1/2 hour bulk fermentation and then went into the fridge overnight. I tend to let pure sourdoughs (ie, without any extra added yeast) rise for much longer than JH specifies because I've had this problem before. However, I know from other breads in this book that the loaves can be baked straight from the fridge, so that's what I did. There was almost no oven spring, and when I cut it later, the texture was not good; it reminded me of one of my first-ever attempts at baking a basic sourdough. Although it reached an internal temperature of over 200º, it did not look cooked; the inside was doughy, gummy, yucky.

I think, despite the texture issue, that the bread tastes how it's supposed to: very strong sourdough flavor, clear salty olive taste. I'm sad that it didn't turn out, but given the flavor combination, I doubt I'll try it again.

Modern Baker Challenge: Chocolate Caramel Pecan Tartlets

These little tartlets were one of my biggest challenges to-date.

I was looking for a quick and easy dessert to bring to a friend's 30th birthday party this afternoon. I wasn't sure whether or not she had a birthday cake already planned, so I wanted to pick something fun that would go with another dessert. Browsing through The Modern Baker, I settled on the chocolate caramel pecan tartlets; they looked tasty and I had all of the ingredients on hand.

My first hiccup with these was that I was counting on using some of the leftover sweet tart dough that I have in my freezer. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that these tarts actually call for the chocolate nut dough. While I was willing to compromise, hubby was pretty convinced they needed the chocolate dough, and since I'd never made it before and we didn't have any plans this morning, I decided to just make a batch. The tart dough was relatively easy: slivered almonds, sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, butter, eggs, and water, all combined in the food processor. I used extra-large eggs, so I thought maybe I should omit the water because of the extra moisture. I should've listened to my instincts, since the dough ended up being quite wet.

While the dough was cooling in the fridge, I made up the ganache. I realized that I didn't have quite enough chocolate, so I scaled the recipe down (I made 3/4 of the recipe). NM says to use a large saucepan because the caramel boils up...it did, but I think the pan I used was way too large, so it made it a little awkward to cook. And while I was cooking the sugar and water and simultanously heating the cream, I got distracted with the dishes and ended up scorching the cream and having to start over with that part. Anyway, the ganache wasn't difficult: sugar, water, cream, milk, salt, bittersweet chocolate (I used 60% and 72%), and unsalted butter. I probably should've waited to make the ganache, since it was completely hard by the time the crusts were ready.

Ah, the crusts. I rolled out the wet dough, using quite a bit of flour to prevent sticking and tearing, and used a small round cutter to cut circles. I used my mini-muffin pan, one of NM's suggestions for mini-tarts. It was only after I put the pan into the oven that I realized I'd forgotten to pierce the crusts with a fork. I pulled them from the oven, where they'd already begun to puff up, and quickly pierced them. Too late of course; they were still quite puffy. I used a plastic measuring spoon to push the still warm dough down to make a little cup. I thought I was in the clear, until I tried to remove the little delicate forms from the mini muffin pan. There's a reason tart pans have a removable bottom. I was able to salvage a few of them, and then I used the remaining 1/4 of the dough (still in the fridge) to make two 4" mini tart crusts.

After the crusts were finally ready, I rewarmed the ganache over a pot of gently simmering water on the stove, which went surprisingly well. I filled one 4" tart crust with plain chocolate, and then added the toasted pecans and filled the rest of the tart crusts.

I prefer the bittersweet chocolate tart with sweet tart crust. These were pretty dark; I would've preferred them with some sweetened whipped cream or ice cream. And I don't think I'll make this crust again. And I definitely won't use the mini-muffin pan again (unless someone has a foolproof technique for removing the tarts...?). Still, they were pretty tasty and went quickly at the birthday party, so all's well that ends well, I guess!

What happens when you don't take your time with sourdough

It's my student teacher's last week of full-time teaching, and I thought I'd use this non-stressful time to get a little ahead with my April Mellow Bakers breads. For my first one, I picked the pain au levain: a nice, simple sourdough loaf. Our fearless leader Paul suggested making all three variations (pain au levain, pain au levain with whole wheat, and pain au levain with two different pre-ferments). I fully intended to just pick one, knowing that this time of the year is not conducive to comparison posts for me...have to save that for the summer when school's out.

But when I looked at the pain au levain and the one with whole wheat, they were so similar, I figured it would be easy enough to make them side by side. I decided to make a whole batch of the starter (which was exactly the same for both versions) and then half batches of the rest of the recipe so I'd get one loaf of each. Easy!

I mixed up the various flours and the water in two different bowls and then let them sit for their autolyse. And when I went to add the starter to the first bowl (the basic pain au levain), I realized that I'd somehow only made a half-batch of stiff starter. Argh! So I decided to go back to my initial plan and just make one loaf.

Now, I could end the post there with the nice picture above of my perfect little boule..........but April Fools! That wouldn't be nearly as honest or as funny, and you wouldn't learn nearly as much from my mistakes. So instead, I present you with the truth: this is what happens when you don't take your time with sourdough:

Where did it all go wrong? Let me count the ways. First of all, I didn't let Austin (my starter) get bubbly enough before I mixed it into the stiff starter. But I think that ended up being okay, because I just let the stiff starter sit out for a few extra hours.

But those extra hours threw the rest of my bread-baking plans off. I ended up having to mix up the dough while making dinner. And then the two strech-and-folds were off a little due to bath and bedtime. And by the time I finally shaped the bread and but it into the banneton, it was getting late. So I didn't spend time preshaping and shaping. I just formed a rough boule and dumped it into the banneton. The book said to let it do its final rise for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, and I knew it would probably need even more time than that in my cool house. But I was soooo tired and it was late and I needed to wake up early for work. So after a measley 1 1/2 hours, when clearly it wasn't even close to ready yet, I threw the bread into the oven.

So, no surprise, but lesson learned and reaffirmed: see above for what happens when you don't give a sourdough the time it wants and needs. (Happily, it did still taste yummy...soft crumb and delicate sour flavor. Worked beautifully as a vehicle, albeit a holey one, for my lunch sandwich today.)