Archives Under "cake" (RSS)
A Fortieth Birthday Cake
2 July 2011 | cake, creative presentation of the week, delicious, dessert | 8 Responses
Because you know, it’s like you’re dying; turning forty. At least that’s the joke. Anyway, I had fun making this one. I hadn’t made a sheet cake in awhile, maybe not since Didier’s 39th birthday cake a year ago. The cake itself was a lemon sponge, the filling vanilla butt cream and fresh blueberries and raspberries. The coffin is made from the same, minus the berries, and glazed with chocolate and crusted with cocoa nibs. I made the tombstone out of chocolate shortbread.
The cake was well recieved, and the party was well attended; as all the Porteaud parties are. Kara and Didier Porteau are two of the most beloved people I know, an integral part of the family that adopted me at Ten-01. The party included much eating, drinking, and merriment, and I did a good amount of what I like to call “dancing.” Didier was a real sport about the cake, and there was much hugging and high-fiving long before I reached the “I love you man” stage, which was inevitable. When the numerous candles were finally blown out, we lowered the coffin into the grave before eating.
Lemon Sponge Cake
makes 6 1/2 sheet cakes
- 12 eggs
- 5 - 3/4 cups sugar
- 6 tsp vanilla
- 1 jar of mayonnaise
- 12 cups AP flour
- 4 - 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 - 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 - 1/2 cups milk
- 1 - 1/2 cups lemon juice
- zest of 8 lemons
Measure the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer. This probably won’t fit in your standard Kitchen Aid, you may want to halve it. Whip this mixture on medium high until light and fluffy, about 6-8 minutes. It can really just keep whipping. Whip the shit out of it as they say.
While the eggs are having the shit whipped out of them, sift together the AP flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Zest and juice the lemons. Measure the milk.
On low speed, add the wet and dry ingredients in three steps, alternating between the two. Start and end with the dry ingredients. When it’s all in, kick the mixer up to medium to ensure total incorporation.
Line six half sheet pans with parchment. Divide the batter evenly between the pans. I weigh each, 34 ounces is a nice amount for a layer. Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven until GBD, rotating once during baking; about 12 - 18 minutes total.
White Chocolate Flourless Cake
17 June 2011 | cake, custard, delicious, dessert, plated dessert, recipe, tentop | 19 Responses
If you Google White Chocolate Flourless Cake, you don’t get shit. At least nothing use-able. I mean, almond flour is still a flour of sorts, and any recipe you find seems to use it. I wanted a flourless cake like my dark chocolate recipe;with a rich, fudge-like texture. If you look at my old ratio, it’s quite simple. Chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, and water. I figured I’d start there. So white chocolate is basically sweetened cocoa butter and milk. Cocoa butter is fat, so I omitted the butter from the the OG recipe. White chocolate is sweet, too sweet for some, so I yanked the sugar. Water? Didn’t feel right. Cream felt right. So I used cream. I put the batter together like the OG, baked like the OG, bottomed it with crunchy layer and glazed it like the OG. What I ended up with; the guests who ate it and I determined, was a baked custard. The texture was like a thick pudding, a decadent “just-set” confection with a coma-inducing richness that left diners with glazed eyes and lolling heads. The plate had raspberry coulis, preserved lemon granita, and crushed hazelnut brittle.
White Chocolate Flourless Cake
54 oz white chocolate
15 oz eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream
line a 1/4 sheet pan with parchment. Preheat the oven to 250 F.
melt the chocolate over a double boiler.
whisk together the eggs and cream.
when the chocolate is fully melted, whisk in the eggs. Scrape the bowl and whisk again, making sure all is incorporated and homogeneous.
transfer the batter to the prepared pan, and bake until GBD and set, about 45 minutes to an hour. Turn the oven off and let the cake finish inside, Chill thoroughly before glazing and portioning.
Valrhona Flourless, Fernet Menta Caramel.
8 November 2010 | cake, chocolate, delicious, dessert, faithful readers, plated dessert | 5 Responses
So here we are again, another blog post and another version of the ever evolving flourless chocolate cake. Why do I continually return to this cake, faithful readers might ask? And why do I do so many mother loving chocolate desserts already? Well, my answer is this: I fucking love chocolate, and a flourless cake is a clean way to showcase it’s decadence. Served at room temperature this cake is smooth, rich as fuck, and chocolatey as a motherfucker. In the past I’ve typically made this cake with Cocoa Barry 64% and it was good. This past year I made the switch over to all things Valrhona and have never looked back. The recipe below uses a combination of Jivara 40% and Couer de Guanaja 80% chocolates. The result is a sweet and creamy smoothness with a nice strong bitter backbone. I bake the shit in thin layers and hit the bottom with a crunchy layer of milk chocolate and feuilletine, then glaze the top with a ganache of sorts and then the milk chocolate decorative lines. The cake itself is pretty standard, nothing I haven’t kind of done before. The blood orange ice cream, yeah…you’ve seen it before. The ice cream is perched on a simple chocolate tuile, which is stuck to the cake with an equally simple chocolate cremeaux. The real joy in this plate for me is in the sauce. Fernet Menta Caramel suckers!! Again, not a huge deviance from the formula here, kids. I been putting booze in caramel from the beginning. But this is Fernet, and I’ve been wanting to work it into a dessert forever. So here it is. Also garnishing the plate is a mint foam, and what I think is a nice, subtle use of the ubiquitous mint leaf.
Valrhona Chocolate Flourless Cake
!5 oz Valrhona Jivara 35%
7 oz Valrhona Couer de Guanaja 80%
12 oz butter
11.25 oz egg
9 0z sugar
4.5 oz water
1. Preheat your convection oven to 275 F and prepare the desired mold.
2. Melt chocolate and butter over a double boiler.
3. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and water.
4. When the chocolate and butter are melted, whisk in the eggs until thoroughly incorporated.
5. Pour into the prepared mold and bake in a covered water bath until just set, like a cheesecake.
To review the methodology for this recipe click here.
Fernet Menta Caramel
12 oz sugar
5 oz corn syrup
6 oz butter
1.25 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup Fernet Menta
1. Weigh the sugar and corn syrup into a heavy bottomed sauce pot. Caramelize according to your tastes.
2. Whisk in the butter, continue whisking until incorporated.
3. Whisk in the heavy cream until incorporated, return to a boil.
4. Pour the caramel through a strainer into a storage vessel.
5. When the caramel has cooled to room temperature, whisk in the fernet menta. Serve warm.
For the Blood Orange ice cream click here.
To see a video of me plating this bitch up, click here.
To see a video of a kitten riding a turtle, click here.
The Best Apple Cake in 47 Years of Cooking.
17 March 2010 | cake, delicious, dessert, nuts, plated dessert | 7 Responses
So one day I was thinking I’d make an apple cake. Since I had never really made an apple cake, I turned to my good buddy Google and soon found this recipe on Group Recipes. Kate and I had gotten a Bakers Edge pan for Christmas and on a chilly winter evening soon after I first tried the Best Apple cake In 47 Years of cooking recipe. At the restaurant I churched up this simple, outstanding, breakfasty cake into something a bit more. Maybe another 47 years? Who can say without the benefit of time travel. The genius of the cake is it’s basic nature. A true quick bread leavened with both eggs and baking soda you really just kind of mix it all up; not much to it. When it comes out of the oven, let it sit for a few minutes ad then glaze it with the brown sugar glaze. The smell stirs one to salivation, heads turn and sniff, they sniff-sniff. I actually have a bit of a thing for the raw batter. So anyway, give it a try. I change up the recipe a little from the original: where it says 3 cups of apples I just slice three apples, Also and I brown the butter in the glaze before adding the sugar and cream. At the restaurant I leave out the walnuts so people with “nut allergies” can order it too. I get back at them by serving it with toasted walnut ice cream, sage caramel, brown butter struesel and candied walnuts. I fucking love walnuts. The sage powder is I cool trick I learned working with Chef Eric Suniga, a man of true kitchen prowess. Pick a bunch of sage, pile up the leaves, and roll into into a blunt with plastic wrap. Freeze rock solid and micro plane at service.
The Best Apple Cake in 47 Years of Cooking.
2010: The Future is Now.
7 January 2010 | Ten 01, cake, delicious, dessert, faithful readers, pastries, plated dessert, recipe | 5 Responses
Two thousand and motherfucking TEN?!? The future is now my faithful readers. I command the powers of the internet in my pants. I make ice cream base in an immersion circulator. As a race we fringe on symbiosis with technology; and I can’t wait to realize this next phase of evolution. Anyway, I been busy as shit. The holidays kicked my ass; and with in-laws in town and hell of prep, plating and me plowing through it all it went by in a pop! Shit 2009 was a pop, a bang, a blast, dice cast and rolled and truth be told past year was fucking fast. I turned thirty, I got married, I’ve become a half way decent pastry chef and an annoying blogger. I’ve made some bad-assed desserts and also learned some killer savory food. Pretty standard actually. Looking to the new year, I’m hoping to step up my game. Turn it up to eleven so to speak. I just need to work harder, cleaner. The desserts will be smaller, more precise. Flavors? Louder. Here’s a recipe bitches. I adapted it from one of the best recipes I’ve learned in a long time.
Graham Cracker Sponge Cake
250 g soft butter
375 g sugar
5 g salt
6 eggs
375 g fine ground graham cracker crumbs.
7.5 g baking powder
100 g A.P. flour
1. Preheat your convection oven to 300 F. Spray and line with parchment one half sheet pan.
2. Cream the butter, sugar and salt light and fluffy in the bowl of a stand mixer.
3. Weigh the crumbs, baking powder, and flour into a bowl and whisk them together well.
4. Add the eggs 2 at a time, allowing the batter to fully absorb each addition of eggs. Scrape the bowl twice during this step.
5. Scape the bowl again and add the dry ingredients all at once. Mix the batter on low speed until homogeneous.
6. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake 12 minutes, rotate the pans, and bake an additional 6 to 8 minutes, or until golden brown and springy. Use as a base for a no bake cheesecake or serve it warm with a cream cheese ice cream.
Arturo Bakes a Cake.
30 November 2009 | cake, chef | 11 Responses
My good friend and fellow Chef Arturo Lopez was quite suddenly and shamefully deported back to Mexico over a year ago. It was so sad the way it went down; one day he was there, the life of our kitchen, the backbone of it’s mise en place, the next he was gone. It was hard to shake the bottomless pit feeling of this for some time, hard to come to terms with an inconsiderate and fucked up system. In my mind it was the beginning of the end for my friend and mentor Jack Yoss at ten01. I know it just wasn’t the same for him anymore; this place that he and Arturo built together. Fortunately however, Arturo and Jack both still prosper on. Pictured below is some proof that my good Latino buddy is doing well. He sent me these pictures a few weeks ago and I just had to get them up here. This is him baking a cake for his new girlfriend. We miss you Arturo!!
Milk Chocolate Cheesecake: BAM!!
30 March 2009 | Ten 01, cake, chocolate, delicious, dessert, faithful readers, plated dessert, recipe | 3 Responses
As my faithful readers may guess, I hesitate to utter or type the word “bam,” let alone “BAM!” I find it appropriate here however because of two things. Firstly, I stole this recipe from none other than the “bam-man” himself, Emeril Lagasse. Second this cheesecake hits you like so many extra handfulls of whatever it may be, BAM! Leaving the audience (you,) asking for more. At first glance, any pastry minded person would wonder at the food processor method and the addition of flour for this cheesecake. Also, no water bath while baking? My employer Adam mused that it was no doubt some kind of shortcut or compensation for poor technique. The likelihood of him being correct doesn’t change the silky texture and pure indulgence of this tangy chocolately treat. The only thing did I differently was to increase the milk chocolate by 2 ounces. I use a water bath, too. I just have to. I also use a milk-chocolate feuillitine crust after baking and chilling and an oreo cookie round when it hits the plate. I make the milk chocolate crust by melting the chocolate over a double-bloier, then mixing in enough feuillitine to have a fluid but crunchy texture. I bet you could use chopped cereal flakes and have similiar results, if you’re having trouble finding the feuillitine. I hate soggy graham cracker crust. At first I baked it in a square and cut rectangles, but soon switched to the demisphere, which due to gravity actually bakes things into truncated domes. I glaze them in dark chocolate and pipe the cute little milk chocolate lines. For sauce I use a blood orange caramel, which balances with he milk chocolate nicely. When I sauce the plate, I envision the mask of Rorschach from Watchmen, because I’m a silly dreamer.
Emeril Lagasse’s Milk Chocolate Cheesecake
3 pounds cream cheese, softened
2 cups sugar
6 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup bleached all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
10 ounces milk chocolate, melted
Beat the cream cheese in a food processor until smooth. Add the sugar and process. Add the eggs 1 at a time, running the processor in between each addition. Add the heavy cream, flour, salt, and vanilla and process until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. With the motor running, add the chocolate in a steady stream. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake (in a water bath) until the center of the cake sets, about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Oreo Cookie
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
8 oz soft butter
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups A.P. Flour
Cream the butter, salt and sugar well, but not to light and fluffy
Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, then mix to form a dough
Cover with plastic and chill at least one hour before rolling on a floured surface and cutting out cookies
Bake at 350 for 12 minutes
Now That’s a Cake.
10 August 2008 | Ten 01, cake, dessert | 2 Responses
I’ve been mentally putting this cake together for two months. When I finally attached the last rose, and stepped back, taking it all in…I was quite pleased with myself. After 12 or so hours total prep time over 4 days, the thing looked pretty damn sharp. I could hardly remember all the baking and prepping of the fillings and the 6 a.m. rolling of the fondant. It all seemed like a dream now. At service time, I pulled off the lace so the newlyweds could get the first slice. It felt like foreplay as the thin black fabric fell away. Watching the bride and groom grin and cut into it and stuff each-others faces, I knew I had a silly smile, too. I waited in the the crowd with a sharp blade. Foreplay was almost over. And you know what that means. This was the first cake that I’ve made that I also got to cut and serve, and while intimidating at first was easy and fun to do so. There was a certain bent appeal to spending so much time to get this perfect, then just wheeling over and hacking it apart. In spite of the fondant, I knew also this cake tasted great. Two of the layers were Grand Marnier soaked chocolate sponge with chocolate mousse. One was lemon pound cake with lemon pastry cream, and finally a vanilla sponge with vanilla pastry cream. With sticky hands I plopped piece after piece onto to an endless line of plates being rotated in front of me. As I cut it, the servers ran pre-sliced chocolate truffle cakes from the back. 200 people were caked in about fifteen minutes. The rest of the food we put out for the party was really nice as well. From sushi to prime rib, they ate it all. It was a good day. Days like this remind me why I love this business, why I have no problem with the long-hours and sometimes less than ideal conditions. We came, we cooked, and it was good. That’s F&B, baby.
