Author: Siri

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Reflections on 63 Years Young

Another day. Another year. Time passes so quickly. I have learned to cherish every day.

While I still read the occasional self-discovery book (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, Pete Walker, my latest read and a good one), I do feel just about there. And where is there, anyway? Well, it’s happy, as defined by me, myself and I. Settled. Accepting. Peaceful. And ever so grateful.

For the most part, I have forgiven my parents. It certainly became much easier after they passed, although it still took years. They did what they could while juggling their demons, which were many, and it wasn’t all bad – after all, here I am. My journey of self-discovery and confidence wouldn’t have ended in such a good place if I hadn’t traveled through those years. While I still flashback, with sadness and anger, the frequency decreases all the time. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all that – I’m sure I’ve said that before. And current life? It may not be chock full of exciting adventures and new things, but it is ever so comfortable, and I love it. My house – my garden – a sanctuary where I feel safe, secure, and in love with the world. Every day there is something to marvel at – a crocus, a bird, a sunset. My partner of 21 years today, someone who knows and understands me better than anyone ever has – such a gift to learn how to share. My daughter – a newer and much improved version of me – who has created a beautiful family herself and who continually makes me so deeply proud. My circle of friends and family who continually reaffirm that there are really nice people out there in the world. My hobbies which make me both fulfilled and happy.

Life is short, yes, but I’m learning not to fret about endings, and to revel in the moment (just checked the Oxford definition, got rid of the drinking, but let’s dance), to learn to relax and to stop worrying about things over which I have no control. It is what it is, and it’s pretty good if you allow it to be.

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Today’s Bake – White Mountain Layer Cake – 10-12-22

This has been on my ‘to-be-made’ list forever, ever since I purchased the Bravetart cookbook early last spring. Everyone has raved about it being the one and only white cake recipe, so it seemed fitting that to celebrate my birthday, I spend the day making this.

It is, without a doubt, delicious. Very very moist. Lovely taste. (I did not use the marshmallow buttercream as I really struggle with gelatin based frostings) and used ABC instead (still too sweet). Back to the cake. It reminded me a great deal of my other favorite white cake, Sugar Geek’s White Velvet Buttermilk Cake. Good taste buds, you might say, for when comparing the two recipes they are just about identical (except for quantity of the ingredients: the first making a three layer cake and the second making a two layer cake). The one difference (and I think you can tell, though it’s subtle) was the use of virgin coconut oil in today’s bake (vs. vegetable oil in the Sugar Geek recipe). I tend to lean towards the Sugar Geek recipe as the quantity is more fitting for what we would use – next time I will try the virgin coconut oil instead of the called-for vegetable oil.

Between these two cakes, I have definitely found my ‘go-to’ white cake recipe when I need a two or three layer birthday style white cake.

www.saveur.com/best-white-layer-cake-recipe/

sugargeekshow.com/recipe/white-velvet-cake/

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Today’s Bake – Fall Floral Cupcakes – 10-8-22

I wanted to work on some colors and some piping skills, so chose a simple vanilla cupcake recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction cookbook (not seeing it on her site) and then experimented with tweaking the American Buttercream recipe – and I think I landed on something! After using lots of different frosting types and deciding (running and ducking) that I really don’t like the Meringue type frostings (while they are definitely not as sweet, I just can’t get them to not feel greasy to me), I came back to ABC – but have remained troubled by how sweet it is. This time, however, I did my half butter half margarine with a long whip time (5 minutes plus); added in a TB of sour cream, a tsp of vanilla and a tsp of bourbon, another one minute on high, then 3 cups of sugar and a few minutes on high and then about 7 minutes on low (all with the paddle). Very pleased with what came out – a pipeable frosting that doesn’t taste as sweet as normal ABC. This may be my go-to ABC recipe (although I do love cream cheese frosting as well, on my last cake I realized that combining cream cheese frosting with a dense cake makes for a dryer cake, as CCF has to be refrigerated, whereas the ABC does not. Even with airtight containers, I feel the cold temps on the cakes zap just a little moisture out of them).

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Today’s Bake – Cream-filled Chocolate Cupcakes – 10/4/22

Who’s the hostess here anyway? Funnily enough I never really liked these cupcakes as a kid (although the orange ones were another story, will have to try those next) but these are very good. A very moist dark chocolate (used the coffee option) with a sweet vanilla buttercream (filling and decor) contrasting the semi-sweet ganache – heavenly! Moving this to Five Star Bakes as well – don’t omit the coffee, and use a high quality cocoa powder, and wowza! Thanks to Sally! https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/cream-filled-chocolate-cupcakes/

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Today’s Bake – Vegan/GF Three Berry Jam Filled Vanilla Cake – 10/2/22

First off, I am LOVING this plant based butter to use for frosting. It whips so much easier – spreads easy, less air bubbles, nice white color, and pipes beautifully. Oh, the taste, you ask? Really, I like it much better than the buttery taste of the other buttercreams. But it’s new to me, so give me a few more bakes with it.

This recipe (https://minimalistbaker.com/1-bowl-vegan-gluten-free-vanilla-cake/ was fairly easy to make. Almond flour, I used coconut milk, applesauce, potato starch were the ‘oddities’ if you will. I used three 6″ pans. I put a Bonne Maman triple berry (gf) jam in between the layers, and then used the Vegan buttercream (using Country Crock plant butter) in the frosting. Comments on taste: I thought it was pretty good. It’s not a normal cake texture, that’s true. Not sure what adjective to use for the texture. It’s a very moist (applesaucy) consistency, no fluffiness as in cake, hate to use the word ‘pasty’ as that’s got a negative connotation to me, but it does fit the consistency. Dense and wet would also describe the texture. Note to self: not all almond flours are created equally. Bought several different brands and consistency was different. Wegmans, for example, sells an ‘almond meal flour’ which in my understanding meal and flour are different. This may account for the more almond paste type texture. Yoders (local Mennonite store) has an almond flour that is very light and an almond meal that is much denser. For this cake I used a combo of the Yoders almond flour and Fischer brand almond flour unblanched.

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Today’s Bake – Apple-Almond Cake (Apfel Kuchen) – 10/1/22

I continue to search for an apple Kuchen that is similar to a recipe my mother had and that I made multiple times growing up – whatever happened to that recipe, I don’t know, but I have yet to duplicate it. This, however, is delicious, although I’d like to tweak it and lower the amount of cornstarch it uses, which, to me, always leaves a slight tang to the taste. The almond is subtle, the apples nicely done but not soggy, still a tiny bit crisp, and a beautiful rise and creamy crumb to the cake. Recipe from Food52.com (such a fun Facebook group if you like that sort of thing!)

https://food52.com/recipes/61833-apple-almond-cake-apfel-marzipan-kuchen

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Today’s Bake – Chocolate Raspberry Cream Cheese Brownies – 9/28/22

Today’s bake is a Cream Cheese Chocolate Raspberry Brownie. The recipe is from 100 Cookies, by Sarah Kieffer (highly recommend this book), pg. 75. The only difference is that instead of bittersweet chocolate, I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate raspberry bars. https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B0875LWBM5&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_P4N7ND3KC2QD14SYH504.  SO good, nice and chewy on the outside, deliciously moist and gooey on the inside; the cream cheese giving it that nice tang balance. 

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Today’s Bake – 9/26/22 – Chocolate Orange Drip Cake

This was a fun, albeit all day project to make. And while I am going to guess it is worthy of the five stars (to be commented upon after dinner), the recipe itself made a lot of assumptions. Either assumptions that you know how to do something, or assumptions that it’s not important you do it a certain way. I hate assumptions in recipes; I much prefer everything spelled out.

https://thebakingexplorer.com/chocolate-orange-drip-cake/


Your ingredients should be at room temp. If they are not, step #2 is hard to accomplish because even if you have successfully creamed the sugar and butter in step #1 (btw I use 3 minutes as my butter/sugar cream time), the butter is still cold enough that by adding the eggs you get chunks of butter. So you end up with a 5+ minute mixing time (after that original 3 minutes) to try to get the buttersugar mix to incorporate with the eggs if your butter is too cold. 
The recipe is in grams, so you are forced to weigh your ingredients. Not a bad thing; I think in general weighing of ingredients is much more precise. It’s weird though because the gram amounts don’t equal an exact American equivalent. 
The orange sponge layer has no baking powder in while the chocolate sponge does. Why not? Typo? I found that weird. And the orange cake layer did sink more in the middle than the chocolate layers. 
There is also no salt added in the cake batters or the buttercream. I added it to both. 
For the buttercream, I truly don’t think you need 5+ sticks of butter even for a 3 layer cake. I divided the ingredient amounts by 2/3 and used that – still plenty of buttercream unless you want your frosting layers between the cakes to be very thick. The mixing directions for the buttercream were sorely lacking. This is an American Buttercream combination (did the author not want to say this, being British?) My ABC go-to is to beat the butter (btw I typically use 50% butter and 50% margarine) for a solid 10 minutes until it’s white and whipped. Then I add the sugar, slowly, then the flavorings, and again, some salt, and continue to beat until I have a consistency I like. A TB of milk is possible at this point too if needed (I needed several). 
As for decorations, the orange drip is great fun. Interesting to note that red plus yellow food color gives such a brighter orange than the orange food color by itself. There is lots of chilling on this cake – crumb coat, then final coat, then drip needs cooling a good 45 minutes once on the cake. My drip melted somewhat as I took too long with the rest of my decoration, as you can see. My planned chocolate oranges were tempered and thus white; good thing I had orange oreos on hand. The entire process was about five hours including chilling time.  Note now that I’ve tried it: I found the cake to be a bit on the dry side, and am confident I didn’t overbake it. Next time I would try adding in some sour cream or buttermilk maybe (adjusting the butter or egg amount?) Taste was still good but it’s not that velvety moist cake I adore.

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Today’s Bake – 9/25/22 – Strawberry N Cream Cake Roll

I finally got around to trying something I’ve wanted to try for awhile, ever since Adelaide and I tried the Pattern Roll Cake on the Sugar Geek website (I love her stuff; her videos are very entertaining). The first time we tried it, Adelaide was the designer and went for the abstract look. I thought the roll cake was on the dry side, so was eager to try this again with a different roll cake recipe. Here is the source for the technique, which is not that difficult: https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/pattern-roll-cake-recipe/

This time round I chose a recipe from Sally, another source that I love and adore. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/strawberries-n-cream-cake-roll/. Using the technique above, I came up with the following design. Note that your pattern will only show on one section of the roll. You do need to think about placement when you both make the pattern and roll the cake, making sure the pattern is not on the inside, which it ends up being when you flip the cake onto the towel (you will have to reflip it back).

Things I did differently than Sally’s recipe: For lining the dishtowel prior to rolling the sponge, I only used 1/2 cup of confectioner’s sugar which was plenty. (Use a dishtowel without nap or raised pattern.) For the strawberry cream cheese filling, I only used 2/3 cup of confectioner’s sugar, rather than 2.5 cups. The finished product is not as sweet (which I like better). I’d rate this a 8 out of 10 with a nice sponge that is not at all dry, a tasty filling not too sweet, and a versatile dessert that is satisfying but not overdoing it. 8-10 servings.

Looking forward to making this again and improving on my patterning! Chocolate sponge roll with white snowflakes sounds interesting…..