Let the Fun Begin

Today has been a long day. My roommate and I arranged for an early move-in time for our dorm room so today we hauled A TON of stuff down to campus. Really, how we managed to fit two bed, two fridges, two desks, a couch, microwave, teapot, storage units, and impressive amounts of clothes into one room is beyond me. I guess miracles do happen :).

After a few hours of unpacking, stacking, hanging, rearranging, and recharging with gyros, my parents and I headed home. At some point during the car ride my parents reached the mutual decision that it would be an awesome idea for me to make cinnamon rolls. Well that's really great, but cinnamon rolls are a piece of work. Mixing, rising, rolling, rising, baking, frosting... my enthusiasm died after reading through a few recipes and recalling my last not-so-super encounter with cinnamon rolls. Fortunately my brother decided he'd much rather have something else.

After he suggested scones or strawberry shortcake I presented an option to my brother that he immediately agreed to. The Kitchen Sink always has delicious looking recipes and the strawberry cake I pulled up was a winner for Nick. Not to mention, SO MUCH EASIER THAN CINNAMON ROLLS.

So I went to work. As a general rule, anything made in a pie pan is fantastic, and this cake was no exception. A basic cake recipe really, but the kicker is the fresh strawberries pressed into the top of the batter topped with a generous sprinkling of raw sugar.

So rustic, so gorgeous! And it only looked better and better as it baked. A light, puffed cake with strawberries barely buried under the golden brown crust, could it get any better?

Turns out it can. I didn't have vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, the two things the recipe insisted should go with this delicious cake, so I improvised! I whipped up a quick, half improvised vanilla sauce using a vanilla bean from a private stash I've had hidden in the cupboard for quite some time. Personally, I think vanilla ice cream would be the ideal thing to pair with this cake, especially if it's like French Vanilla... a little melted... oh yes. But, what can I do?

Oh yeah, and when digging out my vanilla beans I came across a bag of slivered almonds and immediately decided that I would find a way to work them into the finished dessert! I popped a handful onto a piece of aluminum foil and let them sun tan in the oven until they were light brown and fragrant. According to dad the almonds were a good flavor combination with the strawberry cake, and I have to agree. I was tempted to sprinkle them onto the top of the cake before I put it in the oven, but was afraid in the hour cooking time they'd be a little over done, but who knows. Whether you top this cake with vanilla sauce, ice cream, or whipped cream, the almonds really are a wonderful addition.

Well, I'm about to fall asleep, apparently carrying boxes and moving beds and couches has taken it's toll on me. But before I go, I should tell you tomorrow I'm making dinner :D. I may have taken some books to Half Price Books... and I might not have walked out with any of the cash they paid me... I might have walked out with a couple cook books... one might be an Indian cook book... maybe ;). Tomorrow should be a delicious day.

Oh yes, and you can find the recipe for strawberry cake here: http://thekitchensinkrecipes.com/2009/05/25/an-imperceptible-shift/#more-5476.

It's What's on the Inside that Counts

I really hope the statement that titles this blog entry is true. Partly because as I write this I'm eating more chocolate covered blueberries than is probably a good idea, and partly because the last cake I was involved in baking was delicious but a little... unpolished.

So it turns out that everybody in my boyfriend's family was born like the day after each other. Not really, but for the past three weeks I think I've been churning out birthday cakes like it's a second job, which it actually kinda is. Luckily I love my work ;). Anyway, about three weeks ago Taylor and I cranked out a pretty delicious lemon cake for Max's birthday (which I think missed it's blog spot, oh well) and just last weekend I spent a good deal of time making the most epic of all cheesecakes EVER (see last post, for real, it's delicious, should be illegal, luckily it's not). This weekend Taylor came over pre-prom and we started in on his father's birthday cake.

As most of you know, I'm a chocoloholic, probably should be in a support group, it's that bad. Hence the chocolate covered blueberries that I just tore myself away from. Unfortunately Taylor's father gets pretty awful migraines from chocolate. I'm glad I don't have that issue, my head would be pounding EVERY DAY. But anyway, following his requests I set out looking for a chocolate-free recipe that looked divine, actually quite a challenge. I did, however, come across a cake on smittenkitchen.com (my favorite food blog!) that was eagerly approved by Taylor. Before I tell you about our own recreation of this cake I'd like to share with you the smittenkitchen version...

Isn't that pretty? It's a Strawberry Chiffon Cake. It even sounds pretty! What it really is, however, is frickin' impossible to make look like that. How the heck she managed to get her cake layers so perfectly out of the cake pan is well beyond me... that's the beauty of fully frosted cakes, it doesn't matter if they look like crap as long as they taste like heaven. Fortunately, even though the version of this cake Taylor and I managed to piece together looked maybe a little more forlorn, it really did taste like heaven.

A chiffon cake, so I found out, is kind of like a really rich angel food cake. The cake layers we made were lighter in texture than most cakes, attributing to the fact that we used 8 egg whites that were beaten forever before folded into the actual batter and instead of any butter used vegetable oil as the cooking fat. We actually only made two cake layers, as did the writer of SK, but those were cut in half to make the towering four layer wonder that appears above. The white fluff layered in between and piped on top is homemade whipped cream, an automatic cake A+, with strawberries thrown in just for good measure.

Turns out even though I love a good presentation, piping whipped cream the day after Brebeuf's prom was just not very high on my to do list. I happily settled for plopping it on with a spatula and flopping on strawberry slices that we're beautiful in the most rustic of ways. Anyways... Taylor and I embarked on a Strawberry Chiffon journey and came out with... drum roll please...



(The top actually looks pretty good, but it's a little... rough around the edges ;) )

Duh dat dat duh! It's no SK cake, but I think it's gorgeous in it's own way! You can just see the love seeping out of the lemon laced chiffon layers! Or maybe that's whipped cream... in my book though homemade whipped cream=love! Clearly I get more excited about everything when I'm eating chocolate covered blueberries! Maybe I'll have to hype myself up more often without cocoa pre-blogging! And guess what else??? That cake is not rabbit food!

Bouncing around with a couple ideas for my next food endeavor... on the list so far are Captain Crunch French Toast a or Pancake Cake. Also dying to make more homemade bagels! Maybe if you guys post some ideas I'll make some suggestions! Maybe whoever makes the best suggestion can have what I make! Can you tell I'm trying to motivate you to comment??? So far I think Van Almelo's Hamburger Cake is in the lead...