Week 27 means two things: 1) Holiday weekend means more time for messing around in the kitchen; and 2) It's more than halfway through the year! So far things are pretty well on track as far as the number of bakes for 2017 (55) and looking forward to attacking the back half with as much panache. In addition, this week brought me a commissioned work to provide dessert for a dinner party hosted by one of my bosses - a big fancy dinner party so, you know, no pressure.
First things first, however, and that means more babka. I was so enamored with the babka making process and the visual appeal of the loaves that I wanted more. The
Golden cookbook had a lovely tahini and white chocolate babka that had been calling to me since the first time that I leafed through the pages. I decided to through caution to the wind and forgo the loaf pan yet again to create an open knotted loaf. Unfortunately, the tahini and white chocolate filling is much more gooey than the chocolate one and this made things a bit messy with the filling spilling out every which way. The extra sugars in the filling also led to a over caramelized loaf. The flavor was fantastic, but next time I'll definitely contain it within a loaf pan.
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| Babka rising. Look at that ooze. |
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| Finished babka. Filling got a little extra toasty |
On July 4th itself, I attacked a new version of the pavlova. This was a chocolate pavlova with fresh berries. Because the black raspberry harvest was literally an unstoppable force of nature. This was inspired by the Smitten Kitchen's extremely Instagrammable post, and the dessert did not disappoint. Even though the chocolate meringue base was a rather sad beige color on the outside, the inside was a lovely shade of brown and the cocoa took the edge off the sweetness quite a bit. In addition to the black raspberries, I also threw on some blueberries and strawberries leading to a rather apropos color scheme. I wanted to make a few individual pavlovas, too, despite the risk of poo pile approximation. They also looked quite nice and kept reasonably well for snacking.
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| Chocolate pavlova, ready for tasting |
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| We're going in! |
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| A couple minis ready to go. |
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| Showstoppers! |
Having gotten these bakes out of the way, the rest of the week was used to prepare for the main event (aka the showstopper): miniature cheesecake filled carrot cakes. You heard that right, folks. I'd been commissioned to provide dessert for a dozen physicians for a retirement party and we'd decided on this particular option. Some of you know that I've made iterations of this dessert a few times now with relative success. It's creamy! It's decadent! It's chock full of beta carotene! Instead of making a single cake for slicing, I thought it would be far more elegant and lovely to create individual desserts. Of course, this meant far more work and melting cream cheese frosting in the summertime heat, as well as cake scraps (more on that later). Given the divisiveness of the nuts in carrot cake issue, I opted to coat the majority of the cakes with toasted pecans, but did a simple sanding sugar coating for a few. That move was appreciated by some of the party-goers. The cake itself was a chai spiced carrot cake and the two layers filled with a vanilla bean cheesecake. Transport was a bit hairy, again because of the heat and humidity, but successful in the end. I hear they were delicious. When will I learn to not make cream cheese based frostings in the height of summer?
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| Jammin' |
To cap off the week, it was back to the black raspberries. Feeling inspired again by the GBBS, I decided to try my hand at a Bakewell tart. I made a batch of black raspberry jam for the filling with a couple extra jars for breakfasts and gifting. There is something so comforting about frangipane; the person that thought to fill a tart shell with raspberry jam topped with frangipane was truly inspired. A slice of Bakewell and a cup of black tea is a lovely treat. In soliciting feedback from a British ex-pat, I was told that the jam layer was thicker than usually found in the stores. I'll take that. There's a boatload of berries to use up from the harvest, after all. During this process, I also learned that I have truly become one of those people who sit on the mat in front of the oven watching for my bake to be done.
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| Tart shell, blind baked and filled with jam and berries, ready for frangipane |
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| Fresh and hot out of the oven |
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| Bakewell tart, Minnesota style |
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| Keep your fork, there's tart |
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