Cake 2.0

Well friends, here we are once more.  It’s morning.  I’m sitting in the garden with the sun shining in its full glory and not a cloud is in the sky.  Things seem the same, but yet they are very different.  This has been an amazing week of change on many fronts.  There are obvious changes such as the weather and fall’s chilly approach, the tips of maple leaves turning from lustrous green to bright oranges and reds, my favorite gourds and grey pumpkins have returned to the farmer’s market and it is the one year “blog-i-versary” of Fabulous Pastries.

How did this happen exactly?  How has one whole year passed since I decided to take my love of baking, eating and telling tales to the web?  It doesn’t seem quite possible to me, but it’s simply a fact.  I wanted to honor this time with the things I find most important and what I enjoy writing about most:  cakes and traditions.

It was one year ago this week that I casually wrote the first posting about going to Harvest Festival at Stone Barns, and out of the necessity and pleasure of tradition we returned there once more this year to get a taste of the BBQ pork, see the wares being offered by local vendors and to see the kids running around the property excitedly pointing at and interacting with all the animals.  There is a sparkle in their eye when they get up close to a pig or can see a sheep standing no further away than the length of their arm…especially for city kids who spend so much time surrounded by cement.

A range of activities are held on the farm largely aimed at children, but there are also mini classes for adults on gardening, bee-keeping, cooking with herbs etc…but I think the most exciting thing for the kids is egg collecting.  Watching them get into the chicken coup (some excited and some screaming while clutching their parents in shear terror) “searching” for eggs and coming out with a trophy or two is very sweet.  Sure, it’s a hunting game, but this gathering process instructs the child on a deeper level about the connection of food and the land.  This is the mission of Dan Barber and the Stone Barns team.  Even the First Lady of the United States recognizes this importance and paid a visit to the farm the weekend before Harvest Festival.  I figure if the farm is good enough for Michelle Obama, then it’s good enough for me.

Walking the property is soothing to my country soul.  Winding paths through the woods and the sense of being slightly lost (though the farm is never really too far away) is one of my favorite sensations.  Strolling the fields lined with old stone walls watching happy animals is a pleasant way to pass an afternoon.  When I see the animals I know they are going to be food (most of them anyway), but I also know they have had a good life, a life where they have been allowed to roam and graze and have been given the best home to live out their time in this busy circle of life. 

The stone buildings are (to me) the most beautiful part of the space as a whole.  I do profess to love architecture, and stone buildings in a particular give such a feeling of not only history, but security and structure, a space that can’t erode away so easily, is cool in the summer, warm and cozy by the fire in winter and a place you want to hang your hat…or in this case dry some herbs and vegetables, and have dinner (or a wedding for that matter).  Growing up I never thought a farm could be an attraction (or would need to be), but Stone Barns seems a perfect escape for city locked parents and children alike.  It certainly was a nice escape for Randy, Brian and myself.

In thinking of this “blog-i-versary” celebration…because it is a celebration for me, I wanted to make something spectacular.  I just finished up a big job last week at work and therefore took most of this week off, giving me the baking time necessary for creating what I have dubbed Cake 2.0.  The recipe for creating this cake is a bit of a hodge-podge I took from the October 2010 Bon Appetit and a recipe Martha Stewart has for maple buttercream.  I was in the mood for the ultimate fall cake and the October food magazines are full of apple, maple and pecan recipes respectively (and some in combination with one another). 

The past few weeks I’ve been in the spice cabinet looking for bold Autumnal flavors, and I wasn’t about to change my tune this week.  I made a list of many different desserts I was interested in making, but most of them were my usual fare…which I love, don’t get me wrong, but as I said before it was important for me to honor this week with something extra special.  To me, when I think of extra special I think of wedding cakes (or something in that vein).  After deciding to save apple recipes for later in the month…we are going to the orchard this weekend…I went with the maple and pecan combination. 

There were several new and interesting ingredients (for me at least) listed in some of these fall recipes such as maple sugar and crystallized ginger.  I’ve never even seen maple sugar before so I thought if I could find it I would make the Maple-Gingerbread Layer Cake with Salted Maple-Caramel Sauce in this month’s Bon Appetit.  Not only does it have maple sugar, but also maple syrup, maple extract and candied maple pecans.  Shwooo!!!  It’s a maple extravaganza y’all!!  I have some of the beautiful organic pecans from my friend Kathryn’s family farm hiding in the freezer for such special occasions and only needed to acquire maple sugar and the candied ginger to complete my task.

I went on a hunt last week to specialty food shops and was able to find maple sugar at Dean and DeLuca’s as well as the candied ginger.  My local organic market, Mrs. Green’s, also had the necessary ingredients, so if you go to look for these special items check your local grocery and you might discover them without too much trouble.  The other strangely favorite ingredient of mine in these cakes is Chinese Five-Spice Powder.  For me, the overwhelming flavor is anise, but it’s obviously mixed in with 4 other powders hinting at something toward a pumpkin pie spice blend.  This flavor combined with ginger, maple, molasses and caramel was a most beautiful combination.

The recipe for the cake calls for using a frosting made from crème fraiche and whipping cream…I’m sure this would be amazing and throw the cake into more of a “carrot cake” flavor profile, but because I wanted to create a larger format cake I thought of buttercream topped with fondant.  This is the general process many pastry chefs and wedding cake designers use for creating the spectacular sculptures found on a brides’ most special day.  I have only used fondant (a rolled out sugar paste) on two occasions, once for the final cake of my pastry class at FCI and once for my friend’s Andrea and Nathan’s wedding.  It has been over two years now since I touched the stuff…but I was ready.

Buttercream is a great frosting base for any cake using fondant.  You can get a beautifully smooth coating on your cakes; chill them in the refrigerator and the fondant will lie nicely on top.  The key to a successfully smooth cake topped with fondant is your buttercream.  It is very, very important to get the frosting perfectly smooth because this will be the final shape of the cake.  Fondant is unforgiving.  It’s like the spandex running shorts of the pastry world.  Any flaw underneath is maximized 1000%.  I must admit it takes a little practice to get good with applying buttercream and I would highly recommend getting a “lazy Susan” which will allow you to rotate the cake around as you apply the frosting.  It’s a bit like using a pottery wheel (though much slower and hand rotated), but it allows you to hold your tools close to the spinning cake and get very clean, smooth edges.

With regard to buttercream, I made Martha Stewart’s Maple Buttercream.  It seemed a fitting addition to all the maple I already had going on.  The recipe may sound overwhelmingly maple as I write about it, but both the pecans and caramel sauce contain quite a bit of kosher salt.  The “salt” balances out the “sweet” in a surprising and subtle way that is very homogenous.  

My desire to use fondant came from a desire to paint.  I haven’t made an actual painting in quite some time…most of my artwork is done on the computer (or in the oven), but my hand was itching to paint, to make marks on a blank canvas and see what might come out.  I knew I wanted a harvest type of cake to celebrate Harvest Fest, but also the bounty of life in general.  When I think of harvest I think of oranges, browns and reds and I knew I wanted to make a cake that would take these colors into consideration and would also reflect some of my sensibility as an artist both personal and commercial.  This is the essence of Cake 2.0.

After trimming the cakes, filling them with the pecans and caramel sauce, coating them with buttercream and rolling and applying fondant to each tier I was ready for assembly and color.  I went through my cupboard and found some water based food colorings, but also discovered some forgotten about colored gel pastes and vials of luster dust.  Taking a scrap of fondant I mixed colors together in plastic cups…much like Easter egg dyes and practiced my technique a bit before moving onto the whole cake.  Through a bit of trial and error I was able to get a consistency of “paint” color I liked and applied an orange base coat to the fondant.  After that I used straight red and yellow gels to give the cake a glossy sheen, fairly reminiscent of car paint.  I mixed up some darker food colorings with water to give a dark wash to the cake and finally applied some copper luster dust to create matte patches within the glossy gelled surface.   The result, I think, is awesome.

Much like a regular painting, I spent several hours walking away, mixing up more color, coming back and painting another layer letting the cake evolve until I finally thought it felt “done”, or as done as art can ever feel.  The final autumnal touch was the leaf.  I had a maple leaf cookie cutter in the pantry and when I finished with all the painting I thought the cake still needed something.  Taking the cookie cutter and using it on the scrap piece of fondant I had used for paint testing, I cut out the leaf and draped it on top.  Perfect.  “Don’t touch it anymore”.

And I didn’t.  I’m thinking of it as my fall racecar cake.  The sheen looks like car paint; even picking up specular highlights the way a real car would do.  The shine made photography a bit challenging, but in my basement studio on black it really came together.  The best part?  The cake tastes as good as it looks.  I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of a “fabulous pastry” because it is undoubtedly me.  The cake approaches something else, which is unlike cake.  A couple of people have said it looks like Jell-O with its shining translucence.  I think it has a 3d quality about it…but I would since creating 3d is my “regular” job.  Whatever it is the cake feels special, it feels like Cake 2.0.

I admit it took a couple of days, on and off, to achieve this.  Because I had time I made the cakes and pecans on Monday, the buttercream and salted caramel on Tuesday, assembled and painted the cakes on Wednesday and on Thursday accepted a staff position where I’ve been working and found out Brian and I are 6 months pregnant!!!!!  Now it’s Friday and I’m not sure what to do with myself!!!

I knew the cake I was making was special for many reasons, but who knew there would be so many things to celebrate?  Not only was Harvest Festival a year ago this week, but also Andrea and Nathan told me a year ago this week they were pregnant.  “A Year and Change” was the name of that posting, and I think it suddenly applies here too.

This year has been difficult for many people and for many reasons.  There are still major problems with the economy and the world in general…and there probably always will be…it’s the state of human affairs, but on a more personal level Brian and I have had a hard year with the loss of his mother and how best to take care of his father in the aftermath, insecurity on the job front, the constant waiting to be chosen for adoption…a process we started 2 years and 7 months ago and just general anxiety watching our friends and families with problems of their own.

Sometimes I think I’m a bit silly…and truth be told there may be a lot of people who think that about me.  I want so much for people to try and be the best they can, to feel love, to feel proud of themselves, to get everything they ever wanted and I may come off a touch flippant from time to time, but it’s so important to get outside of yourself for just a little while each day and be thankful for what you have.  Baking helps me do that.  It’s a focused passion/distraction with the goal of sustaining not only my creative and food related needs but also my need to connect with other people.  Call baking an excuse if you will, but it helps me to be with others, share my love with others and to give everyone a sugar rush pick-me up even if it’s only for a short while.

I know with the coming year things are going to be changing drastically for both Brian and myself.  The time is coming that I never really thought possible…the time where I’m going to be a dad.  I’m not going to fool myself or anyone else into thinking I’ll still be able to make a weekly dessert and blog post, but I will keep on baking, taking photos, writing and sharing when I can.  It’s something that I love to do, something that is apart of me and something I need to help me connect with the world around me…meaning you, my dear readers, family and friends.  Phase two of Fabulous Pastries is beginning, starting with Cake 2.0.  Where things will go from here I have no idea, but that’s the joy and terror of living, isn’t it?  I’m excited, nervous, giddy, nauseous, overjoyed and always hungry.  It’s just who I am.