Marbled Rye Bread

 It seems I haven't posted a recipe in FOREVER and the last few posts are all about cake. SO, I thought I'd change things up a bit and post something a little less sweet but no less labor intensive. 

I haven't made bread in awhile and thought I'd revisit Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. So far, I've made the Anadama Bread, Greek Celebration bread, Cinnamon Rolls, Cinnamon Bagels, Portuguese Sweet Bread (all of which I've posted about) and the Lavash Crackers and Kaiser Rolls which I have conveniently NOT posted about. Those last two didn't quite turn out very well...even worse than the Portuguese Sweet Bread. 

I like Rye bread. Actually I found out a few years ago that I loved it. So I thought this would be a good recipe to start with. Surprisingly I found it quite easy. Maybe this experience was just a fluke, but I'd like to think that it was my mad baking skills that created these two delicious loaves of marbled rye. 

Before I started I read the little introduction that Peter gives before the recipe and learned a thing or two about Rye flour. The most important being that you shouldn't over work the dough because rye has a chemical that prevents gluten development and results in a tough bread. In other words, short kneading time. And since I've found this recipe posted all over the web, you can find it here.  

The first step was to mix both doughs separately. I won't bore you with those obvious photos. But here is what each one looked like for me. I used cocoa powder instead of caramel coloring for the darker loaf because I didn't have any. So I made do with what I had on hand. 

 

Next I put each one in it's own separate bowl and let them rise. 

Then it was time to shape the loaves. I whizzed through this without taking good pictures. But you can get the general idea from Pinch My Salt for good photos on how to do this. I divided my dough into 4 equal parts. Then rolled them out and stacked 2 white with 2 dark in an alternating fashion for the "swirl" and rolled everything up for 1 loaf. Then repeated this with the remaining 4 pieces of dough for the second loaf.

Then let them proof until about doubled in size.

See how big they got??

Then I baked them at 350 for about 45min. I didn't get as much oven spring as some people, but they still turned out soft and delicious. I was very proud of myself.

Somehow in one loaf my "swirls" look sort of like a pinwheel, but one was swirled and I like that each loaf is different...artistic in it's own way. I stuck one loaf in the freezer and have been munching on the other. I think there will be Turkey Reubans in our future, naturally. 

Yellow Submarine Cake

After making the Dr. Seuss Cake for my friend's baby shower, my ex-boss asked me if I'd be willing to make a yellow submarine cake for his granddaughter. Her birthday would be in December and he would send me a picture of what he wanted it to look like. Well, I googled "yellow submarine cakes" and found some pretty good examples of what I had in mind. I thought, how hard could it be? Bake the cake, cut it to the shape of a submarine, cover it in fondant and quickly pipe on the decorations....because there really isn't that much piping involved. 

I was happy about the prospect of a "quick and easy" cake. But once again I planned things to where if I screwed up on the cake....there'd be no time to fix it. Here was my schedule....Dec. 15th through the 20th I would be in the Chicago area visiting family I hadn't seen in 3 1/2 years. My flight on the 20th was scheduled to land at 4:40pm so my plan was to go home, unpack, eat a quick dinner and then go grocery shopping for ingredients......then bake it. The 21st I'd have to go into the lab during the day, then to Michaels to buy a cake box and fondant, then home to decorate to be completed for a Dec. 22nd delivery date. 

Well, let's just say I started decorating yesterday at 4pm (thankfully I left work early!). I took about a 2hr break for dinner and relaxing in front of the TV and finally finished the cake at 12:05am! So for future reference:

1.) Maybe this isn't the best hobby for a perfectionist. Do you know how many times it took me to draw out a submarine shape I was happy with before cutting the cake??

2.) It really does take a long time to color and knead fondant. The professionals don't lie!

3.) It also takes a long time to portion out, color icing, and set up tips and bags for the decorations. Especially when you're using a red that just won't get the shade you need it, no matter how much gel coloring you use (same goes for the black!). 

First, I filled the cake with vanilla buttercream. Then I cut it to the shape I wanted it. I used scraps to form the very tail end and the very top part...as you can tell from the photo. 

Then I applied the crumb coat (see photo below). After letting the buttercream sit and crust, I used a Viva paper towel to smooth any imperfections....because there were a lot of them!

Then I kneaded and colored the fondant, rolled it out and covered the cake.

I'm not sure if this was the proper way to do this, but I used 2 separate pieces of fondant for the white and yellow parts of the cake, then hid the seam by piping red icing. I cut out circles of fondant for the portholes, shaped the red rudder (is that what that little thing is?) out of fondant, and piped the rest of the decorations on using various sized tips.

If anyone has suggestions or tips on technique I would love to hear them!

Wilton Cake Decorating Basics 1

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had signed up for a Wilton cake decorating class at Michaels. I wanted to take the 3rd class which is all about fondant and gumpaste flowers but they don't let you take that class without first taking the basics course. I wasn't complaining and figured the basics course would just help to improve my current skills and help with any rustiness from not really baking/decorating in awhile. 

Turns out though, that I learned quite a bit from this course. I learned how to give icing that "fondant" look. Who knew that a Viva paper towel could be so significant?!?! I also learned a few more piping techniques that will only augment my decorating. AND I made a new friend that kept the class entertaining. 

As far as techniques go, I learned how to make drop flowers (see the top tier of the Dr. Seuss cake below for my yellow drop flowers), a pom pom flower (which is ugly in my opinion and I will never use these on a cake), shaggy mum flowers (also hideous), and ribbon roses. Now, here's my new enemy.....the ribbon rose. I can't make them. I can pipe the classic and famous Wilton rose, but I can't make a ribbon rose. I guess I'll just have to keep practicing those evil flowers. 

So the point of this whole post is to document the cake that I decorated for our last class. I was unaware that we were decorating to win a $25 Michael's gift card at the time and didn't really have an idea for the design when I showed up for class. So I winged it, and piped my design without the use of a pattern or stencil. I was very happy with the way it turned out. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough for me and I got a lot of compliments from my fellow classmates. 

And no, my cake didn't win. But that's ok. Because my new friend won with a pink breast cancer awareness cake that was pretty damn good too! :)

Dr. Seuss Topsy Turvy Cake

It seems I have committed to making cakes for people lately. A while ago I had been asked to make a cake for a friend's wedding in December. After I happily agreed to take on this challenge I signed up for a Wilton Cake Decorating class at Michaels on the West Bank. 4 classes of decorating basics. Now I realize I've already taken a Decorating for Beginners class at Delgado Community College a few summers ago, but I figured this would be more of a "refresher" course for me before getting into the more elaborate modeling chocolate, fondant, and gumpaste sculpting that I'm interested in. 

Then, 2 weeks into the course I had been contacted by a friend to make a cake for a baby shower. The theme, Dr. Seuss. After hashing out details (i.e. number of people, thoughts on design, etc.) I decided I would try my hand at a tiered cake. Now, it's Dr. Seuss. Of course, one would think about whimsical styles. So then I thought..."it's gotta be a topsy turvy cake". That night I couldn't sleep. I got some paper and colored pencils and got to work sketching out different designs and color patterns. I'm sure my other half was annoyed with all of my questions. Constantly asking for his opinion and thankfully he was patient and helpful. 

The closer it came to the date of the baby shower the more nervous I became. With my limited schedule I planned everything so if I messed something up, or something didn't turn out right....I would be screwed! Everything had to be pulled off without a hitch. 

The weekend before, I baked the cakes (flavor....white velvet almond). Each tier would be a double layer. The bottom, 10inch. The middle, 8inch. The top tier, 6 inch. I had my first problem at this step. While "un-molding" one of the 8inch cakes, I was a little too rough and it broke into 3 big pieces. I quickly remedied this and baked another. Once these were cooled I wrapped the layers up in plastic wrap and let them chill overnight. 

The next day, I shaped the tiers and applied the crumb coat. After watching numerous You Tube videos of how to assemble a topsy turvy cake, I set to work on shaping mine. It was messy, and scary, and thrilling all at the same time. Once they were shaped and the crumb coat was applied I stepped back to look at my tiers. I triumphantly held one up for my BF to see said "LOOK! I did it!". Into the fridge again to sit overnight. 

The next day I applied the final layer of icing (almond to be exact). Now, I remember last Christmas I made a Holiday cake for a party and I had trouble with Wilton's Christmas red coloring. I had to add A LOT to get it to be the right shade of red. But I also remember that as the icing sat, the red color deepened. So I mixed up the icing for the bottom and top layers, iced the tiers (the middle one was to be white) and then stuck them in the fridge to chill overnight again. As I was putting them in the fridge I remember thinking "Man, these are REALLY pink". And of course, the next morning....they were still pink. So I took off the icing, added more red coloring, and iced them again. 

Then I got to work decorating. I made drop flowers for the top tier, cut out Dr. Seuss fish from colored fondant, and set to work. I also made cotton candy as a topper. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the process, but being pressed for time made it impossible to take the time to get the camera out. So here are pictures of the individual decorated tiers. 

I had trouble transporting the tiers. I left them separate and stacked the cake once I got to where the shower was held. Then I put everything to together. I am REALLY happy with how it turned out. Not bad for my first tiered, first topsy turvy cake! I welcome any critiques though. There's ALWAYS room for improvement :)

Portuguese Sweet Bread

Working two jobs is hard.

REALLY hard. I mean, exhausting down to your bones hard! Especially when one of those jobs is a waitress.

I started working at this new restaurant that opened up a few blocks from my house. They've been open two months so far and I've been there since the beginning. That's where I've been and what I've been doing. Three nights a week and I'm wondering where all my energy is and feeling guilty for being too exhausted to do anything else (i.e. get some use out of my gym membership, or cooking on nights when I don't work, or baking anything for that matter).

But lately my urge to bake has outweighed my tiredness. With careful planning I managed to try my hand at Portuguese Sweet Bread. I followed (or at least tried to follow) a recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. After reading Peter's introduction to the recipe, I was surprised to learn that Hawaiian bread is really just another version of Portuguese Sweet Bread. So I knew it was going to taste great. And this time I decided to knead the dough by hand instead of using my stand mixer fitted with dough hook so I could really 'feel' the dough throughout it's transformation.

Despite all my efforts though, I'll need to try this recipe again. This particular bread is high in fat, which means it takes the gluten longer to set up. Translation: longer kneading time. The dough itself is very soft and supple. Easy to work with when it has the right amount of flour in it because it's not sticky or tacky. After the first rise I instantly knew I hadn't kneaded it enough because you could see the 'gluten' pulling apart. The top of the dough was rough with a popped bubble appearance instead of nice and smooth. It also didn't rise nearly as much as the book suggests. Oh well. There's always next time.

After baking and cooling I cut into it to try it. I was looking for a soft and spongy loaf but that's NOT what I got. Instead, I got dense and crusty. It still tastes good though with a little butter melted in. Maybe next week I'll have enough energy to try again.