Sunday, June 01, 2008

Inner Beauty



I have a love/hate relationship with this month's Daring Baker's Challenge, Opera Cake. Mothers don't make this cake. It will surely result in child neglect. In fact I started making it on a sunday and didn't finish until tuesday. I was pretty annoyed on Tuesday when my kitchen looked like it blew up, the kids were not quite taken care of, and I had what I thought was a disaster of a cake on my hands, too.
Half of the cake stuck to the tinfoil in the bottom of the pan (that's why the recipe calls for parchment paper, I guess) so I made a few mini opera cakes with the bits and peices of cake that I could peel off of the tinfoil. So I was pretty frustrated by the time I finally finished making the cake, but then when I tasted it suddenly it was all okay. It wasn't pretty, but we all agreed that it was tasty.

I came away with my new favorite buttercream, and ideas of how to make the cake simpler and more delicious- by making just the cake, buttercream, and sugar syrup (no mousse or glaze). Oh yeah- and next time I will be buying almond meal at whole foods instead of blanching and processing my own almonds.
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2 comments:

Julia Deaver said...

Still looks beautiful even if it stuck! I understand completely about not making food that takes more than a day to make... tried that once and my son was running around in his PJ's all day!

natals said...

I don't think I've ever told you that I think it's so awesome how you do these daring baker's challenges and work on your talents even in the midst of mommy-ing. I really admire you for that. Thanks for inspiring me!