German Chocolate Cake!

Hello!

My friend asked me to make a cake for her chefs birthday this week. She works at Franks N' Dawgs in Lincoln Park--side note: if you've never been there, go. They make the most delicious and unique dogs and sausages fresh in the smallest kitchen possible. Its unreal. GO.

Side tracked a bit..
I love love love German chocolate cake. Making it however is another story. The icing starts with boiling all your spices and sugars, butter and cream together, then tempering in your yolks to make a really simple stirred custard. A ridiculous amount of coconut and pecans (I add almonds too. :o]) is folded in, and-traditionally-it is then poured on to the cake while it's still warm. You might see a lot of German chocolate cakes with the cake layers visible, which i actually love...
I, however, decided to make my life harder by icing the sides.
Everything turned out alright! Only after icing, chilling, icing, chilling, repeat repeat repeat!
I, to this day (obviously), do not know how you would make this process easier, as this icing is thick, but still slowly slides down the cake because it is SO heavy.
I've heard some people add cornstarch to the icing, which would definitely make sense.. it would be more of a true pastry cream base.

Any hoo- After a few deep breaths and 8 cups of coffee to calm my nerves (doesn't quite make sense?), the cake went out the next morning in its lovely box with a bow and I heard nothing but good things.
Happy days, and Happy Birthday to Joe from Franks N' Dawgs!


Till next time,
Kim.

A Recent BellaTiers Wedding Tasting!

In May of this year, I will doing a cupcake/cake combination wedding for one of my old friends, Michelle.

After our tasting went really well last weekend, all the flavors are finalized, and now only the last minute details need to be covered--like the cupcake stands getting ordered.
Michelle wanted 2 different cupcakes at the very beginning when we met up a couple months ago, but quickly changed her mind last weekend when i brought four. :D
The more the merrier!

Final Flavors:

Cupcakes--- Banana cake with milk chocolate ganache icing and a fried banana chip
Carrot cake filled with apricot jam with a cream cheese icing and fried carrot
Buttermilk chocolate cake with chocolate italian buttercream and chocolate curls
Lemon poppyseed cake with blueberry italian buttercream and lemon zest
Red velvet cake with cream cheese icing (added after the tasting)

Cake--- It will be a two tier marble buttermilk cake. The bottom tier represents the bride
with a milk chocolate ganache filling, and the top tier the groom, with a strawberry
compote filling. The cake is to be rustically iced with italian buttercream and
decorated with small purple and green flowers (the colors of the wedding, yay!).

Cant wait!


Till next time,
Kim

Random Recent Work Stuffs!

This month is just starting to get busier at work, thank you thank you!
We've had a lot of tastings, one that stood out for me earlier in the month was for Brook Field Zoo. They're having a dolphin themed gala in June, I believe, so some dolphin love was incorporated in to each plate.
I'm still slacking on taking pictures of EVERYTHING, but I did get a couple shots of these little "James Bond" themed mini triple chocolate mouse paves I worked on a couple weeks ago. Each little guy has a little hand cut white chocolate plaquette, with a tuxedo designed piped by yours truly. My favorite part of this, or anything I make for that matter, is being able to create ever aspect of the dessert; it truly becomes your baby, so to speak. Same with the Dolphin tasting-me and Keith, along with our bosses draw-ups of the plate design and menus, got full reign to work the dishes ourselves.

The last picture is of a few of my bagged Macaroons (a meringue-based cookie). This particular tasting wanted 'peacock' colors, so, naturally-for those who know me well-I was ecstatic to be able to dye these guys obnoxiously bright colors!
When one of my old co-workers, and macaroon master, Mary, left Food For Thought last September, the Macaroon talisman was handed down to me by the gods. A little dramatic? Very.
In short, I just somehow began making most of the macaroons. I make them a few times a week as tasting giveaways, and sometimes for parties in mini version. My macaroon horror story--although very proud of it, was last year when we had a party for 14,000 of these suckers. It was a week of piping hell, spending 8 hours everyday mixing, piping, baking, and storing the same cookies over and over again. I had one day off where thankfully, my lovely and darling coworkers did a few batches for me, allowing my throbbing hands to rest for a night. It was rough, but I love being able to say I got through it, and with the help of the ENTIRE kitchen.. we got all the bags packed and sent with a few bumps along the way, but all that's history.


Till next time,
Kim.