Spongecakes and Turnovers

Well allow me to say that contrary to popular belief I have been cooking this last month, but what with school and the internet at home being totally unreliable I haven't been able to post. But an exciting month it has been. I started off the school year by making "Blueberry Spongecake" though since I made it with raspberries I suppose it would be better called "Raspberry Spongecake." The spongecake turned out really well, I found a recipe online and I really liked it, and the raspberries were really nice. If I could change one thing I'd vote on the raspberries not having seeds, but somehow I don't think I can change that.

Then about two weeks ago I had a Sunday afternoon where all I did was cook. I made Lasagna, French Bread, and Peach Turnovers. Of course I wasn't thinking and so only took pictures of the turnovers. I had never made french bread before but it's not any more difficult than making any other kind of bread. Spreading the egg white on top was a little bit of a challenge, but only because I was using the back of a spoon and not a pastry brush. Some things are simple fixes. The lasagna turned out, but I had made it before so I'm not too surprised that it worked out well. The turnovers were delicious. The recipe was for apricot turnovers, but finding cheap apricot jam turned out to be harder than you'd expect so I used peach. We served them to some boys who live nearby and they seemed to think they were delicious. This recipe uses frozen puff pastry, and I am a complete fan. Puff pastry is so incredibly easy to use, and it makes for such delicious desserts, I can't wait to make something else with it.

I've also made several batches of Zucchini Brownies this week. Zucchini brownies taste pretty much exactly like zucchini bread, only chocolatey and brownies. They're absolutely delicious. The first time I made them I followed the recipe and made chocolate frosting to go on top and everything. They were good. The second time I made them I ended up with 2/3 of a cup too much grated zucchini, and about half as much cocoa powder as I needed. So I made do the best I could, and since I didn't have frosting ingredients left I just dusted them with confectioner's sugar at the end. They still turned out amazing. Whoever thought to put zucchini in baked goods was brilliant. Though I think that whoever thought that we should spell zucchini with two C's wasn't thinking too well. Courgette is much easier to spell, and just sounds cooler too.

The Last Cake

Well. Last night was the very last night of m last cake decorating class. I have now spent 3 months of my life learning to decorate cakes, and what is the result? Ta da! One day I may be able to make truly lovely wedding cakes, or something like that. I think I've made a good start, and I've certainly learned a lot this summer. The top layer is a yellow cake with a cream cheese frosting filling, and then the bottom is a spice cake with the same cream cheesy filling. Now to find time and occasions to practice my skills...

Cake Number 5

Well, last night was the 1st time that I have ever worked with Fondant. Fondant is not as hard as people make it seem. Certainly I imagine that the horror stories are true, but still, it wasn't that bad. Now of course it still took me three tries to get it on my cake, but hopefully next time will be better. The bow is actually quite easy to make, but I got rather impatient and didn't wait long enough for the bows to dry, hence the flatness... I used butterscotch pudding for the filling in between my two very flat layers. It turned out pretty tasty.

Cake numba 4

Well today was the last day of cake decorating class number 2. We learned the basket weave and the rope border. I really like the border. It's a lot of fun to do. The top of my cake was incredibly smooth, much smoother than ever before. And then I covered it all up with my royal icing flowers. In some ways that's kind of sad, but at the same time the cake turned out looking pretty nice. It was a little sketchy at the beginning because my cake rose like crazy. It was like a mountain on top of my cake. It wasn't even an air bubble or anything, it was definitely cake all the way through. It was good. The royal icing flowers tasted pretty good too. It should be fun to see how the next cakes turn out...

Cake #3

Well this week was the last week of my first cake decorating class. This week we finished learning the "wilton rose." Mine certainly leave room for lots of improvement. I think my icing was a little too stiff and so the leaves cracked a little bit. Luckily they still look tolerable, but with practice I think they will get better. I used a cherry chip cake mix and filled it with cherry pie filling. I was quite impressed that the cherries didn't all squish out. I wasn't really sure what to expect since I'd never filled a cake with something with substance before. I am glad that my cake decorating turned out so well. Hopefully the class in July will be as good. We're going to learn to use Royal Icing, which gets hard. I'm excited.

Also this week, well on Sunday, I made soup. A type of beef stew really, though I used left over black bean water from when I made black beans last week. I've never cooked with bean water before so I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but surprisingly it went well. I put some stew meat, some potatoes and part of an onion in. Then added a chopped up tomato, a couple black beans and some seasonings. I was pleased that it turned out so well. I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Cake(s) Number 2

This week, my cake decorating teacher said that we could make cupcakes, and so I did. Thus this week I have many pictures, of various designs. As it turns out I'm not any good at decorating cupcakes. Maybe next week's cake will turn out better.

The First Cake

Well last night was the first of the cake decorating classes. Since today is my father's birthday I decorated a cake for him, and then sent him a picture and said how good it tasted. I made a white cake with a strawberry coulis and whipped cream filling. Hopefully my handwriting will become a little steadier as I practice making cakes. I think that the cake turned out pretty swell, but we'll see how much better I get.