Last Friday, our washer started acting up again, so I wasn’t able to do laundry. This didn’t make me too sad, because it meant I could bake! I went a little bit crazy with the baking though, which I seem to do a lot, don’t I?
First up, a pretty complicated cake, tiramisu cake, with a lot of moving parts. Well, not real moving parts, but it really seemed like it because every time I had a free moment, I was making or mixing something for this cake. It was pretty and it was also complicated. I really should not have made this cake, but I needed to use the mascarpone I made a few days ago for something!
I didn’t have a lot of time to make it as pretty as I would have liked. Since I ended up changing quite a few of the ingredients, I will repost the recipe with my changes. Most of my changes were due to necessity and not because I really wanted to make the changes.
The actual recipe (from Dorie Greenspan) is here.
This cake was a lot of work. I think it was mostly because I was mixing up the components of the cake in between baking two other things. I kept running out of surfaces in my kitchen to put everything!
I don’t think my cake layers turned out right. They tasted good, but I think their crumb wasn’t tight enough. In a way though, this gave the syrup a lot of crevices to soak into. I also did not use all the syrup I made. I thought it would be too much, but it ended up that I should have used all the syrup because the cake was a little dry by the time we ate it for dessert. I didn’t have any cake flour on hand, which is why I had to use all-purpose flour instead. If I make this again, I will try to find a yellow cake recipe that uses all-purpose flour and use that instead of the one in the recipe above.
I will admit that baking cakes is not my forte. I think cake is something I need to learn to do after I learn how to bake a few more breads.
I think I should have doubled the amount of filling/frosting. And I need to figure out how to bake a decent cake! Somehow, I don’t think my family will be sad that I plan on practicing cake soon.
The next two parts will be: Stuffed Crust Pizza and Mini Maple Cinnamon Rolls! I almost put all of them together in one post but that would have been too long!
-Lynn
P.S. Since my kids were going to be eating this cake, I did not use any of the coffee liqueur that is usually used to make tiramisu, another reason I had to change a few of the ingredients.
[adinserter block=”5″]
I enjoy the flavours of a tiramisu cake quite a bit so I can understand how your kids felt. It’s nice to have such appreciative taste testers for your desserts. 🙂
I’m just not as fond of sweets so I’ve baked more breads than cakes. Today I managed to find a good home for all but 2 pieces (I ate one right after baking and I kept one of the arms of the star) of the Swedish Cinnamon Star bread from my freezer so I can play with bread … I’m trying to decide between making Hokkaido Milk bread with tangzhong again or something else.
I’m hoping to make pan de sal as my next bread. I’ve tried to make it before but it didn’t turn out right. One bread I really want to try making is brioche. I’m kind of putting it off though because I’ve read that it’s difficult to make.
As far as I know, a brioche is just an enriched bread … that is one to which eggs/egg yolks, butter and sometimes more sugar than is used to feed the yeast. I don’t really think it’s harder to make than regular breads. Now a laminated dough like used for croissants where keeping the butter cold and in layers through the dough is a challenge. (I haven’t tried that yet.)
I’m changing my mind about making milk bread this weekend and maybe making borek from scratch. 🙂
I can’t wait to read about it! Now I will need to look up what borek is ?
Borek is a Turkish pastry made with a fresh strudel type dough filled with meat, cheese or even grated fruit. You can use dried phyllo but it’s not the same as making your own. In Romania it’s known as placinta.
I’ve only made it once successfully.
http://a-boleyn.livejournal.com/122938.html
Now phyllo I’ve read is difficult to make from scratch ?
Fresh phyllo or strudel dough is something else that my mom was able to make without using a written recipe. I would see the tablecloth covered kitchen table spread with the paper thin sheet of dough. She’d trim off the surrounding thick edge, sprinkle feta and beaten egg, or shredded apple and sugar or even shredded pumpkin and sugar over the top, roll it into a tube, and then double it into a U shape onto an oiled baking sheet. Two of these pastries were baked per sheet, cooled and cut into serving sized pieces. Very few remained for the next day.
If I got to eat this cake I would SO not mind the washing machine breaking and the laundry not getting done!
It was a fun cake to make in spite of all the different pieces 🙂 and it was yummy too! Next time I think I will use more coffee even if the kids will be eating it.