Peak December

This midpoint of December is always the busiest–my sister-in-law and Doc have birthdays four days apart, I’m usually sewing things for birthdays and Christmas, clients want things done by the end of the year, there are decorations to put up, seasonal foods to make, so many things.

That’s all true this year, too, but I’m doing it: I made a cake for Altair and jam for Doc’s parents over the weekend and the Christmas lights twinkled. I even found old Millennium of Music playlists to listen to. (In my youth orchestra days, I’d listen to that with just the tree lights on and think deep thoughts about music; I think this played a part in a music history degree later.)

Anyway, it was a productive weekend. And if people end up getting parts of clothes in a box versus the actual sewn item, well, so be it.

Cake Roundup: Prinsesstårta

I don’t know where I first learned about it–probably Martha Stewart Living (RIP)–but I’ve always wanted to eat a Swedish Princess Cake, a magical domed cake covered in marzipan. I realized I had leftover marzipan in the fridge from my SIL’s cake so that’s what I did for my birthday cake!

That domed shape is made entirely with whipped cream (!)–no wonder I wanted to eat this. The rest of it is a sponge cake layered with raspberry jam and pastry cream.

I followed this recipe for the construction and the stabilized whipped cream but used Julia Child’s pastry cream recipe and a Betty Crocker sponge. I wanted the marzipan to be a lovely pale green like in the example recipe, but it turns out marzipan takes food coloring a lot more strongly than buttercream so it ended up pretty bright.

But was it delicious? Oh hell yes–almond-y and creamy and not TOO sweet. Eating it felt glamorous and it was everything I imagined it would be. (How many times do you get to say that?!)

Tuesday Baking Roundup: Cake!

Remember how I thought 2022 would be the Year of Cake? And I would make a cake a month to practice? Well, I got as far as February before it turned into the Year of Stress instead (work started imploding in March, Toby was sick from April to September, Doc went to the hospital in August…yeah).

But I was finally feeling ready for cake again and made Altair a birthday cake over the weekend and wow was it fun to go all-out:

This is a “stump cake,” which I first saw on Pinterest alongside buche de noel decorating ideas. I didn’t want to attempt anything rolled and filled like a buche but I knew I could do layers. And decorating it meant I got to play with marzipan for the first time!


I got the raspberry mushroom cap idea from Martha Stewart and then threw the rest of the raspberries around the edge of the cake when I assembled it:

I used a cake mix for the layers but fancied up the frosting with whipped bittersweet ganache; it was all good but a lot of chocolate for me. (And the nephew agreed that the frosting could be sweeter.)  But what a fun project! Maybe I’ll try for more cakes in 2023.

Cake Practice: February

I had to remind myself that this is a year of cake practice, not a year of suddenly being able to make perfect cakes–because February’s Valentine cake is pretty wobbly:

Beyond my lack of practice, I think there was a technical reason for why it was so hard to make the base frosting look nice: I used meringue powder in the frosting, per the Wilton School of Cake Decorating books I got from my mom, and it’s a stabilizer. That’s GREAT for piping decorations but less great for trying to smooth out frosting. Good thing I had some fancy sprinkles for the sides.

But in the spirit of being a beginner and sharing progress, here it is! As Jake from Adventure Time said, “Sucking at something is the first step to being good at something.”

Cake Practice: January

I decided to make a cake as our dessert to bring to share with Doc’s family last week. This was my inspiration (found on Pinterest):

And this is where my current skills got me:

I was pretty proud I got that far from scratch. But I also remembered this quote, found in an Austin Kleon post a long time ago:

 

I think it’s important to remember this when you’re trying anything new: you just don’t have the skills yet. At least cake decorating has the advantage of being CAKE: something everyone loves, no matter what it looks like, and that tastes pretty good as well. (Although I forgot just how sweet American buttercream is on a cake; am I going to be piping Swiss meringue buttercream by the end of the year?)