Going to the chapel...

Here by popular demand is a picture of the finished wedding cake. It's a butter cake with raspberry filling and Swiss meringue buttercream icing, covered in vanilla-flavored ivory fondant.

The ribbons aren't edible or anything... my decorating skills aren't very advanced.

The wedding itself was lovely. The groom walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of Fugazi's "Waiting Room" played by his groomsmen.

This is a picture of me at the reception, taken by Bridget:

....clearly after a glass or two of champagne.

The cake went over very well and good times were had by all.

Next project, two cakes for a CD release party/art show. One of them has to be vegan. So that'll be an interesting challenge.

If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake.

Oh, there is nothing better than spending the whole afternoon in the kitchen on a breezy fall day.

I have recently taken on the assignment of baking a wedding cake for a friend from work. Like, a proper one. With tiers and whatnot.

I expect I was asked to undertake this sort of thing due to the success of a cake I baked for another work friend, Juliana, who was married this summer. Observe:

It's the one in the center. I used the red velvet recipe from the NYT, which was actually from Elisa Strauss's (a fellow Vassar girl, whom I've met and who's lovely) Confetti Cakes cookbook. Let me tell you, it is divine. Better than (and I hate to draw lines in the buttercream here) the Cake Man Raven's Red Velvet (sorry, Raven, more cocoa makes it better). The cake was three layers, a deep red with a perfect soft texture and moist crumb. My mother backseat-iced the cake, and had the brilliant idea of decorating with nasturtium flowers, so it turned out beautifully.

Anyway, it was pretty and delicious, if I may be so bold, and I'm sure that combined with my willingness to bake for the sheer joy of focusing deeply on a rather precise task, led to Rosamund putting aside my inexperience and asking for me to think about baking up a wedding cake all proper-like. Think about it? I confess, I spent a good half hour in the wedding section of the bookstore, flipping through photos of cakes and I was sold. The precision involved in putting together a tiered cake, icing it, AND covering it with fondant (so smooth and pretty!) is almost more exciting than I can handle.

Today I endeavored to experiment a bit with a cake recipe. I haven't found a published recipe that stirs me, so I kind of tinkered with some existing ones. I'll elaborate more on the details of this experiment once I cut into the thing and eat it, but until then, here's the trial cake, just out of the oven:



The silvery band wrapped around the pan somehow makes the cake rise straight and remain relatively flush on top when you pull it out of the oven. I have no idea how, but I'm loving it (though it does mean fewer cake scraps to eat whilst icing). Also, I got a bottle of "Cake Release" from A.C. Moore (a wonderful and slightly terrifying store), which appears to be made of liquid genius, as the cake popped right out of the pan with no fuss and no leavin's to speak of.

Stay tuned for more photos as the practice cake and the real deal progress.

mm mmm good.

On my days off, I try to do a bit of cooking. A stew, some cookies... something to exercise the stove and my culinary mind. I'm thinking about imposing a sort of Iron Chef challenge upon myself (a couple of ingredients and away I go) one of these days, to start getting a little creative. Then perhaps I'll post the results here...

Anyway, here are a few pictures of my latest kitchen efforts.


One of the many benefits of a giant stove, is the ability to roast all of your Anaheim chiles at the same time. These little beauties later went into a beef stew.
















Here's a Guinness Gingerbread, set to cool on the empty beer bottle. I've had a request for the recipe, and I wish I could take credit, but it's from epicurious.com. I tend to use the bundt pan,
because it's pretty, but a loaf of it would be easier to transport to parties or potlucks. I also double the amount of cardamom (duh). Also, since the recipe only calls for a cup of stout, you get to drink the rest of the bottle (a nice perk).















Stay tuned... I've been cooking up a storm for an upcoming house party, so I'll be posting pics of those things eventually.

Garlic: It's what's for dinner.

Well, it's been too hot lately to eat, much less cook, but a slight break in the heatwave yesterday allowed an intrepid group of Brooklynites to enjoy the fruits of the Union Square Greenmarket.

I tied on my Küchenchef apron, and with the very capable sous-chef Mr. Chris, I produced this:


The dark romantical lighting doesn't really do justice to the colors, but it was a rather tasty Free-Form Polenta lasagna with broiled vegetables (I got the idea from a Food Network recipe, though I didn't really, you know, follow it).

The most exciting thing, to me, was the tomato sauce. I found some gorgeous vine-ripened tomatoes (they actually taste of tomato... it's quite remarkable) at the Greenmarket, and broiled them with some garlic scapes (just the bulbs... it seems as though you can use the stalks for things, but I'm a little nervous about it... they seem really woody), salt and pepper and a bit of olive oil. Then into the blender for a really nice sauce that works at all temperatures.

The garlicky flavor of that sauce combined with a garlicky pa amb tomàquet starter and we had the stuff leaking out of our pores (basically, we were creating my father's personal hell) by the time we moved to the movie portion of the evening.

The feature was Black Orpheus, which was good, though I fell asleep about halfway through. Luckily, I was awake for the impromptu Carnivale-style dance party around Seth's apartment.

In spite of a shower, vigorous toothbrushing and listerine-ing, I was still feeling steeped in garlic this morning. Awesome.

But dinner was a success (many thanks to Claire for taking the cameraphone picture). There's something to be said for vegetables straight from the farm, even if they are a little pricey when you add it all up.

Next time, I'll roast peppers myself (couldn't find any and had to go for the jar...), and try out more layers with some fontina cheese. Also I'd make way less polenta (we're now drowning in the stuff... and a full pot of boiling polenta could result in injury, like a drop soaring out of the pot and hitting your foot and causing you to dance around the kitchen cursing.. not that I'd know about that). Also a eensy bit less garlic. Hoo-boy.

Jesus my back hurts.*

Let's take our mind off it by remembering the weekend of Toby (who documented the antics rather well, I think... as did Josh.).

A highlight for me was our afters gathering, at which time I (in spite of having consumed many beers beforehand) wielded a blender and skillet quite handily to produce life-restoring crêpes. Now, I'm not given to bragging about too many things (driving instructor ability is one), but I make some damn fine Frenchy pancakes. I think it's the Québécoise ancestry (while the Irish ancestry allowed me to soldier forth to make said crêpes without being hampered by alcohol). Granted, my flipping could use some work, but they still taste pretty great.

This is an amusing photo, taken by Toby, of the chef enjoying the fruits of her 3:30am labors:

Lest there's any confusion, we did not set out a chair for Gus. Rather, he stole it from Deirdre after she was lured away by Obie's feline charms (or possibly the crêpes... either way). Of course, I find it a bit creepy that he and I are displaying the same rapt attention in the same direction. Either someone was talking to us, or there was a giant piece of packing tape stuck to the wall (Gussy loves his packing tape... it's his favorite snack to barf up on my floor at 5am).

Anyway, it was a good night. I was only experiencing mild back pain then, whereas now I feel as if my right arm is being ratcheted up to my temple via the scapula. Unpleasant. Et tu, Aleve?

_____
* Also, I'm a hack.