Friday, March 20, 2015

Naked Lemon Cake

This was my first time making a naked cake!

I used the same lemon cake recipe I've used before, with a basic blackberry buttercream. This was baked in two 6" cake pans, so I made half of the usual recipe. I torted the layers, then layered them with the buttercream. I scraped the outside with a bench scraper to neaten the sides. I used toothpicks to attach the blackberries and floral wire to attach the dried lavender and carnations, then sifted powdered sugar over the whole cake.

Blackberry Buttercream
1 c. softened salted butter
3-4 c. powdered sugar
pinch salt
puree from ~.25 c. blackberries (sifted to remove seeds)
a touch of aqua food coloring to balance out the pink from the blackberries

Beat butter with the paddle attachment until it starts to look lighter and fluffier (3-ish minutes). Sift in powdered sugar in 3-4 batches and beat at high speed for 30-ish seconds after each addition. Add in salt, then the pureed blackberries. Adjust color if desired.



with dried lavender, carnations, and blackberries



close-up view

sliced!

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Mini cheescakes (and round up of other baking)

So, I've used up a little more than half of the flour. Only about 20 pounds to go!

Mini cheesecakes!

Today's baking was mini cheesecakes. I saw some gluten-free mini caramel cheesecake bites on Pinterest, so had to have a go myself!


Here is the recipe for those, also gluten free. I did not use this recipe myself, though.

Because I have a mini pie dish that makes four pies, I decided to make four different kinds of cheesecake. I used this Kraft recipe as my base (because their mini cheesecakes were the closest size I could find to my pie dish). Rather than making my own crust from scratch, I used Kinnikinnick graham crackers.

I used the New York style cheesecake variation from the Kraft website, which has you add a small amount of sour cream and flour to the cheesecake batter. The standard Authentic Foods Classical Blend worked well. After dividing the batter in half, I added the zest of half of a lemon to the half that would make the strawberry and blueberry cheesecakes.

Rather than making caramel from scratch, I just used a gluten free jarred caramel and added salt to it and sprinkled some pink Himalayan sea salt on top. The plain and the strawberry cheesecakes both have a sweetened sour cream topping. For the blueberry cheesecakes, I made a sweetened blueberry syrup that I added to blanched blueberries, then added the other half of the lemon zest.

Here are a few more pictures!


Pink Himalayan sea salt


So many kinds of cheesecake!


Blueberries were blanched so they would be lightly cooked but not mushy
 
And here are a few other things that I've baked in the time since I posted last:
 
An 8 layer red velvet cake. That might have been too many layers...


Snickerdoodle cupcakes



Hazelnut cupcakes with praline buttercream, chocolate ganache, and chopped hazelnuts


Okay, so it isn't baking. This is Loc Lac from the Elephant Walk's cookbook. Delicious!