Beet cake for potluck

Back in 2013 I discovered that my family's carrot cake is perhaps even better when made with beets. The Benevolent Overlord thinks there is no reason to ever make carrot cake again unless made with beets. I have been hankering for a slice of beet cake, but given a desire to eat healthier, above all smaller portions and less sugars, I was not going to make a cake and have it hanging around the house. Bad idea. Bad. Luckily, the beginning of the semester came to the rescue: the Labor Day Departmental Pot Luck!

I love cream cheese icing, but decided I needed to jazz it up somehow. While the cake baked and cooled I did some happy Internet searching, and settled on a Honey Ginger Buttercream Frosting from GroupRecipes.com as the filling layer. As you can see I slathered it on nice and thick.

For the actual icing that I would use to ice and decorate the cake, I went with Wilton's Cream Cheese Icing. Instead of the orange juice I used ginger liquor, and instead of the grated orange peel I used dried ginger - grated ginger would clog the icing tips. An issue I had was the icing was highly volatile and softened much quicker than usual, even given the temperature or the room. As The Benevolent Overlord pointed out, alcohol has properties that will soften butter. Note to self - ginger liquor gave a fabulous flavor, but makes icing harder. 

Carrot cake is very crumbly, so I started with a thin layer of icing just to seal in the crumbs:

I edged the cake with a cheerful yellow basket weave - always fun to do! - and topped it with beets:

The color is obviously off, but here's a close-up of the beets:

I am particularly pleased with the beet tops. And you know, the beets I peeled for this cake did have a bumpy look, even if not quite so "dog turdy" in appearance as these. While doing the veins in the leaves, I managed to brush the piping at the top of the basket weave, which was already compromised by the heat/alcohol. There was no saving the edge without mussing it up, so I added a helpful caption in case someone was wondering what kind of cake it is:

Hah! The hosting professor's daughter was quite fascinated with how I got my elbow in the cake, so I got a story out of it as well. 

Over all, it was a truly delicious cake, even if I do say so myself. The beets and the ginger married beautifully, and everyone liked it. We got to take leftovers home, so we ended up having only two pieces, which is plenty. Yes, we had it for breakfast the next day. Decadent!

And here's the full view: 

I will definitely make this combo again, and am glad I discovered the ginger icing!

Carrot Cake

Honey Ginger Buttercream Frosting

Wilton's Cream Cheese Icing (with orange)

Fuzzband's Birthday - Featuring Cake!

My Husband had a birthday on Friday. Now, the problem when we lived in New Haven was that it was always too hot to bake and decorate a birthday cake for him. However, now we live in Cincinnati - in a house! - and we have air conditioning. So it is cool enough to actually, you know, bake AND spend hours playing with buttercream! This was a very drawn out process, but lots of fun!

The Process

1. I bought on-sale Malted Milk Balls at Easter.

2. Decide on a surprise birthday party and coral the guests. I decided on a very small gathering of friends from the area, although I did try to get The Best Man to come from Pittsburgh... Fuzzband has dreamed of a pot-luck appetizer dinner, so that is what I asked peeps to bring.

3. Monday, 5 days before B-day, I stayed home because I had a doctor's appointment, which I combined with lunch with my friend KR. She also took me shopping for ingredients for the B-day. The Fuzzband has the car, and it would have been suspicious if I had borrowed it. PLUS I got to hang out with KR! I had drawn a plan in my little memo book, "Dichtung und Warheit" - KR did not get it, apparently, but when she saw the cake it all made sense. The Fuzzband'd engineering mind grasped it immeidately when he saw it on the B-Day. Although by then he had also seen the cake....

4. Wednesday I had a dentist's appointment, so once again I stayed home. And baked meringue, using the Joy of Cooking's Meringue I recipe.  I left them in the oven, hoping Fuzzband would not get inspired to use the oven. The gamble payed off!

5. Friday, B-day. I stayed home on the pretext I need foot X-rays. My medical issues sure have been agreat for excuses not to go to the office and prepare for the party! While I did figure out where I need to go for X-rays of the sore foot, (the joys of the US health care system! Aaargh!) I actually spent most off the day in the kitchen with the Birthday cake:

The meringue had gotten a bit sticky on the surface, so I turned the oven back on and dried it out. Worked like a charm! Must remember for future reference.

While first aid was going on for the meringue, I made chocolate ganache from our Chocolate cookbook - it goes with Stephen's favorite dessert, their Tropical Fruit Vacherin, of which there is a photo on Facebook. I also melted the chocolate for chocolate buttercream - Wilton's recipe - to be mixed with whipped cream for a less sweet and lighter filling. While those were cooling I baked the Devil's Food Chocolate Cake from The Joy of Cooking.

This is what I turned out in the end:

I googled some molds to make my own three dimensional fish cake topper, but came across a tile design, which had a neat textured relief thing going. As it is flat, it would also mean I could make a higher cake!






I wanted to make the sides have a sort of under the water vibe. They're supposed to be water grass and the Malted Milk Balls are bubbles or rocks in muddy water. :

Fuzzband really liked the cake! Yay! Everyone else did, too!

Below you can see the layering: chocolate cake at the bottom, then meringue, chocolate cake, and topped with meringue. There were Malted Milk Balls between they layers. I put the meringue at the top to get a super smooth top and no crumbs. Fuzzband is not big on buttercream icing, so I filled the cake with chocolate ganche flavored whipped cream, and did my very best to have as thing a layer of buttercream icing. Having a top layer that does not release any crumbs makes this easier. Please take a moment to admire the thin layer of icing at the top - the chocolate layer is ca 1 mm thick, or less in places, and then there is the colored buttercream icing - and sprinkles to make the fish glisten! KR and I picked those out.

The Surprise: Friday!

On Fridays we often go out for Mexican, so to keep the Fuzzband at home, we came up with a plan that our friend MF was coming for dinner - she lives a bit further out so this is rare enough to warrant a Special Occasion. I also told the Fuzzband that I had told her of our new meal plan - The Fresh20 - and had mentioned the black bean quesadillas on the menu for this week, and that she was excited, so I would make those for her on Friday!

The plan was that our friends the Ms and KR would just pop in around 6 pm and as the Fuzzband opened the door, they would say "surprise" and hand over their appetizers. HOWEVER! Once MF had arrived, I noticed we were out of toritllas, and thought "Shit! Now he'll have a good excuse to go out!" but instead he offered to go to the store to buy more! Woot! Off he goes. The Ms and KR arrive at the same time minutes after the Fuzzband left, KR parking partially in front of our driveway as she always does, thinking the Fuzzband was at home. I told her Fuzzband would be irritated first, but then realize what the situation was, and she should help set the party up and not move the car. So, we pull out the table to make it bigger, set it with cheerful napkins in the birthday boy's favorite color - green - and set it up with all the appetizers everyone had brought!

The Fuzzband gets home, and as he comes into the kitchen from the garage (the guests were hidden behind the corner in the dining room) he's griping "Somebody has parked partially in front of our driveway! I would like to let you know I did NOT spit on the car"!!!! He walks into the dining area and  - SURPRISE!!! He was completely surprised! And delighted! And speechless! And his griping about the offending car was not only hilarious, but he completely forgave KR. I was a bit worried he's recognize the car, but luckily he did not. An absolute success! Thank you, gang!

Everything was delicious: Ocra and veggie patties; prosciutto, melon and goat cheese canapes; chile-cheese dip and tortilla chips; quacamole; Italian orange and egg salad; potato veggie salad; and potato chips and Amerikan Dippi from Finland we love, and had told the Ms and KR about the previous weekend. I had made a HUGE pitcher of Singapore Sling. The Fuzzband loves it, and he was born in Singapore!

It was a lovely evening of chatting, laughter, and a garden and compost tour for the gang.

Other things we did on the B-Day weekend: Saturday!

We drove south to Kentucky, and had lunch: our first visit to Chick fil A! We've been getting their calendars from family friend sin Maryland for years, ever since the chain came out with a Cows in Shining Armor version. The calendars are all about celebrating the glory of cows, so we should all eat more chicken to spare these noble beasts!

We went to the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky - Kentucky is gorgeous!

On our way back to Cincinnati we wen't to Miyako's in Crescent Springs for Hibachi dinner. Crescent Springs is just across the river from Cincinnati in Kentucky. 

When we got home, the Fuzzband's newest hobby of ax collecting was initiated with the arrival of this beauty:

Isn't he handsome, this Canadian lumberjack of mine?!

We capped the B-day celebrations with cat-sitting our neighbors' cat, Zoey, eating cake, and watching Call the Midwife on their Netflix. Lovely!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOVE!

The Cake that Beet Carrot Cake

Once upon a time, my Fuzzband and I were hanging out with friends, and somehow we got on the idea "what would happen if one substituted beets for carrots in carrot cake"? This is of course a question undoubtedly many have had over the years. 

I love, love, love beets. Love them. Love! So I decided to test this theory at the first opportunity:

And because I know everyone wants to see a close-up of the cakes pre-baking:

Yes - that is the Pepto-Bismol pink batter, ready to go in the oven! To maximize the oven-usage on a hot summer day, I roasted the leftover beets at the same time.

Disappointingly, the baked result is not as tantalizing a color:

Seriously. Not pink? No. 

As this was an exercise in test-kitchen hysteria, I resurrected some cream cheese icings from the freezer and iced the loaves to take to an evening with the same gang of friends. I believe shooting a BB-gun from inside the apartment at a target on the patio was involved later in the evening...

At the top left is featured my spiral bound recipe book that I put together to take Mother's (and other peep's) recipes with me when I moved out from my parents' place. Since then it has moved to Rome, Canada, and now Connecticut. The Carrot Cake recipe I revamped was my grandmother's. It is without a doubt the best Carrot Cake recipe in the world. Despite this, my husband has declared that the Beet Cake is the better of the two, and asks: "Why should we ever make Carrot Cake again?" 

It is true: the Beet Cake is delicious! Not unlike Carrot Cake, but earthier, and a bit less sweet. Everyone at the dinner loved it, and our friend LH swore repeatedly that night, and later in a 100% sober state, that it is her favorite cake EVER! She asked me to make one for her birthday later in the summer. I, of course, did, but added some cake decorating flare:

Yes, it is cream cheese icing, and it was very much appreciated. Several people have asked for the recipe, so here goes:

1,5 cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp soda
2 tsp baking powder
3 cups grated beets
(1 cup raisins or nuts - optional)

0. Heat the oven to 175 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit)
1. Beat the oil and sugar until pale and fluffy. Or until you get distracted...
2. Blend and sift the dry ingredients (I never sift, and barely blend...)
3. Mix the sugar-oil goop with the dry ingredients.
4. Add beets (and raisins and/or nuts)
5. Bake for 30 mins, or 1 hour in a tube pan. When a wooden tooth pick comes out clean, it is done.

Slather with your favorite cream cheese frosting.

Enjoy!

Boobies!

Men like breasts. I will not even qualify that with "heterosexual" - some of the men I know most interested in breasts are in fact not sexually attracted to them in any way. The bra discussions we have had... You know who you are...

Anyway, I have a cake pan that is meant to make the dress portion for a princess cake. I have made a nun cake with it. Now, obviously they beg the thought: "two of those would make great boobies"! I just needed the excuse. Of course, I am married, so by "excuse" I mean time, place, inspiration, and temperature have to come together. My Fuzzband's birthday is in July, and there is no, I repeat, no baking happening in this apartment in July. But never fear! I have friends! Not that I need to wait for a birthday, but it adds solemnity to make a special cake. Wait, I just used the word 'solemn' in a post titled 'boobies'... Nevermind.

Back to cake. My friend JG happens to be heterosexual, and like boobies. Other things he likes are food, baking, cooking, beer, compost, outdoor toilets, crass jokes, whiskey, and his wife, also a J, but JW (or JayDub as my Fuzzband sometimes says). My kind of guy! To make the combo even more precious, JW is a dear friend who has helped me though some tough times, like qualifying exams. 

For JG's birthday last May I decided to make him the boobie cake! Some investigation (I have connections!) told me he is very fond of caramel. I also happen to know he likes whiskey. My friend AR once made a DIVINE cake (recipe from our friend LB... It is complicated, I know...) with butterscotch and whiskey. It is really something else. I have also made it with a maple buttercream frosting that caused another friend, AV, go into some kind of epileptic spasms... Instead of maple, I decided to use whiskey and caramel as my themes.

Hence was born the whiskey butterscotch boobie cake with caramel icing:

 Two cake batters baked in form later - you can see the butterscotch chips in the cake. You can also, just, see the holes in the tops of the cakes - that is where a hollow aluminum rod is screwed into the cake pan to ensure cooking the center of the "skirt" cake evenly.

 I forget what we were drinking, but it must have been good - JW's camera angle is wonky...

 Note the Jack Daniels bottle on the counter...

 J testing the caramel buttercream frosting.

 Marachino cherries add the final (realistic?) touch. You can tell the smoother boobie was done by the then fiancée of JG, JW. We had a blast - girly time spent to make one fiancé a happy camper! Officially we were studying - bootcampage as we call it! Hah! Little did HE know!

 The happy birthday boy!

One half consumed boobie. 

I have a serious crush on JG's sense of humor. And of course the cake was perfect for bringing out the best (worst?) in everyone present. Several at the party were part of my friends collectively called "friends from Church" - a Church they go to regularly, and we sometimes crash, but still. They are some of the most upstanding citizens out there, and wild and crude humor is brought to the group by yours truly, and JG. So imagine my delight when CB, who does cuff links like few others, commented that my cleavage is delicious! I almost peed myself laughing. It was great! 

Guy Fawkes Cake

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

I have just finished a conference paper, so to reward myself I am going to throw some more photos up here. This time baking! The poem above is famous from the movie V for Vendetta, starring Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman from 2005. But contrary to what movie goers might think, this is of course a much older tradition. 

Guy Fawkes is celebrated on November 5th, traditionally by burning a Guy Fawkes effigy. Why was Guy so disliked? Well, he tried to blow up the British Parliament in the so called Gunpowder Conspiracy. This did not make him popular, and the day has become fixed in British memory as something between celebrating justice, reminding people what happens to match happy anarchists, and of course all about burning things! Yaah! And really, who couldn't get behind that?

A friend and colleague of mine threw a Giy Fawkes party in New Haven last November. Of course  we went! I even brought a little effigy of things in my life that needed to be burned. I also brought a theme-cake:

 Yes, it is a gunpowder barrel shaped cake. The cake itself is a chili-chocolate cake, and the icing is chili-chocolate buttercream. The iron bands, and rivets, are fondant. 

 The exposed "gunpowder" was black buttercream with chili sprinkled on top for gunpowder discoloration effects. 

I love, love, love the rivets! I also really like the recipe, which I would post, but it is at home in New Haven, and I am now elsewhere. My husband is not crazy about the chili-chocolate cake, which mystifies me. He is the chocoholic in our family, after all. For the party, however, while I brought themed dessert, he brought themed facial hair:  

Compare:

Image source: Geek Alerts, Gadgets for Geeks

Now, let's see if I can read this conference paper in 20 minutes...

Bridal Butterflies!

One of my very best friends - and really, Grad School is worth it even just for the friends - is getting married! In Australia...

Fair enough, she and her fiancé are Australian, and it makes sense to get married back home. I know it will be an amazing wedding, and I really wish I could go. But we cannot have everything we want in life. However, some of us did throw her a bridal shower today! And by some of us, I mean three did the organizing and most of the cooking, and I hosted. And made cupcakes! It was a lovely party, thanks to the amazing women present! Many could not come, but know that it was awesome and we missed you.

Now, as I have a 30 minute conference paper on saints and medieval marriage theology to write, I am posting about the said cupcakes as I wait for a decadent number of Kir Royals (and that Wikipedia page is an example of semi-useless to be proud of!) to clear my system...

First I made Hummingbird Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook: Coconut, banana, pineapple cupcakes. I left out the toasted walnuts as I am allergic. The Bride is not, but whatever, she loves me enough not to want me to die at her shower. 

Then I desiccated ca 3 mm thick pineapple rounds. It took hours longer than the recipe called for, but how productive could I be: desiccate pineapple, write paper, clean bathroom, do dishes, pilates...

To give the pineapples the right floral shape they are set for the final dry in muffin tins.

 

One of the ladies brought over her cupcake stand, and here I have added cream cheese frosting to the baked good.

 In case you were wondering where the pineapple flowers go.

I then added these fabulous edible sugarpaper butterflies from Sugar Robot off Etsy.

Shameless plug for Sugar Robot! Friendly, quick, lovely! Edible!

Same cupcake tree, two different lightnings and angles.

The Beautiful Bride! (with cupcake)

Runebergstårtor

Vårt land, vårt land, vårt fosterland,

ljud högt, o dyra ord!

Ej lyfts en höjd mot himlens rand,

ej sänks en dal, ej sköljs en strand,

mer älskad än vår bygd i nord,

än våra fäders jord!

Din blomning, sluten än i knopp,

Skall mogna ur sitt tvång;

Se, ur vår kärlek skall gå opp

Ditt ljus, din glans, din fröjd, ditt hopp.

Och högre klinga skall en gång

Vår fosterländska sång.

"Fänrik Ståhls Sägner" - "The Tales of Ensign Ståhl"

Johan Ludvig Runeberg

(1804-1877)

Johan Ludvig Runeberg died 100 years before my birth - who knew? Well, I probably learned it in elementary school... The stanzas above form the opening to the national romantic poem Fänrik Ståhls Sägner. In the 1840s the verses were put to music by Fredrik Pacius. This song is the national anthem of Finland. Traditionally the first verse is sung in Finnish, the second in the original language, Swedish. Swedish is the second official language of Finland. Runeberg was actually born in Sweden, but as the part of the country where he lived became the Grand Duchy of Finland after the Russo-Swedish war that ended with the peace of Fredrikshamn in 1809, he is considered Finnish. Oh, and the Grand Duke of Finland was the Czar of Russia - what we call a "personal union" in historian circles.

So, why am I rambling on and on and on about J.L. Runeberg? Well, partly out of patriotic whatschumacallit, but mainly because February 5th was the national day of our national poet, who is.... Runeberg!!! And of course the best thing about any national holiday is that it comes with a pastry! The Runebergstårta (Runeberg tart) is my favorite pastry in the whole world:

The Wikipedia article for the tart is not total crap, but it does not of course convey the deep emotive and sensorial love I have for this pastry. Now, the original ones are tall and comparatively narrow. We would hollow out the core and fill them with raspberry jam. Some day I will have proper Runeberg tart molds, but for now I am making due with muffin tins:

 

I still hollow out the center and fill it with raspberry jam, but now I no longer break off the bottom part and eat it from a bowl with milk. Now I eat it like an adult - with tea! And I moisten them with Amaretto, when I can. Amazing! 

I thought I would include the recipe, especially as it has some Family History. Which I may get wrong....

So, when Mother moved to Finland, my great aunt, aunt-Marita, took this poor foreign woman under her maternal wing. Moster Mita (as we said in Swedish) was this amazing woman who kept bees, had a great sense of humor, loved people, and was just all around as delightful an old lady as you could hope to be related to, or named after! She passed away when I was pretty young, but I have fond memories of her, and really wish I had had the opportunity to get to know her better. The summer cottage (tm, Finnish cultural institution beyond compare) that my family calls home was originally built by Moster Mita and her husband, Ivar. It is the center of the universe - did you not know? Anyway, Moster Mita gave Mother this recipe for Runeberg Tarts, and it is the best recipe, as far as I am concerned. This is corroborated by the evidence that several of my friends have asked me, myself, and I, for the recipe, selecting it above other available recipes. It is probably from some 1950s magazine or something, but whatever. 

I have doubled the recipe, because the original amount just makes me unhappy and leaves me unsatisfied. Yes, I LOVE this pastry!

Runebergstårtor

2 eggs

2 dl sugar

2 dl whipping cream

1 dl almond meal (I grind my own here in the US)

250 gr butter, melted

4 dl bread crumbs 

3 dl graham flour

1 tsp baking powder

On top:

raspberry jam (I prefer seedless)

powederd sugar

water

punch, arrak, rum or amaretto

butter for greasing the molds

1. Beat the eggs and sugar frothy.

2. Mix the dry ingredients.

3. Melt the butter.

4. Mix the eggs and dry ingredients, then add the butter.

5. Whip the cream stiff, then fold into rest of dough.

6. Gloop into greased molds. The dough does not really change shape, rise or collapse. It makes ca 16 muffin bottoms. Do not pile high - you want a neat surface for the jam and icing!

7. Bake at 200 C (392 F) for 18-25 minutes.

8. Let cool. When they have cooled spoon out a dent of desired diameters with a teaspoon or apple corer. 

9. Moisten with alcohol of desire, to sogginess desired. I use Amaretto as it adds the almondiness. I sometimes dilute it with maybe a sixth of water, but sometimes not. Allow to soak in. Reapply if desired.

10. Fill the crater with raspberry jam.

11. Mix powdered sugar and water until a stiff icing is formed. You want it to be soft enough to melt into a uniform glaze, but still enough to keep its shape and not drip down the sides. 

12. Lie to people about how many you have so you don't have to share.

Enjoy!

Smaklig kaffepaus!

Teacup brought to me as a 30th birthday present by "The Gels", and the plate is part of a tea set given as a wedding gift by soon-to-be-Dr. Nielsen.

Fishy Birthday Cake

This is a birthday cake for the little sister of my CT godson a couple of years back. It was her 3rd birthday - as the candles tell us. She was big into fishing that spring, so this is what I made. The cake was a chocolate cake with vanilla custard filling. The icing is chocolate buttercream icing, and white buttercream icing. See the jellyfish?

The sailboat was origami art from real paper!

The "large sea mammals" were Swedish Fish candies (which are unknown in Sweden, by the way).

 

The breaching was accented by buttercream icing leaves in white - breaching waves!

Side view of the cake: a birthday squid!

 

 This was a fun cake to decorate, and a huge success! I think it was one of the most popular cakes when the photos of my cake decorating were up on Facebook.