Baking Frenzy

hey everyone..
okay heres the deal..its my mums 40th birthday this sunday and were having a surprise party for her..the thing is ive been chosen to bake her cake as aparently im the best cook..anyway i want to make something really special for her but dont know what.she doesnt like chocolate so i cant do that but i want something that looks pretty too..maybe with some icing and '40' written on it or something.

so i was basically wondering if anyone has some really good cake recipes(birthday cakes) that arent chocolate?could you post them up?and if you could add some pics that would be even better :) so i know what it should look like..
thanks
xxx

felician_logic and I were discussing the merits of a nice Pacific Island sweet bread. From what I know of baking culture in the islands, many of them were strongly influenced by Portuguese explorers coming and sharing cuisine. So I think this Portuguese sweet bread, usually baked for Easter but wonderful at any time of year, comes closest to a real Hawaiian sweet bread. When I was a kid we would make multiple batches, and make braided loaves that we would wrap in festive coloured plastic bags and deliver to friends on Easter. The loaf numbers and shape are strictly optional; I usually make more, smaller loaves.

The recipe was printed in the Boston Globe many many decades ago, and the author has been lost in the mists of time and multiple re-copying of the recipe.

Enjoy.


Portuguese Easter Bread
(6 loaves)

2 cups milk
1 cup water (for yeast)
4 packages dry yeast
20 cups flour
3 teaspoons salt
2 cups butter
12 eggs
4 1/2 cups sugar

THE NIGHT BEFORE: scald milk. Cool to lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in 1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees). Sift flour and salt into warm pan (rinsed with hot water). Work butter into flour and salt.

Add dissolved yeast to lukewarm milk. Beat eggs with sugar, add alternately with milk to flour mixture. Mix well.

Knead dough for about 20 minutes or until it is smooth and elastic. Place in oiled pan, turning ball over once to oil top and cover with a clean towel, and then with a blanket. Let rise overnight.

THE NEXT MORNING: Punch down dough, knead gently, return to pan and let rise again until double in bulk. (Do not skimp on rising time. This is important to produce a fine-grained bread.)

Divide dough into 6 portions. Form into loaves. Place each in a 9 x 5 x 3" loaf pan. Again, let rise until double in bulk.

Bake for 1 hour in a 325 degree oven until brown. Brush crust with soft butter upon removing from oven.

While not technically a "cookie"... it is more of a bar... they are fabulously indulgent, and so nice with a cup of strong tea. I add extra ginger, and extra molasses, and cut the sugar by about 1/3 cup.

2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup molasses
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon each of cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg
2 1/2 cups flour


Mix first six ingredients - add flour.
Spread in greased jelly roll pan ( 14"x10" or larger)
Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until toothpick comes out clean.
Cut into squares (or pretty diamonds, like I do) while still warm.

Sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar if desired.

I spent the afternoon making truffles -- well, the inside part of the truffles, anyway. They'll get dipped on Sunday.

I really don't have as many people to give chocolates to as I'm making, but I just enjoy it so much that I kind of couldn't stop. It's been awhile since I played with chocolate and, like people who are wacky for knitting or beading or tying flies, it's something that both soothes and exhilarates me.

Way back in the day when I was a pastry chef, I made truffles on a large scale and they were a pretty simple operation. Basic ganache -- chocolate and cream -- flavor, chill, roll, dip.

But I've seen so many recipes that add butter or corn syrup -- or both -- and I was curious to see what the difference in texture and taste would be. So I'm trying that this time, going with the following as a starting point:

10 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1 cup cream
3 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. corn syrup
2 Tbsp. liqueur/flavoring

(I assume anyone reading this blog knows how to make ganache, but if you don't then the technique is described here.)

Using that as the master recipe, I made three batches:

Raspberry (framboise liqueur -- each truffle will contain a whole raspberry)
Coffee (triple strength coffee and Starbucks liqueur)
Rum (Myers rum)

Despite intimate knowledge of what a royal pain in my ass it is to work with, I also made two batches of white chocolate ganache. Because of its high cocoa fat and milk content, you use less cream to make white chocolate ganache, and it's tricky getting something that's stiff enough to roll into balls and dip (at least it is for me).

I had a decent amount of success making white chocolate almond ganache, flavored with almond extract and finely processed, toasted almonds. It seems to be setting up nicely (fingers crossed) and each truffle will have a dark sweet cherry in the center and be dipped in bittersweet chocolate.

Then came the experiment. There always has to be an experiment.

Chai tea truffles.

I made a thick white chocolate ganache and added 2 tablespoons of Oregon Chai concentrate, plus 1/4 teaspoon each of cardamom, ginger, cloves and allspice.

Results: The tea concentrate may have thinned the ganache too much to make it workable for truffles (Oregon Chai also makes a powdered instant product, which would probably work well for this -- I admit, this was a spur-of-the-moment idea). I also ended up doubling the spices because I wanted it to really have a punch.

So ... I now have a dish of murky-looking goo in my fridge that isn't setting up very well but tastes absolutely divine. If nothing else, it's a kick-ass ice cream topping.

I think for my next attempt I'll try adding just the spices to bittersweet chocolate, since the tea flavor is such a soft background note anyway.

I'll post pictures after dipping them Sunday!

This morning's recipe is Mrs. Teddy Donahue's Lemon Cake, which I've actually seen in a variety of forms in other places, though this one uses more oil, adds a sugar-lemon glaze, and requires lemon extract and lemon zest. Seeing as how our neighbor has an over-abundance of lemons on her tree, it's a natch. So here it is:

Mrs. Teddy Donahue's Lemon Cake

1 box Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme cake mix
1 two ounce box of Jello instant lemon pudding
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 eggs
1/2 tsp lemon extract
2/3 cup Canola or vegetable oil

Glaze:
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp lemon extract
1 cup confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

In a bowl (I used the electric mixer for this) combine the cake mix an lemon pudding. In a measuring cup add the lemon juice and enough cold water to make 2/3 cup. Add eggs, lemon water, and lemon extract to the dry ingredients and combine. Pour in the oil and mix until smooth (about 5 minutes in the mixer).

Grease a bundt pan and pour in the batter. Bake for 45 minutes. While cake is baking, prepare glaze. Whisk all the glaze ingredients togethe rin a small bowl until smooth and set aside.

When cake is done, cool for five minutes and then invert onto a plate. Using a skewer or toothpick, pierce the top of the cake with 1 inch deep holes. Spoon the glaze over the cake and cool. Sprinkle with confectioners sugar or serve with fresh berries.

I got this recipe from a friend in the dinner_ideas community. Made it. Is fabulously evil.

This is her recipe, complete with her notes for success. As I do not make real cake, I used a Betty Crocker box.

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Here's a picture of my first batch of gingerbread people, from a week or so back. They've all been eaten, though, so I have to roll out, bake and decorate some more.

RIP, little guys. You were delicious.

I'm happy to report that my recent conchas recipe is indeed much better than the previous one. I think I would add a bit more flour to weight it down (again, I like a denser bun), but they came out exactly like bakery conchas.

I made only cinnamon ones, because, well, I like cinnamon ones.

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I apologize for how yellow my photos are; that is the colour of the kitchen and on overcast days like today there is no other light. So everything is YELLOW. Anyway. Much better recipe.

I admit it, I am a huge Nigella Lawson fan. I've never had one of her recipes turn out badly. So it was nice to see an article about her in the Times (go quick; it expires) yesterday, with a couple of recipes, one of which was Molten Chocolate Babycakes.

The babycakes recipe is a big fave of mine -- I made it for a dinner party a few months ago and it was a major hit, and super easy to make. I served it with fresh whipped cream (not too sweet, because the babycakes are really sweet themselves) and a few fresh berries. The cakes themselves are still good the next day, and freeze nicely, though of course they don't stay molten.

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As yet untried, but this one came with reviews from people who had obviously tried the other one and disliked the density.

More yeast, less flour, as expected.

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I may try this one out tomorrow.