Posted by Robyn Lee, July 3, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Photograph from 17 and Baking
If you're tired of the typical berry-dotted Flag Cake, Elissa of 17 and Baking has a creative Fourth of July dessert recipe for you: layered hidden flag cake! The flag, featuring an outer blue ring of cake, only appears when you cut into the cake. Elissa explains how to construct the cake and shares a recipe for cream cheese frosting. [via @bakingbites]
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Posted by Carey Jones, June 29, 2009 at 10:15 AM
At the Blue Bottle Coffee Bar, in the Rooftop Garden at the San Francisco MOMA, pastry chef Caitlin Williams Freeman sculpts desserts that model the paintings within the museum—like the Piet Mondrian-style cake pictured above.
Food is often called a form of art, but this cake is pretty incredible. What's the prettiest dessert that you've ever seen?
Posted by Robyn Lee, June 17, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Last year's Threadcakes winner by Vapidintuition, based on "Insomnia"
From now until August 3, people who love wearing Threadless t-shirts and designing cakes can enter the Threadcakes baking competition. Make a cake that best resembles a Threadless design for the chance to win great prizes—mostly t-shirts and chocolate! Check out the gallery of previous submissions at their website.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, June 12, 2009 at 6:30 PM
Photograph from snoboogie on Flickr
You really want a red velvet cake for your wedding, but you also want a model of the town square from Back to the Future? No problem: here's a Back to the Future-themed red velvet cake, brought to you by Caryn's Cakes. [via BuzzFeed]
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Posted by Robyn Lee, June 3, 2009 at 6:45 PM
In the battle between Cakedogg and Presentcat, everyone's a winner. Because you get lots of cake and presents! Puked forth from dogs and cats! Go to Paul Robertson's Livejournal for the full rainbow-spewing animated gif. (Warning: illustration of dogs and cats is SWF, but rest of artist's livejournal is NSWF.)
I don't get it, but I like it anyway.
Posted by Lizy Yagoda, May 27, 2009 at 7:15 PM
Photograph from ginnerobot on Flickr
A recent article in The Telegraph claims that cake baking is cool again, likening it to rock 'n roll. I didn't know it ever wasn't. I suppose this is saying that passions for baking and cakes are no longer restricted to fuddy-duddy spinsters, but now are cool for the masses. Hopefully this means more cake for me.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, May 24, 2009 at 1:00 PM
There's cake made with carrot and cake made with zucchini, so why not lettuce? Nicole Weston of Baking Bites shares a recipe for spiced lettuce cake bars, specifically made with iceberg lettuce, and spiced with cardamom and ginger. Don't worry; your cakes won't taste like plant:
The cake bars are pretty good, and you wouldn’t know that they have lettuce in them unless someone directly told you or you didn’t get a great "shred" and a few big pieces slipped into the batter. They’re moist and soft, with a good balance of chewiness and tenderness.
Make them and see if anyone can tell what your special ingredient is.
Related: Photo of the Day: Salad Dressing Cake
Posted by Erin Zimmer, May 15, 2009 at 7:30 PM
In anticipation of Where the Wild Things Are, the Spike Jonze-directed film adapting Maurice Sendak's children's book that will be released in theaters this October, this cake honors Moishe, the yellow-eyed monster from the story. Coco Cake Boutique in Vancouver baked the chocolate base and topped it with peppermint buttercream and fondant. Otherwise, it's just another cute cake with a face on it. [via We Love You So]
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, May 10, 2009 at 9:00 PM
Photograph from jasonlam on Flickr
It's good to know where your food comes from. This banana sponge cake clarifies the "banana" part. Jason Lam of Me So Hungry scored one at this office along with some other interesting Japanese snacks.
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Posted by Lucy Baker, April 9, 2009 at 5:59 PM
Though I'm currently writing a baking cookbook, I'm actually a huge proponent of healthy eating. Sounds like an oxymoron, right? Well it doesn't have to be. I may treat myself to dessert every night (my favorite indulgence is a brownie with a scoop of ice cream on top), but I also go running in the park every morning. It's all about finding equilibrium.
Lately, many restaurants and food companies have also started to honor the balance between indulgence and exercise. I'm thinking of places like Ubuntu, in Napa Valley, a community-focused restaurant and yoga studio. Conifer, a specialty foods company also based in the Pacific Northwest, is equally green-minded. Recently they partnered with the outstanding nonprofit Treeswing, whose mission is "to create environments the promote health and wellness, to protect and cherish childhood, and to facilitate a lifetime of healthy habits and healthy families."
Pretty cool, huh? Conifer has an extensive line of baking mixes called Canterbury Naturals. I decided to prepare the Chocolate Orange Pound Cake ($4.50) for this week's Mixed Review.
Continue reading »
Posted by Robyn Lee, March 23, 2009 at 8:00 PM
Uncle Mike's
Mike made a Roschach cake based on the Watchmen character by adapting this rainbow cake recipe. The result may not be symmetrical, but it's a creative way to get random ink blot-esque patterns.
Posted by Grace Kang, March 18, 2009 at 8:15 AM
Hot milk cakes, anyone? The name alone makes me want to try them.
Scented with a hint of nutmeg, these cakes, on the blog Baking and Books, hold together whipped cream and macerated strawberries to create a tasty alternate take on strawberry shortcake.
With a "light, fluffy interior and thin, sugary crust," these would still be good by themselves if you don't happen to have fruit on hand.
Posted by Grace Kang, March 16, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Next time you give notice, say it with a cake. W. Neil Berett's resignation letter, piped on to a sheet cake, was apparently "delicious and well received."
Dear Mr. Bowers,
During the past three years, my tenure at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has been nothing short of pure excitement, joy and whim.
However, I have decided to spend more time with my family and attend to health issues that have recently arisen. I am proud to have been part of such an outstanding team and I wish this organization only the finest in future endeavors.
Please accept this cake as notification that I am leaving my position with NWT on March 27.
Who knew naval shipyard workers were so awesome at resigning?
[via Boing Boing]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, March 11, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Happy 50th, Barbie. The Telegraph reports that a 2.1 meter tall cake, the biggest Barbie cake in history, was displayed on the First Fleet Steps of the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Australia. That should feed all her friends and coworkers, as she's been a pediatrician, Air Force jet pilot, sign-language teacher, McDonald's cashier, Malibu beach bum, plastic corvette driver, and many other noble professions.
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Posted by Linnea Covington, February 23, 2009 at 8:30 AM
Photograph from joshmt on Flickr
I had never heard of a king cake until my roommate's parents sent her one from their home in New Orleans this past week. Although I didn't get the full experience (and nobody got the traditional baby in the cake because the bakery packaged the tiny plastic effigy separately), she did bring me home a slice of the green and purple sugar-coated pastry. Even after four days of sitting in her office, the cake maintained its moisture so I happily dug in. It had a briochelike texture and flavor and the inside was spiced like coffee cake, a nice surprise as it wasn't too sweet but was perfect for a breakfast treat.
There are a few different types of king cake, like the galette des rois, which looks more like a pie. The more traditional Mardi Gras version is usually shaped in a ring and topped with colored icing. You can get them stuffed with various things like cream cheese, dried fruit, or the classic cinnamon and sugar version. The three colors on top of the cake represent justice (purple), faith (green), and power (gold).
If you want to make one of these pretty, delicious cakes for your Mardi Gras party, follow the recipe from mardigrasday.com, a company claiming to have sold the first king cake online, or there's a good one by Cajun chef Ryan Boudreaux.
Just watch out for the baby—if you find him in your slice, you have to buy the cake next year.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, February 18, 2009 at 3:00 PM
Dispatches from the Island
In honor of the 100th episode of ABC's freaky series, the folks behind Ace of Cakes made a Lost cake to commemorate the milestone. Above are details from the island-shape creation. More photos on Dispatches from the Island, the blog maintained by Lost star Jorge Garcia (Hurley).
The 100th ep of Lost will air April 29; the Ace of Cakes one will air May 9. [via Neatorama]
Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 16, 2009 at 10:45 AM
From left: Lincoln Cake from bakinghistory.wordpress.com; Abraham Lincoln.
When you think of Abraham Lincoln, who would have celebrated his bicentennial this week, do you think of pound cake? This vintage recipe for Lincoln Cake found on the blog Baking History was first published in The Godey’s Lady’s Book Receipts and Household Hints in 1870 to honor the sixteenth president. The lemon pound cake doesn't have any overt Lincoln qualities, but sure looks tasty. [via Frederick Kaufman]
Posted by Grace Kang, January 30, 2009 at 7:30 AM
Sometimes I look down on fancy-schmancy desserts, but maybe that's because I'm secretly jealous of the baking prowess behind them. Helen, of Tartlette, makes a lemon poppy seed cake topped with strawberries, lemon mousse, and a candied orange peel.
It may look fabulous and intricate, but it's less work than you may think. She recycles used tuna cans to mold them, so don't feel like you need to go out and buy special cake rings. Alternatively, you could also just build the cake as a single 8-inch round. No excuses, this cake is waiting for you.
Posted by Robyn Lee, January 28, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Photograph from a.meadowlark on Flickr
Aleta Meadowlark of The Omnomicon teaches you how to make a psychedelic rainbow cake. "The cool thing is that if you're making something so distractingly colourful, people will think it's delicious no matter what," says Aleta. I agree; those vibrant, artificial colors have reeled me in.
Related: Photo of the Day: Rainbow Jell-O
Posted by Robyn Lee, January 27, 2009 at 6:00 PM
This epic Hello Kitty Zombie birthday cake made by Debbie Does Cakes is appropriate for the Hello Kitty hater who wants to see Hello Kitty dead, or the Hello Kitty lover who adores Hello Kitty even when she is sickly green and covered in maggots. More information behind this cake at Hello Kitty Hell. [via Neatorama]
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Posted by Grace Kang, January 23, 2009 at 7:30 AM
Alicia, of The Cupcake Forest, has one cool grandma. She always uses a heart-shaped cake pan when making this feather sponge cake. It's a little embarrassing, but I've been lusting after heart-shaped cookware for as long as I can remember. I mean, the more love the better, no? (I like to think I'm a less crazy version of Carla from Top Chef.)
Don't worry, Alicia makes a normal round cake, which turns out looking like a cloud from the best dream ever. Thank goodness this cake has plenty of love to share. It's filled with buttercream, crushed pineapple, and coconut. Frost with freshly whipped cream, dust with some more coconut, and you're set! If you have time to make the strawberry puree, do it. It adds a nice touch of color and love to the cake.
Posted by Robyn Lee, January 21, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Turn any letter or number you want into a blocky cake with the Alphabet/Number Cake Pan. The pan features 2-inch square blocks that can be rearranged in a 4 x 7 grid. [via How Blog]
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Posted by Grace Kang, January 15, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Sweet. Light. Juicy.
Leonor of Flagrante Delicia got it right with her clementine cakes. If you're searching for another refreshing treat after trying the clementine granitas, follow up with Leonor's recipe and take a look at her photo shoot featuring these clouds of citrusy goodness. I wish I could pop one in my mouth right now. With a touch of cream and a hit of fresh clementine on top, the cakes look and sound perfect.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, January 14, 2009 at 8:00 PM
From left: icing; frosting. Or is it the other way around?!
Is this an issue of semantics? Like jimmies versus sprinkles? And banana peppers versus pepperoncini? Cakespy says the terms are ultimately interchangeable, but a little research in Cake, the new Williams-Sonoma cookbook, proves "an icing is generally thinner and glossier," while frosting is "a thick, fluffy mixture, such as buttercream, used to coat the outside of a cake." Then there's glaze (oy!) which is more slippery and thinner than the other two.
Where do you stand on the debate? Don't fret too much. At the end of the day, our veins are full of sugar and happy cells.
Posted by Grace Kang, January 6, 2009 at 1:15 PM
Cindy, of Hungry Girl Por Vida, made an earlier version of this jam cake, but was heartbroken after dropping half of it on the floor. Sad faces all around. For her second try, she combined two different recipes and finally got to enjoy what she deserves. With a jeweled swirl of jam and a simple crown of confectioners' sugar, this is a "charming little cake, perfect for sharing or curling up." Looks like second time's the charm.
Posted by Kerry Saretsky, December 24, 2008 at 9:00 PM
"It’s something special. I go out of my way to make that."
In his new book A Year in Chocolate, Jacques Torres claims that the "bûche de Noël, a classic dessert of the French Christmas season, is quickly becoming an American tradition."
Torres has a history nearly as illustrious as the chocolate that is his medium. When asked to describe chocolate, he waxes didactic: it was traded as currency, used as an aphrodisiac, exalted as a food of the gods, and served as a royal exclusive. In his more than a decade as pastry chef at Le Cirque, Jacques created aphrodisiac desserts for royalty, that certainly traded for a lot of currency. In 2000, Jacques opened his own chocolate factory in DUMBO, Brooklyn, and has expanded his chocolate empire to downtown Manhattan, where he grazes on chocolate, a food that he extols as "loved by anyone" and everyone, all day long.
Christmas, to Torres, is about tradition. About sharing. About festivity. In his mind, it is classical, and should stand out as unique, and special. Jacques eats chocolate every day, but there is only one day a year when he eats the bûche de Noël, a roulade of sponge cake, pastry cream, and buttercream, sculpted into a representation of a Yule log, classically decorated with Dutch cocoa dirt, confectioners' sugar snow, and meringue mushrooms, to depict a wintry woodsy scene. Torres describes the log as "something festive, something you do only for the holiday." In France, the lines stretch long from the bakery doors on Christmas Eve, as families queue up to retrieve the bûche they ordered for the occasion.
Torres' memory of the bûche de Noël begins far earlier than his years as a patissier, a career that began at the tender age of 15. When Torres was a child, all his cousins and aunts and uncles would come together on Christmas Eve. They would begin dinner at about 9 or 10 o’clock at night, and feast on turkey. Just before midnight, the family would gather around the bûche de Noël, cut slices, and munch away, awaiting Father Christmas. At the stroke of midnight, he would appear—one of Torres' uncles picturesquely disguised for the moment—with presents, and soon the cake would be forgotten in the midst of wrapping paper. But for the moment, it brought the family together.
Continue reading »
Posted by The Serious Eats Team, November 24, 2008 at 1:45 PM
Words by Michele Humes | My last apartment was right down the road from Baked, so I've had many an indulgent breakfast at the bakery by the sea. As the proprietors themselves admit, many of their breakfast items blur the line between breakfast and dessert—but they're treats well worth indulging in.
Now that I'm no longer a short walk away from their many-flavored biscuits and mile-high cakes, I'll be relying on this week's Cook the Book pick instead. In Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, co-owners Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito share recipes for such firm customer favorites as cherry-studded Black Forest Cookies and Chipotle Cheddar Biscuits.
Each day this week, we'll be posting one of the team's signature retro-chic recipes. Pumpkin Whoopie Pies cry out to be served at a Thanksgiving gathering; Millionaire's Shortbread (sort of like a very large Twix bar) and Root Beer Bundt Cake, with their fresh twists on nostalgic flavors, are sure to please a crowd. The first of this week's recipes will roll out shortly, but first ...
Win 'Baked: New Frontiers in Baking'
Thanks to the fine folks at Stewart, Tabori & Chang, we are giving away five (5) copies of Baked. In the comments below, just tell us the dessert you enjoyed most as a child—and whether you've outgrown it.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 17, 2008 at 2:40 PM
Baskin-Robbins has a turkey cake which, fortunately, is supposed to taste like cake, not turkey. Instead of stuffing, there's ice cream inside (your choice of flavor) and those aren't turkey legs, they're sugar cones. Does this make anyone else really happy? Serves 12 to 16 mouths, and available at select locations for $37.58.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, November 10, 2008 at 7:00 PM
My, how far we have come in pirate cake pan innovation. That of yesterday, and pictured above, those of today. This new-age one is available from JCPenney for $31.99. [Hat tip to Jaden at Steamy Kitchen]
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Posted by Robyn Lee, October 13, 2008 at 6:44 PM
Photograph from franjmc on Flickr
Australian cake designer Fran made this awesome rainbow with a pot of gold cake for a seven-year old's birthday. Zoom in on the pot of gold for more detail. Fran explains that she made the gold coins out of thinly rolled icing that she cut out with a number 4 icing tip. After allowing them to dry, she shook them in a jar with edible gold dust.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, October 9, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Do you like video games, computer programming, and Star Wars? And cake? C'mon, geeks have to eat cake too. Geekcake is a blog reminding the sci-fi gamers who read Harry Potter and watch Jurassic Park while caring for ant farms, that some cakes exist just for them.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, October 4, 2008 at 8:00 PM
A cake for every occasion—literally. Even one that involves the legal split of two spouses, a complicated child custody battle, and mess over who really owns the furniture. Like a wedding, a divorce can be a celebratory event, and Divorce Cakes are that perfect way to untie the knot.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, September 30, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Every now again, you come across a warm dessert so appealing you swear it's "cool!" Now as the weather this apple-picking season itself turns cool, Kitchen Sink blogger Kristin offers a way to warm up body and soul with her Dimply Apple Cake, an adaptation of Dorie Greenspan's Dimply Plum Cake. According to Kristin, "This recipe is much like that black dress. It's unassuming and simple but, when the occasion is right, it's the perfect choice."
It's also rustically elegant. And tonight just might be the "right" occasion.
Posted by Adam Kuban, September 22, 2008 at 11:45 AM
Io9 blogs about a wacked-out cake-based sci-fi web show, Cakey: The Cake from Outer Space: "The show centers around Cakey, Duncan, and Duncan’s doubting, anorexic, transvestite father, who sees Cakey as nothing but a tempting, tasty way of jumping off the diet wagon. As you can guess, hilarity often ensues."
Posted by Robyn Lee, September 18, 2008 at 3:45 PM
Stick halved Twinkies in a Bundt cake pan full of chocolate cake batter and you end up with a Twinkie Tunnel Bundt Cake (from The Twinkies Cookbook) where every slice of cake has a Twinkie center. Unfortunately, the creaminess is lost during baking, but "the bottom of the cake does have an interesting brulée quality to it, where the cream filling escapes and crystallizes. " Check out more fun recipes from Al Dente Blog.
Related Gold Twinkies
Posted by Robyn Lee, September 12, 2008 at 8:00 PM
Photograph taken by Stephanie Shapiro
The 200-year celebration for Enoch Pratt at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library featured a special cake by star cake designer Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes. This edible stack of books included H.L. Mencken's The American Language, Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat, Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons, and Laura Lippman's Every Secret Thing, and was topped with a small figurine of Pratt wearing a suit and a birthday hat.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, August 1, 2008 at 8:45 PM
Photograph by M.A.L. on Flickr
Of all the videogame lovebirds, Mario and Princess Peach make a pretty cute couple. If my little brother grew up and married someone equally as obsessed with Mario Kart, this might be a cake contender. Here's a close-up of the cake topper, which sits on an elaborate castle, sitting on a planet, sitting on a mushroom forest. Mario's nose overwhelms his face so much his Princess can't help but smooch it. Hers, in comparison, looks pretty delicate—perhaps even cosmetically altered. I'll be curious to see what kind of nose the little ones inherit.
Posted by Robyn Lee, July 25, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Just because something is professionally made doesn't mean it's any better than what you could make. Or what a monkey could make. Out of garbage.
Cake Wrecks documents the worst cakes made by professional bakeries. Cakes that should have never been released into the public eye. Cakes that never should have been made in the first place. "Chuck Norris dosesn't cry..." is hardly the worst of them. What about this cake that looks like a dying, dried up lawn? Or this retina-scalding thing? Why do such monstrosities exist? I wish I knew.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, July 3, 2008 at 5:45 PM
For a long time I was more intimidated than excited by The Taste of Country Cooking, the late Edna Lewis’s remarkable account of the foods she ate growing up in a farming community called Freetown, Virginia. Her beautiful and evocative descriptions of a life so wonderfully attuned to the earth and the seasons seemed to preclude preparing her recipes with meat and produce from the supermarket; how could they possibly compare, and wouldn’t it be sacrilege? Lewis doesn’t try to make her reader feel that way—writing in 1976 she recommended Perdue chickens to those of us who can’t find better. But a supermarket bird hardly seems enticing when you’ve been reading about the antics of the chickens of Freetown.
Last March the Wednesday Chef described Lewis’s sour-milk griddle cakes in terms so tempting I had to try them, and thus I eased into this book with baking. My flour couldn’t be too terribly inferior, I guessed, and when breakfast is this yummy, you don’t feel guilty about not having picked and preserved the berries yourself.
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, June 17, 2008 at 6:15 PM
Measure your cake slice down to the millimeter with this serving plate. As the product description says:
With this plate, the concept of measurement is explored in a way to create a connection between the person and the object. For instance, when cutting cake or cheese, nobody will complain about having the smallest slice.
Oh, I think they'll still complain about having the smallest slice, because now it'll be even easier to tell who does. CAD$45, plus shipping, from uptoyoutoronto.com [via Boing Boing]
Posted by Emily Koh, June 12, 2008 at 4:40 PM
KitchenMaus over at Al Dente combined your regular joe cake with the birthday staple of cupcakes by baking this giant cupcake for her son's first birthday. In her test run, she originally frosted just the top, like any regular ol' cupcake, but as she says, "Who wants half the cake to have no frosting?! Is there even a point?" (Right on.) Which is how she arrived at this frosting-laden cake, complete with Necco wafers and a jumbo birthday candle. Toss out your bite-sized cupcakes and make your own gigantic cupcake with cupcake pans like the Wilton large cupcake pan.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 15, 2008 at 9:30 AM
Think you're pretty darn smart, do you? A regular baking Einstein, huh? Well, do think you can make a brain cake? If you're not exactly a rocket scientist in the kitchen, the step-by-step article How to Make an Anatomically Correct Brain Cake on WikiHow.com will walk you through it. The one shown here appears to be based on a chocolate layer cake with the gray matter made of marshmallow fondant.
Why would you want to make a brain cake? That's a question our crack research team is still trying to answer.
Posted by Lucy Baker, March 21, 2008 at 3:30 PM
When I was a little girl, I loved to bake cakes from boxed mixes. I had a babysitter who taught me how to stir the batter so that there were no lumps, and to slice off the top of one layer to make a flat surface. Even though she never let me lick the bowl (for fear of salmonella) I looked forward to the times when she would watch me, and late in the evening when my parents returned home I would insist they have a slice of my frosted, sprinkled sugar bomb before I went to bed.
In the years since, however, I've become a bit of a confectionery snob. When it comes to baking, I've always thought, if it's not from scratch it’s not for me. If you can make a whole batch of double-fudge brownies in 30 minutes, without ever breaking out a set of measuring spoons or a bottle of vanilla, then it doesn't really count as home cooking.
Continue reading »
Posted by Robyn Lee, March 21, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Candy Addict shares an idea for a cute Easter Bunny Cake that's easy to cut and construct. Your naked bunny cake is then a blank canvas for heavy doses of frosting topped with all kinds of Easter candy.
Posted by Robyn Lee, February 21, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Tokyo-based design magazine PingMag has a feature on the history and making of the Japanese snack cake ningyo-yaki, which translates to "fried dolls." These small cakes made by pouring batter into intricate molds—varying from Hello Kitty to a traditional lantern—are typically filled with red bean paste, but may also be filled with chocolate or custard. Grab a box on your next trip to Japan!
Can't get to the bakery in time? Use the cake writing generator to send your loved one an image of a cake with a custom message written in red icing. It's almost like the real thing, but without the calories! Or flavor.
Posted by Robyn Lee, October 30, 2007 at 6:45 PM
Not Martha shows you how to make crawly spider cakes for Halloween using various kinds of Pocky, snack cakes, sugar eyes and chocolate sprinkles. Spiders will never again look as freakishly adorable or taste as sweet.
Would you eat this cake? Sure, as long as the skull is made of flour, sugar and eggs and the blood is...not blood. Ignoring the cake's empty eye sockets and trickling blood while eating it may also help it go down more easily.
Posted by Robyn Lee, October 26, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Best Wishes Suzanne
Under Neat that
We will Miss you
Huh?
He told them to write: "Best Wishes Suzanne" and underneath that write "We Will Miss You."
That's what miscommunication with the cake decorators at Wal-Mart will get you.
Posted by Robyn Lee, October 15, 2007 at 6:30 PM
Mmm...giant donut.
After seeing The Food Pornographer's photo of a "Homer Passed Out Atop a Giant Donut" cake, I formulated a new life goal for myself: to one day sleep on a giant donut.
Related: Homer Cake #1.
Posted by Robyn Lee, October 10, 2007 at 7:00 PM
A wedding cake doesn't have to have ornate designs to be impressive. This M&M Candy Wedding Cake made by Dahlia's Custom Cakes uses M&Ms in a unique manner that gives the cake a pixelated look in addition to a candy-coated shell.
[via Candy Addict]
Posted by Robyn Lee, July 25, 2007 at 5:40 PM
To celebrate the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Badnewsbear and friends threw a party with what may not be the most intricately made cake but is one of the more unique ones. How often do the worlds of Harry Potter and lolcat speech combine? Not enough, not enough.
Posted by Robyn Lee, July 10, 2007 at 6:00 PM
If you want to stare at pictures of impressively labor intensive-looking cakes , you have Cake Space and Cake Magic to turn to. But what if you don't care about molded animals, carefully drawn cartoon characters, or fancy fondant flowers? Maybe you want to limit your cake viewage to those shaped like Xboxes.
Enter gamecakes. Besides Xboxes, they also have Nintendo, Guitar Hero, Pac Man, and...Chuck Norris. You can't not have Chuck Norris.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 27, 2007 at 1:15 PM
The photo from TeamSugar's recipe for molten chocolate cakes with fresh whipped cream is killing me; the recipe itself, not so much. I do love the teeny little wax paper cups haze1nut chose to bake the cakes in, they're a great idea and I wouldn't mind it if they caught on—but if you're going to make molten chocolate cakes why not use the original recipe from Jean-Georges Vongerichten himself?
(If you're not feeling JGV, Chowhound bakers pointed to their favorite recipes on Epicurious a few months ago, they all sound just as delicious.)
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 13, 2007 at 2:03 PM
Live somewhere with a large population of Irish descent? Chances are pretty good someone you know (or at least the bars around you) will be observing St Patrick's Day this coming weekend. If baking for holidays is your thing, you might want to try Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake (from her cookbook Feast), as every single blog post I've ever seen about it has raved on about how delicious it is and how it's quite possibly the best chocolate cake ever.
If Nigella's frosting of cream cheese, sugar and cream sounds too sweet for you, Maki Itoh makes an Irish Stout Cake with Whiskey-Sour Icing, having reworked a Gary Rhodes recipe and added the icing. I can't decide which one sounds more delicious so as a non-baker I guess I'll just have to talk someone into baking me both!
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 14, 2007 at 2:09 AM
Florence Fabricant explains why over 300 people (including 80 chefs) flew into Monte Carlo from all over the world to spend this past weekend commemorating the 80th birthday of the chef Paul Bocuse in Celebrating the Ringmaster of the Restaurant Circus: "Before chefs had their own TV shows and million-dollar book deals, when today’s international obsession with chefs and restaurants was in its infancy, Mr. Bocuse was on the cover of Time magazine as the champion of nouvelle cuisine. People knew his name when they could name no one else who worked in a kitchen. "He made it possible for chefs to be respected international celebrities,” said the New York restaurateur Drew Nieporent. "And he made haute cuisine popular. His restaurant was a pilgrimage destination, the way El Bulli in Spain is today."
Other highlights:
Eric Asimov visits Park B. Smith's wine cellar in Connecticut, an 8,000-square-foot space (with its own full kitchen, bath and dining room) constructed over 25 years that currently contains over 65,000 bottles. If that number boggles your mind, consider this: "More than half of Mr. Smith’s collection is in magnums, twice the size of normal bottles, and the count doesn’t include the 14,000 bottles auctioned off by Sotheby’s last November, which raised almost $5.33 million for his alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass."
In So Naughty, So Nice, Florence Fabricant talks discusses how red velvet cake is on the ascendance in New York City: "The layers are an improbable red that can vary from a fluorescent pink to a dark ruddy mahogany. The color, often enhanced by buckets of food coloring, becomes even more eye-catching set against clouds of snowy icing, like a slash of glossy lipstick framed by platinum blond curls. Even the name has a vampy allure: red velvet. "It’s the Dolly Parton of cakes: a little bit tacky, but you love her," said Angie Mosier, a food writer in Atlanta and a board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in Oxford."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 6, 2007 at 10:27 AM
"How do I cut a heart-shaped cake? Unlike standard round or square layer cakes that virtually have dotted lines for easy slicing, heart-shaped cakes leave me to my own devices." dessert comes first figures it out.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 5, 2007 at 10:05 AM
The ubiquity of the warm chocolate cake: "What started as a refreshing choice at a handful of restaurants is now becoming a de facto dessert at almost every restaurant - eclipsing the likes of such stalwarts as creme brulee and (gasp!) apple pie. (...) Mind you, I am not saying I don’t enjoy this cake a lot, I’m just saying that it is no longer a pleasant surprise and I think its time for chefs in the city to start thinking about how they could raise the bar on what has become the safe choice on a dessert menu."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 5, 2007 at 9:21 AM
Can't wait till June for an iPhone? Unwilling to spend $599 on one? Munch down on a cake version instead, like this one an Apple enthusiast was surprised with on his birthday. So nerdy!
[via Engadget]
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 2, 2007 at 9:27 AM
People really get into decorating cakes for their Super Bowl parties, mostly in the shape of footballs or football fields (or both), but the cake that's made me laugh the most out of all the ones I've looked at on Flickr has got to be this one:
You can bring it to any party in any year, even one with mixed team affiliations, and it still works!
P.S. Cupcakes decorated with footballs are pretty cute too.
Posted by Adam Roberts, January 16, 2007 at 6:53 AM
Nabokov once threw his manuscript for Lolita
in the trash. Stephen King did a similar thing with his manuscript for Carrie. In both cases, the wives of these authors dug out the manuscript, read it themselves and then urged their husbands to continue writing. If it were not for these women, these texts would be in a trash heap somewhere, smoldering into nothingness, suffering a cruel fate, the same fate that befell the chapter I wrote this summer about making a squirrel cake.
The chapter was for my book, which is based on my website, The Amateur Gourmet. It was a chapter about challenging yourself, about the way that cooking something complicated can motivate you to take big chances in life. The original idea was to make croissants, but that would've been too time consuming. Croissants require lots of resting. I didn't want to spend 36 hours making pastry.
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