Pumpkin Cake: "Rose's Heavenly Cakes" Cookbook

For Thanksgiving I wanted to take a cake to my parents' house. Nothing fancy or sculpted or fondanted (yes I know that's not really a word). Just a yummy cake. There had been a cake I had been dying to make for awhile from one of my newer cookbooks: the "Pumpkin Cake with Burnt Orange Silk Meringue Buttercream" from "Rose's Heavenly Cakes" by Rose-Levy Beranbaum. If you don't have a copy of this book or Rose's "The Cake Bible" you really owe it to yourself to get them. The recipes are wonderful and the books are just packed full of baking knowledge. And my favorite part? Everything is given in weights!!!! YAY!!! I use my kitchen scale as much as possible- way more precise than using measuring cups and less dishes to do. Her website is realbakingwithrose.com; here you can buy her books and there is a wonderful advice forum as well.

I also figured this cake would be a good opportunity to use the Bundt pans that I purchased a few years back and never actually used. I bought them on impulse because they were marked down to $1.25 each at Wal-Mart; I got three.

Usually I am very good at reading recipes through, and setting up my mis-en-place. However, I had been stupid busy this week and when I started to put this recipe together I realized I had no walnuts, and no walnut oil. I skipped the walnuts and subbed peanut oil (The roasted kind that smells like peanut butter, not just the plain peanut oil for deep-frying) for the walnut oil. Here is my finished cake.

The main reason this recipe had jumped off the page at me were the words "Burnt Orange Silk Meringue Buttercream", but I was feeling extremely lazy and the buttercream in the book has three parts to it: making a creme Anglaise ( a type of custard), an Italian meringue , and then combining the two with orange juice concentrate and zest. Not this time- some other day, yes. Today, no. I had leftover ganache from other cakes so I warmed about 5 ounces up in a pouring measuring cup, and added a tablespoon each of Triple Sec and o.j. concentrate. This I poured over the cake as it sat on a cooling rack over a jelly roll pan.

The finished cake:

Can't wait to dig in!

Once again, if you enjoy baking, you won't regret buying Rose's books or visiting her website.

Rock Rock Rock Rock, Rock N Roll Birthday (or The KKK Took My Cupcake Away)

I have been looking forward to making this cake for awhile now. It was just my friend Joe's birthday last weekend; and he (and me too) Loves the Ramones:) As a matter of fact, a few years ago I made him this birthday cake:

This time I wanted to practice my modeling chocolate figures. While Google image searching I found these awesome figurines someone makes that I used as a guide. Click here to go to her Etsy store

First things first; board and ribbon. I was hoping to find something "punk rock", but had to settle for just black with white stitching; attached with double-sided duct tape

My original idea was to make the Ramones leaning against a building, like these album covers

Apparently they really, really liked standing by brick walls- go figure.
So I marbled some fondant a nice grey cement color and covered my board (I brushed a little corn syrup on it first). I think the corn syrup was  a bad idea and contributed to lots of air bubbles that didn't want to flatten out, even after being pricked with a pin

For the cake I made a pumpkin flavor with a Swiss Meringue Buttercream flavored with this goodness:

I had made an 8" cake which I halved and stacked to make my building. I put a little piece of double-sided duct tape under the board to attach to my turntable, as I knew this shape would be a real pain to frost

For my brick walls I used a red modeling chocolate, and cut a cardboard template for the size I needed

For texture I used this impression mat from Duff Goldman- It worked really well

To give it  a dirty, aged look I dusted it with cocoa powder

I moved the brick wall part to the cake using my cardboard so it wouldn't stretch out in transit

For the roof I used a trick I learned on Cake Boss- I wet the roof and sprinkled with poppy seeds and pressed them into the modeling chocolate



The constructed building- with modeling chocolate accents

At this point I tried to print out my reference pics, but the ink was bone dry so I had to move operations to my computer desk:(


Making the various Ramones

The dogs were bored and snoozing on the couch in the background

After the figures were done it was time to write Happy Birthday. I wanted it to look like spray paint- so first I painted it normally (using Americolor Super-White gel), then tapped the ends with one of those crappy craft brushes with the hard plastic bristles

The finished product; Hey Ho, Let's Go!

Ramones fans will note the 53rd and 3rd street sign

Of course when I was drifting off to sleep that night I thought of the perfect finishing touch- pigeons. So the next day I got out my modeling chocolate once again. First I pinched a blob into a pigeon-ish shape

Used my heart cutter for wings

And a teeny piece of orange for the beak

And voila! Pigeons

And completed cake, part duex

Here's me, Joe, and the cake

And here is the birthday boy with his mom, who has the same birthday (I always thought that was neat) and the cake I made her- which will have to wait for another post