HCB: Chocolate Apricot Roll with Lacquer Glaze

I thought I was going to have to pass this cake by this week.  

For the past 2 weeks, Tom and I have been hosting family that has been running away from the freezing weather up north and I been cooking up a storm – frankly I needed a break from my kitchen.

So I have no explanation as to why during my shopping trip for tomatoes and basil, I took a package of dry apricots and put it in my basket. I’m thinking that it was my subconscious that had the shopping list on my head for this cake since I read about it once it was posted in the list (Can you tell I’m a planner?).

So on Thursday, while making the fresh pasta for the lasagna, the eggplant dip and the Bolognese sauce I came across the apricots and said, why the hell not.

And soaking they went.  My reasoning was that even if I did not make it this weekend, I could start with the Lekvar (Apricot jam), save it and double up next weekend and put forth two cakes!

By Saturday, it was definite that I was NOT going to do this. 

On Sunday, after a huge amount of bad TV, I had a light bulb moment and talked my way into the kitchen, where before I knew it, I had pulled the book out and started to set the ingredients that I would need to complete the roll.

You would think that a roll will not be complicated, but with 5 pages long of instructions and basically 4 different steps to have the necessary components it was an undertaking.  But, after making it I realized that it was just lots of steps, but not difficult ones.  And after 2 weeks of "easy" cakes, I welcome the challenge.

I started with reading the recipe all over again.  Because, you know, sometimes “we miss” things. (Keep that statement in mind).

I padded myself on the back for having completed the Lekvar ahead of time on Thursday night, and while I could have gone with buying an apricot preserve, Tom convince me that the whole point of joining the club was to expand my baking horizon right?

Well, I’m so glad that I made this because the Lekvar was yummy-luscious. I followed the instructions to the letter and the only variation that I did here was that I also include a bit of lime zest (yes, we eat a lot of limes in my house) and that addition gave it a tart flavor profile that I totally loved. I have a feeling we are going to be eating this as much as we did the Orange curd.

The actual roll, or let’s just be fancy and call it by the “posh” name: “biscuit roulade”, was pretty straight forward.  Eggs, beaten with the sugar, in goes the vanilla extract, folding of flour and then whisk the eggs white to luscious peaks and fold that in as well.  Spread it on a baking sheet.  The only oh-oh moment was when I was pouring the batter unto the baking sheet and  thought I was not going to have enough to cover the whole sheet, but as always, Rose’s measurements were accurate and sure enough the whole pan got covered as it should.

Note to self: NEVER QUESTION THE MEASUREMENTS!

The bis-KWEE was ready in 8 minutes, and out it came, where I flipped it on a kitchen towel, removed the parchment paper and dusted the top with powdered sugar and rolled it snug as a bug in a rug.

Next up the apricot ganache and that was made pretty fast.  I used 60% chocolate, I raided my liquor cabinet and found that I had peach brandy in there (who knew!) so in it went and then I put it aside to cool off, after I took a couple of spoonful for a “taste test” of course.

While waiting for the ganache to “cool”, I went to the computer and sure enough, Raymond had his post up.  And when I saw how pretty the lacquer finish looked, I got in my car and headed to the supermarket to get the gelatin.

By the time I came back, it was time to work on the biscuit.  I’m unrolled it, spread the Lekvar, which had a great consistency, then the apricot ganache.  Since we were going to eat this that night, I skipped the syrup.  Once done, I rolled up back up all snug and put it aside.

I went to town with the amazing lacquer glaze.  

This is one of those things that look really super complicated to make and it’s so outrageously easy, you wonder how in the hell you never tried it before.

You cook the sugar and water together until the sugar is dissolved, then you add the cocoa powder, the corn syrup and vanilla and whisk away, even at this point it starts to shine. There was a point where I questioned the reason behind the need to pour it through a sieve, not once but twice.  But, since this was the first time trying this I was not going to leave any wiggled room for errors.

I started to pour it over my now roulade and I realized that I had missed a step.  Yep, in all my excitement with the lacquer glaze, I realized that I had not crumb coated it with some of the apricot ganache.

Damn!

I resume and figure it would be ok.

And it was.  The end product looked glorious!  I wanted to own a bakery right there and there just so I can showcase for all to see and admired and oh and ahh over it.

I settled with the praises from Tom and the little man.

Verdit:

Tom: “It has a distinct taste that I never had before, but it’s delicious. Love the apricot jam, against the dark chocolate.  Was there left over apricot jam?”

Me:  Once more Rose made a believer in me.  Mixing fruit, in this case jam, with chocolate it’s not the end of the world at all.  But, a whole other dimension on flavor, one, that I obviously have to try more often.

Plus, how can you not be “wow-ed” by that finish?

TWD: Toasted-Coconut Custard Tart

I have joined another baking group.  Because my life apparently is NOT complete, unless I'm baking (and cooking) 24/7.

This time is from Dorie Greenspan book, "Baking from my home to yours".  I had this book for a while in my cookbook library and have not even realized it was there!  This pretty much tells you how big my cookbook library is. So while I was cleaning up some the other day, I came across it and figure, there must be someone cooking from this book.

And sure enough, I found Tuesday with Dorie, a group of 200+ members baking their way thru the latest book.

This weeks choice came from Beryl of Cinemon Girl with the Toasted-Coconut Custard Tart. (page 344-345)

I been baking this tart since Saturday, I finished it today.  Can you tell I'm busy?

First up was baking the Pâte Sablée (Sweet Tart Doug) and let me tell you I was afraid of this, I love to bake cakes, but tarts, pies and anything that has to do with dough just scares me, I never been good at, thus I have avoided them like the plague. But, joining a baking club was to try new things and I was not going to back down, so I forged ahead.

The ingredients are pretty straight forward:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon of very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk, broken up with a fork
1 tablespoon lemon zest

In a food processor pulse the flour, sugar, salt and zest to break it up. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in. Stir in the yolk a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses - about 10 seconds each - until the dough forms clumps and curds.  Stop, turn the dough into a work surface and knead it just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escape mixing.

Butter a 9-inch fluted pan with a removable bottom.  Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of the pan.  A great tip that Dorie gives you is to save a bit of dough in order to utilized as a "patch-up" if the tart if broken during the cooking period which I think is very clever.  After you covered the baking pan, the tart goes into the freezer for about 30 minutes (or longer).  This freezing helps you with the baking: (no need to weight down the tart in the oven, because you froze the dough ahead of time).

I actually baked mine on Sunday.  Took it out of the freezer, covered with foil (shinny side down) and into the oven it went at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes.  It came out nice and golden.  I place it in a cooling rack and after an hour, I wrapped it and place in the refrigerator. I then did a happy dance around the kitchen, my first tart and it went without any incidents! 

After all that partying, I needed a break, so I decided to finish the custard and topping on Monday night.

And here we are on Tuesday and today I completed the tart.  Unlike Beryl, I did not replace the whole milk that the recipe called for (she used 1% milk) I also used Cacique Rum (Venezuela run) and used a bit of lime zest when cooking the custard (about 1 tablespoon) everything else is the same.  You can find the recipe for the custard and the whipped cream topping in her blog.

HCB: Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake

After last week scrumptious cake, I was not sure about the next one.  For the past 5 days, I been helping my sister with her business and basically been putting 14 hour work days.  I can not even see straight.  I was not even sure it would be safe of me to be around anything that required measuring and handling a hot oven.

I’m exhausted folks.  

By noon, today I was feeling antsy, because I remember that Tom had invited some friends over to watch the US vs Canada Gold medal hockey game and I had promise to served something sweet.

There went my vegetation plans.

I got home, read the recipe again and realized that I could have this cake done and over with in less than 1 hour. Plus, for once I actually had all that I needed in my kitchen, including the poppy seeds! 
I figure that Tom’s friends would love to have a cake that had opium in it. Side note: Don’t panic, the seeds contain very low levels of opiates, the most this cake can do to you is give you a sugar high.

And oh boy did it ever!

The cake was simple to make.  And yes, if you are wondering about repeating myself, yes, I am, about how simple Rose’s cakes are made… (Come back next week and see if I’m singing the same tune).  Or maybe I’m getting good at my prepping ahead of time, that when it comes to the actual mixing, it goes pretty effortless and fast.

Dry ingredients of sugar, flour, baking power, soda, the lemon zest (I added some lime zest as well) and 50 grams (1/3 cup) of poppy seeds.  And here I stopped and was WOW, FIFTY grams? I had to read the measurements again.  Really? That many?

My bottle was for only 35 grams!  What do I do now?

I bit the bullet and only put 35 grams in.  Hey, its not like anyone is going to count right?

Mixed it up for the required 30 second in the KA and then incorporate the butter, and the eggs, which have been previously whisked with the vanilla and sour cream.

Batter DONE!

I did not have a fancy pan, and I seriously thought of doing cupcakes, just to change it up.  But my tired mind was shutting down at this point with thoughts of having to subtract and add in order to figure out the ration of batter to cupcakes and all that, so I went with my boring, old bundt cake pan.

Place it in the oven, clicked the timer in the iPhone and went upstairs to catch up on Project Runway on my DVR.

And promptly fell sleep.

And no, I did not burn the cake.

Because, at 40 minutes my timer was beeping and I woke up to the house smelling all lemo-ny and delicious.

And when the cake came out of the oven, all of those smells seem to intensify.

Good things were coming.  Tom, started to shout from the living room “its it ready yet!?!”

I made the necessary holes all over the top, drenched it with the syrup, waited another 10 minutes and then did the flipy-floppy and on to the platter it went.

Another good dousing of syrup and ta-da!

The cake lasted un-touched 20 minutes, before Tom pounced on it, before his friends even arrived!

Verdict(s):

Tom: “I’m not taking this one to work, because It’s not going to survive the night”

Me: I like it and love the taste of the lemon and tartest of the sour cream. The books description that “it’s buttery and tender” its spot on. I thought I was going to be short on poppy seeds. But to be honest, I thought it was way to much to begin with in the first place. And in some cases it overpower the cake. Next time I’m actually going to reduce the poppy seeds (or do it without) and up the lemon zest.

And congratulations Canada on your win!

Full recipe can be found here