Cakes – Part 1
I meant to blog about my cakes class somewhat regularly throughout the semester. I never seemed to be able to find the time. I also took another class that met on Saturdays from 8-2, so it seemed like a lot of my free time was gobbled up from classes. This next semester I’m only taking one class, so hopefully I will have a little more free time. I felt like the class was broken up into 2 categories: cakes I’ve never heard of or made, and then the classics that we did the last half of the semester.
Raspberry Linzer Torte - The first cake we made wasn’t really a cake, at least not in my opinion. But I guess it is a good thing to make for all of the very-un-experienced students in the class who had rarely (if ever) baked anything more than cupcakes from a box. There was quite a range of skill level among my classmates. The Linzer Torte has a shortbread crust with hazlenuts in it, and a woven-like top made with the same shortbread that is on the bottom. The middle usually spread with raspberry jam. I made this at home the following weekend for a party, and used up the rest of my lingonberry jam that I had bought in Sweden. We also learned how to use a cake ring instead of a cake pan. We use cake rings in class for all of our cakes. I like them better because you don’t have to flip the cake upside down to get it out of the pan after baking. That is always a stressful moment for me.
Apple Torte - We pretty much called all of the cakes that we made in the first half of the semester “tortes”. According to wikipedia, a torte is a cake that is made with eggs, sugar, and nut flour instead of regular flour. According to my cakes instructor, a torte is just a fancy name for “cake”. The apple torte was more like an apple-pie-cake. It had a shortbread crust and sides, a layer of vanilla chiffon genoise (fancy name for a sponge cake), and then an apple pie filling topped with more shortbread. The apple pie filling was made with instant modified starch, which is a thickener like cornstarch, but it is a cold-binding starch, which means that you don’t have to cook the starch for it to thicken. It just thickens with cold liquid (in this case, the water we used to blanch the apples with). I think that this torte looked pretty and I liked how it tasted. The shortbread crust was a little sweeter than ordinary apple pie crust. The torte was built and baked in the cake ring, and then the ring was lifted off once it had cooled. I made this again for Thanksgiving (one for each Thanksgiving destination), and the second torte wasn’t baked all the way and the sides collapsed when I unmolded it. OOPS!
Fruit Torte - And so began what seemed like the never-ending vanilla chiffon genoise cake. This cake layer was used in several of our cakes. Chiffon means “light and airy” and genoise means “sponge cake”, so this was a light and airy vanilla flavored sponge cake. It is made by whipping the egg yolks to full volume, then folding in the dry ingredients, then folding in the egg whites (that have been whipped to stiff peaks). The egg whites give it most of it’s rising power. For the fruit torte, we also made pastry cream to go between the layers of cake. Then we learned how to cut fruit to decorate the top. The sides were coated with some sliced almonds.
Lemon Torte - This cake was one of my most favorite in terms of the flavor and combination of elements. It was a vanilla chiffon genoise with lemon curd layers. The middle “cake” layer was a japonaise layer, which is a meringue with almonds that is piped into a round layer and then baked. When put in the cake, it is a nutty, crunchy meringue, but after sitting overnight, the japonaise becomes soft. It provides a nice nutty flavor in the cake and also a nice change of texture. The cake was coated in whipped cream. In school, when heavy cream is whipped and sugar added, it is called Chantilly Cream. It can be made with either granulated or powdered sugar, and I have learned that each chef has a strong preference for one or the other. My cakes instructor would only let us use granulated sugar. She pretty much hates powdered sugar for anything because powdered sugar has small levels of cornstarch in it to prevent it from getting clumpy due to moisture. She feels that she can taste the cornstarch flavor when powdered sugar is used. Anyway, back to the chantilly cream. When you coat a cake in whipped cream and try to smooth the sides, every movement you make is essentially whipping the cream more. If you overwhip (or overwork) chantilly cream, it starts to look grainy, and if you continue to whip, it turns into butter. So with this cake, the amount of smoothing of the sides and top was limited to just a few passovers with the pallete knife, otherwise the cake would look ugly. My cake was the one in the front. The ones in the back had begun to be overworked, and they weren’t able to smooth out the sides and top as much.
Strawberry Torte - This was the coworkers’ favorite cake. Layers of vanilla chiffon genoise, chantilly cream, and strawberry filling (sliced strawberries and fruit punch thickened with instant modified starch). Coated in chantilly cream and decorated with strawberry slices. My cake came out a little crooked, and my chantilly cream was overworked a little so it has a small grainy look to the sides.
Crunch Torte - I don’t have any pictures of this cake because I skipped class the day that we assembled this cake. Class met twice a week, Monday and Wednesday evening. On Monday we would bake the cakes and prepare any filling or toppings. Then on Wednesday we would assemble and decorate the cakes. Tommy and I went to a beer dinner instead, and it was delicious. The cake was vanilla chiffon layers with chantilly cream and almond nougat for the filling. It was coated in chantilly cream and then the almond nougat was sprinkled on the sides and top. It sounds crunchy and boring, so I was more than happy to miss this one.
Black Forrest Cherry Torte - This was the first week that we didn’t have to make vanilla chiffon genoise. Instead, we made a CHOCOLATE chiffon genoise. The Black Forrest Cherry torte had chocolate cake, whipped cream and cherries for the filling. The cherries have to be sour cherries in order for it to be a black forrest cherry cake, and the cake layers also had cherry brandy brushed onto them. The chantilly cream that the cake was coated in was spiked with cherry brandy too. Then we coated the sides and top with shaved chocolate. This cake tasted pretty good but I was surprised at the amount of coworkers who didn’t like the cherry-chocolate combination.
Chocolate Torte - This was the last of the cakes that were called tortes. I’m not sure why I don’t have any pictures of this cake. It is probably because it was devoured rather quickly. It was a big bundle of chocolatey goodness: devil’s food chocolate cake and layers of chocolate chantilly cream, coated in more chocolate chantilly cream. The only tricky part of making this cake was in the chocolate chantilly cream. Melted chocolate was combined with the whipped cream. However, if all of the chocolate was added to the cold chantilly cream, the chocolate would solidify due to the cold, and you would end up with little chocolate chips in the chocolate chantilly cream. Insetad, a small amount of chantilly was added to the melted chocolate and stirred until combined. This slowly brought the temperature of the chocolate down so that when added to the rest of the chantilly, it would not solidify. Anyway, this cake was a good way to finish the first half of the semester.