Today I tried again with the petit fours. All in all, even my mistakes worked out well.
First, I made a yellow cake. I'm not sure why, but the cake I make from a box tastes better than both of this weekends homemade cakes. This is my first time going from scratch on cake batter like this though, so I just need to figure out how to get a bit more moisture in them. All in all, they are pretty good - just not heavenly.
My fist attempt at the ganache today didn't go well. Either I was distracted by having to talk HOBY during baking, or I am generally not all there, but I used 100% cocoa bars. This is bad because it means there is no sweetness whatsoever. So I added 1/3 cup sugar and 1/4 heavy cream with 2 tablespoons of butter (boiled). The result was not ganache. But, it was truffle batter.
My first major mistake of the day turned into a tray of over fifty truffles that I am going to dip in the leftover white chocolate ganache and tomorrow's milk chocolate. Yeah for truffles!
My second round of ganache came out brilliantly. Somewhere mid-icing, I got really hungry (it was 8:45) so I made sea scallops for dinner. First time there, and they were pretty good. I need to select my fish better next time though.
When I got back to icing the little cakes (I made the yellow cake in 1/4 filled cupcake pans and then a big, thin, sheet cake), the ganache had cooled considerably. I didn't think to reheat it and it took about 45 minutes to ice 9 cakes.
I got smart and realized I was wasting the icing (and killing myself with crumbs), so I reheated it over boiling water and then iced the rest of the cakes.
Right now there are 25 small cakes in my microwave (on stacked trays, obviously). I already rinsed and cooled the fruit, laying them on a towel so the color would seep out there, instead of into the white chocolate frosting I'm going to use to attach them to the cakes tomorrow.
The most essential part of the petit fours is now done. Tomorrow I have to:
Hugs to all,
~Heather
First, I made a yellow cake. I'm not sure why, but the cake I make from a box tastes better than both of this weekends homemade cakes. This is my first time going from scratch on cake batter like this though, so I just need to figure out how to get a bit more moisture in them. All in all, they are pretty good - just not heavenly.
My fist attempt at the ganache today didn't go well. Either I was distracted by having to talk HOBY during baking, or I am generally not all there, but I used 100% cocoa bars. This is bad because it means there is no sweetness whatsoever. So I added 1/3 cup sugar and 1/4 heavy cream with 2 tablespoons of butter (boiled). The result was not ganache. But, it was truffle batter.
My first major mistake of the day turned into a tray of over fifty truffles that I am going to dip in the leftover white chocolate ganache and tomorrow's milk chocolate. Yeah for truffles!
My second round of ganache came out brilliantly. Somewhere mid-icing, I got really hungry (it was 8:45) so I made sea scallops for dinner. First time there, and they were pretty good. I need to select my fish better next time though.
When I got back to icing the little cakes (I made the yellow cake in 1/4 filled cupcake pans and then a big, thin, sheet cake), the ganache had cooled considerably. I didn't think to reheat it and it took about 45 minutes to ice 9 cakes.
I got smart and realized I was wasting the icing (and killing myself with crumbs), so I reheated it over boiling water and then iced the rest of the cakes.
Right now there are 25 small cakes in my microwave (on stacked trays, obviously). I already rinsed and cooled the fruit, laying them on a towel so the color would seep out there, instead of into the white chocolate frosting I'm going to use to attach them to the cakes tomorrow.
The most essential part of the petit fours is now done. Tomorrow I have to:
- Roll, freeze, and sculpt the colored fondant into fun baby-like shapes
- Whip the white chocolate ganache into frosting.
- Slice some of the kiwi for cake toppings.
- Make another round of ganache for dipping the truffles and touch-ups.
- Use the gel design stuff to write/draw on the cakes that don't have fruit or fondant.
Hugs to all,
~Heather
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