100 di questi giorni

[rinue]

My 31st birthday is September 6, which is Tuesday, but since I'm working Monday through Thursday and am busy with other things this weekend, today was Romie's Birthday (observed). Ciro got me Portal 2, which I've been playing all day, and Mom and Dad got me a tea ball (for steeping loose-leaf tea) that floats on top of the water and looks like a small rubber duck. (It also happens to diffuse the tea really well, but this is almost an accident.)

Ciro asked me what cake I wanted, and the first cake I picked was dismissed as too simple. (Famous Cookie Cake*. Which I made last week the day after I was told "not for your birthday." Which took maybe 10 minutes to assemble.) So I picked a more elaborate cake. Which took Ciro something like three days and had him up until 6 a.m. last night. It required building a superstructure of sculpted chocolate, the candying of oranges, infusing a ricotta, and baking several layers of hazelnut cake, ideally in a specialty pan that is almost impossible to find in the U.S. Also, Mom found candles that burn with colored flame - blue and green and red and purple.

We omitted the gold leaf.

It was very nice. Ciro is considering making it again for 12th Night, possibly because it will take that long to make again.

*Ingredients:
2 cups whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 package Famous Chocolate Wafers (a very thin chocolate cookie that can be found in most grocery stores; recipe comes from the back of the box)

Directions:
Beat the whipping cream and vanilla until stiff peaks form.
Spread a spoonful of the whipped cream onto each wafer. Stack the wafers, then lay them down on a platter in a log.
Frost with the remaining whipped cream until all the chocolate is covered.
Refrigerate 4 hours. Cut diagonally to serve.

Comments

[movingfinger]

I can never get Famous Cookie Cake to the right slice-able soft texture. I do it just as it says on the packet and let it sit.

Your birthday cake sounds like the apotheosis of cake.

[rinue]

Hmmmm. I've never had that problem, even though I've assembled the cake in many different kitchens in many different states at entirely different temperature and humidity levels. The only variable I can think of is that I don't think I've ever made it at high altitude.

It's possible that I've coincidentally tended to have fridges that run unusually warm or cold; I may also be lazy about the "stiff peaks" part of the whipped cream and be counting it as stiff earlier than somebody else would. I have never compared cream-whipping techniques. (It does seem that I've had many, many, many conversations about the best way to boil an egg, which seems to fall into a similar kitchen lore category; and there has been discussion of whether to whip cream in a copper bowl and the difference between hand mixers and electric mixers, but not actual cream texture.)

Alternately, someone has placed a curse on you and you need to light several specially blessed candles and/or bury a pouch full of chicken bones.

[movingfinger]

Huh. My problem is that the cookies never seem to absorb the whipped cream and soften. Maybe I have been over-beating the cream, and if it's too stiff it's too emulsified to soak in.

I guess I will try it again and carefully pull my punch, so to speak, on the cream. I love the idea of it. It reminds me of the whipped cream and wafers that the two lovers live on in The Venetian Glass Nephew.

On eggs, I am of the the bring-to-boil, then kill the heat, cover, and time to desired doneness.

[rinue]

My egg strategy over the years has been unfocused, because I boil an egg maybe once every three years. But it's never seemed to go wrong no matter which technique I use, which is a lot of why I'm fascinated that most people seem vocally attached to their method. I have heard more impromptu sermons on hard egg boiling than any other cooking technique, by a multiple of ten or twenty at minimum.

What I would really like is a good approach to soft boiled eggs, which I have given up on entirely despite quite liking them. I just go with over easy. Less risk.