grmph

translated in English: the Daring Bakers’ July challenge - strawberry mirror cake

A few months ago, I read something about a group of Daring Bakers, and then forgot about it again. But a month later, I found more Daring Baker stuff popping up on various blogs. And another month later, yet more of the same. By the time Martha’s darkest chocolate crepe cake came around, I found myself reading all the DB entries, which made for some very amusing reading. After that, I found myself keeping an eye on the DB blogroll and eagerly anticipating what they would make the next month. The Gateau St Honoré sounded rather scary, what with the puff pastry and pate à choux and all, but I thought it would be a nice challenge and encourage me to make things outside my comfort zone, so I asked them if they would have me (pretty please) and luckily enough, they had a little place for me available.

And so, this month, I prepared for my first challenge: strawberry mirror cake, chosen by Peabody's culinary concoctions. I printed the recipe, read it again and again and again and planned when to make the whole thing. It would be a challenge for me to follow the recipe to the letter (that’s a DB rule) but I was looking forward to trying something I’d never made before. Normally, when I make an American recipe, the first thing I do is reduce the sugar, as I usually find American recipes too sweet for me. Also I don’t really liked the idea of using red food colouring (I like my food all natural) and I can’t say I’m fond of gelatin - I’ve only used it a few times in the past, usually with disastrous results, and I don’t particularly like the way texture feels in my mouth. Plus I once did an evening course in conservation and restoration of paintings, where we would often use animal glue, which smells exactly the same as gelatin. But, as a true Daring Baker, I would fearlessly give it a go.

I have to admit though, I’m not that much of a cake eater, never have been and never will be - at birthdays and other occasions I always skip the cake part. Making and assembling the whole thing took ages and was a lot of bother (partly because I didn’t have all the required equipment), and I wasn’t really impressed when I tasted it (but that’s because I’m not a cake eater). It must have been good though, because S took the finished cake to work and his colleagues absolutely loved it.

To me, this cake ended up being one of those things that sound good on paper, but somehow don’t work. Like clothes in a shop that look fabulous on the hanger, but are not a good fit when you try them on. But I am glad I did try this recipe on; at least now I know it’s not a good fit for me. I would try something similar again, maybe with a pound cake or a less sweet sponge and a mousse that doesn’t need gelatin. The mirror bit I think is something would look quite pretty on any cake, so I will try that again as well.

Here’s how my weekend of cake making went down.

Friday night I made the sponge - I don’t have a jelly roll pan, so I used a 24cm round spring form and baked two separate sponges. The first one was a disaster, which I blame on my oven. I’m sure that in new and well-behaved ovens, baking a sponge for 7 minutes at 230˚C works just fine, but in my oven that resulted in a burnt top and liquid centre. Attempt number two, baked for 20 minutes at 150˚C was somewhat more successful, but the bottom of the sponge remained rather sticky. I confess I did substitute the vanilla essence with vanilla bean paste, because I had a whole bottle of the latter and none of the former. Hope that doesn’t mean I broke the rules.

Saturday I went grocery shopping for eggs, strawberries, sugar and cream. Being half space out on antibiotics must have messed up my intellectual capacities (such as adding up and reading) though, because I ended up buying way too many strawberries. And instead of 1 1/2 cup’s worth of cream, I bought 1 1/2 pints worth of cream. Also I was feeling quite sick, so I didn’t get around to making the cake that day.

Sunday I was feeling a bit better, so I started the day full of hope and good intentions to get the whole cake together. First thing was making a new sponge, as the one I’d made on Friday had gone stale. The strawberry juice and Bavarian cream were fairly easy to make, only I misread the recipe (damn those antibiotics) and found out afterwards I hadn’t added enough gelatine to the Bavarian cream. And I only have a tiny sieve with fine mesh, so it took me ages to strain the strawberry purée, so now a proper-sized is very high up on my wishlist. The red food colouring did make the Bavarian cream a bit more pink rather than the original - but natural! - muddied pink colour. Around 7pm I was quite fed up but finally ready to assemble the cake. I used an 18cm round spring form (I didn’t buy any new equipment for this recipe, but just used the things I already have), with a cardboard circle covered in aluminium foil at the bottom (very handy tip!) and a ‘collar’ of baking paper all around. I thought I had some vanilla vodka left, but I didn’t, so I didn’t put any liqueur in the soaking syrup at all. The four layers of the cake already came higher than the spring form - luckily I had added a collar to it.

Monday I finally added the mirror (I didn’t add any food colouring to it, because I thought it had an all natural beautiful intense red colour already). By then I was so fed up with it all, I couldn’t be bothered to do something about the bubbles in the mirror. Nor did I feel like adding any decoration to the cake at all. I snapped a few quick piccies (maybe I should have cut the top of my sponge, because the browned top made a dark line in my cake), ate a piece and was not impressed.

Tuesday I made S take the whole shebang into work and told him I didn’t want to see a single crumb of it ever again. And I threw the recipe printout in my paper recycling bin, feeling strangely satisfied while doing that.

Check out the other Daring Bakers' cakes here.