Sticky Steps » bake

Planet Cake, Basic 101

Thi — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:26:10 +0000

I went to Planet Cake and loved it!

My sister gave me the book as a gift some months back. Since then I have flipped through the pages as many times as I read Mr Darcy’s love letter to Elizabeth. Similarly, in vain, I struggled and my cakes just did not do.

So New Year’s Resolution – enrol for Planet Cake Basic 101 decorating class….

Beginners 101 introduces our eager minds to the basics – cutting, layering, icing and finishing. The class, on appearances looks expensive, but let’s not be prejudice. At $375 for the day you get approximately: Take Home cake – Planet Cake RRP $300, 2 cake boards $70, Intellectual capital – Priceless!

Kicking off at 10am on the dot the instructor, Linda, warns us that the day will be intense. In fact, it is very intense. Another fact, there is nothing I can tell you here about cake decorating techniques that Paris Cutler has not already done so in her book. This is why the class was such an incredible experience. Seeing the professionals work their magic – I am lost for words on how to illustrate this. Cake decorating is an artform!

First we remove those hard crusty bits off the top of the cake. Then we cut the cake into 3 equal layers and paint syrup on each layer to keep the sponge moist.

Layering the ganache was quite tricky. The cake needed to be completely covered with the edges nice and smooth.

Once this is done we start with the fondant. Knead the icing until soft then roll out the icing until it is nice and thin (and covers the cake). This step requires muscle work and pressure. Being 155cm I was given a stool to stand on to roll out the icing. This really helped, despite the humiliation!

Final touches were to decorate the cake by adding the explosion in the centre of cake. I choose exploding love hearts & silver balls.

By the end of the class we get to take home our impressive ‘exploding stars’ cake. I have to admit, I was quite proud of the results.

Looking forward to 102!

Where: Planet Cake
Location: 106 Beattie Street. Balmain NSW 2041
Dress: Casual
Price: $375 + GST (Basic 101)

Written by Thi

The very best gooey, fudge, mud chocolate brownies and recipe!

Rob — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:43:00 +0000

While busy exploring Twitter this week, I developed an instant obsession with photos of Quay’s 8 texture chocolate cake that adorned Reemski’s profile page (and check out her blog at http://www.tummyrumble.net/). The gooey, soft chocolate layers quickly prompted me to dig out my own chocolate brownie recipe that I had adapted from Nigel Slater’s “Very Good Chocolate Brownies” recipe. Here’s a teaser of the end result.

The ingredients required are:

300g brown caster sugar
250g softened butter
250g of the best chocolate you can get (darker is better and aim for ~70% cocoa solids)
3 large eggs plus the yolk of another egg
100g plain flour (Nigel uses 60g)
60g of good cocoa powder
1tspn baking powder
Optional: Pecan, macadamia or walnuts

The steps involved are simple:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C

2) Line a large baking tin (23cm) with baking paper

3) Cream the sugar and butter with a mixer until white and fluffy

4) Melt 200g of the chocolate and chop the remaining 50g into small pieces or “gravel” put this aside.

5) Lightly beat the egg mixture and introduce to the creamed sugar/butter slowly with the beater running slowly until combined.

6) Pour in the molten chocolate and fold with a spoon. Add in the chopped chocolate bits.

7) Sift in the dry ingredients and fold in with spoon gently as to not knock any air out.

Now pour it gently into the baking tin and bake for about 30-35mins. It is ready when you stick a fork in and it comes out a bit sticky but without any raw batter. It will be soft and solidifies a bit when it cools so don’t panick if they seem squishy.

I enjoy these best warm at the bottom of a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Yum!

What makes a perfect muffin?

Rob — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:37:00 +0000

What makes a good muffin? To me it needs to be warm, moist and wholesome. If you have tried a fresh baked muffin from Steel Espresso in the mornings you will know exactly what I mean! Not only do the staff get creative with the daily flavours but their muffins are consistently moist with a crisp “muffin-top” that makes a die-hard foodie like myself extremely jealous!

Well, that jealousy and my obsessive curiosity got the better of me and I attempted to re-create the perfect muffin at home (although it wasn’t perfect – more on this later).

The recipe I used is Kim’s Moist Muffins from Best Recipes (yes it was a risk).

Ingredients
220g self-raising flour (I don’t have scaled so used 1 7/8 cups)
½ cup veg oil
¾ cup milk
½ to ¾ cup caster sugar (depends on your flavour i.e. sweeter flavours will require less sugar)
1 egg lightly beaten
1 tspn vanilla extract
150g of flavour of choice. Common picks are blueberry, white choc & raspberry, choc chip, pinapple & passionfruit pulp or a carrot one which I made using grated carrot, 2tspn cinnamon, 2tspn nutmeg, sultanas, walnuts and shredded coconut.

Method
Preheat oven @ 180C
Mix the dry and wet ingredients in two separate bowls.
Add the wet ingredients into a well in the dry ingredients.
Add the flavours
Mix but don’t overmix! Mixing wet ingredients with flour causes the gluten strands to form and overmixing will give you a very tough muffin. Mix it in big whirls until the flour just disappears and don’t be scared of lumps.

Bake for 15-20mins until lightly browned

Well the photo certainly looked great but how did it taste? Unfortunately it wasn’t quite sweet enough (I used 2/3 cup – will go for the full ¾ cup next time) and texturally it didn’t live up to my Steel Espresso muffin benchmark (slightly drier and didn’t have that springy, fleshy cake like texture).

So it’s back to the drawing boards for me. If you have a great muffin recipe please, please share it with me!