S1E1 Signature: Cake

Ready, Set, Bake!

It all starts with cake! The briefing for the very first cake week signature is: bake a cake. Any cake, any style, but it must show creativity and it must be finished within 3 hours. 

I decided to start this blog two days ago, so I didn't really give myself a lot of time to plan this one out. But you know what? It's my first cake week of many, and my only competition is my past self, so why not give future me a bit of a break and set the bar pretty low for now. I am also not allowing myself any practice time, as I have limited funds and I don't want to gain 10 pounds a week. 

So, my plan for my first signature cake was this: Orange genoise sponge with pistachio buttercream and chocolate drizzle to decorate.

Handed a camera to my girlfriend, Evie, put 3 hours on the clock and... GO!

I did absolutely no prep for this bake (oops) so the first thing I did was take the eggs out of the fridge to warm them up to room temperature. While I was waiting for my eggs, I spent the first ten minutes shelling my pistachios (I probably should have done a little prep). I boiled my pistachios for a couple minutes just to loosen the brown/purple exterior so that I could achieve a nice, bright green pistachio paste.

As a long-time Bake-Off fanatic, I HAD to start this challenge with a genoise sponge. I have never made one before, so when will I have a more perfect time to try it?

When my eggs were at room temperature, I cracked them into the bowl of my electric mixer and set it to high speed, adding the sugar a little at a time. I left the mixer on high while I lined my cake tins, and when I turned around I was SO EXCITED. The mixture had grown about five times its original volume and looked so velvety, I felt very good about myself at that moment. However, when I sifted in the flour, I didn't realize that the flour would sink all the way to the bottom of the bowl. As I used my spatula to gently fold the mixture, I missed a significant amount of flour right at the bottom of the bowl. 

When I then poured the batter into the pans, a large flour deposit revealed itself. I had to do some damage control and mixed what was left in the bowl together as much (and as gently) as I could, and then I gently folded that into the mixture already in my tins. 

And then they went in the oven!

While they were baking, I made my pistachio paste. I blitzed the nuts with a hand blender, adding a little water to help it achieve the desired consistency. It ended up looking a bit like guacamole, honestly. 

The sponges came out of the oven looking great, and I let them cool for 5 minutes in their tins before switching them to cooling racks. I noticed right away that the bottoms were a bit wider than the tops. Maybe I should have flipped them? Having never worked with genoise sponge, I didn't want to touch them too much for fear that they might deflate. 

Whatever! I made genoise sponge and I was proud.

I had read that genoise sponge was often brushed with a simple syrup or liqueur before icing it, so I set a pot on the stove with sugar, orange juice and triple sec and let it gently warm to dissolve the sugar.

At this point, I was about an hour into my allotted time and I was starting to get cocky. I looked at the clock and decided that I needed to get fancier, so why not try to make little truffles to go on top as well? (Note to readers: I have never made truffles. I have no idea how to make truffles.) So I melted some vegan chocolate and coconut oil, poured it onto a plate and threw it in the fridge to set. Let's forget about this for now.

Now that the sponges were cooling, it was time to make the buttercream, and I realized that I hadn't taken the margarine out of the fridge yet. Oops. So I used a technique that I learned recently and microwaved a mug of water for two minutes, cut the margarine up into small-ish cubes, removed the mug of water, and placed the plate of margarine in the microwave for 5 minutes without turning the microwave back on. The steam in the microwave was enough to soften the margarine without melting it. 

Anyway, now that the sponges were cool, it was time to make the buttercream. I whisked the margarine and pistachio paste in my mixer and added in my icing sugar, vanilla and cashew milk (normally I would use oat milk as a default, but the store was out). I whisked the buttercream until it was light and fluffy, and put it in my piping bag. 

Okay, here's where things got a bit rocky. I had this image in my head of a four-tiered cake with naked edges (no icing around the sides) and dotted piped icing between each layer. So I wanted to cut each of my sponges in half. I'd seen plenty of people cut genoise in half, and my sponges had risen enough that it seemed fine. Unfortunately, even though I used a bread knife as pretty much everyone suggests online, the sponge crumbled around the edges and lost most of its neat definition. The two halves of each sponge also ended up being significantly different sizes. 

I still had about an hour left, but I decided to start assembly because I could sense trouble coming. I placed my first layer on the plate and brushed it with the orange syrup. I then piped the first layer of pistachio buttercream in dots around the edges and smoothed icing in the middle. 

At this point, Evie had to go back to her work, so she could no longer take pictures.

The centre of the first icing layer was not as thick as the perimeter. This, combined with the fact that I was using a plate that was very much not flat, resulted in a significant dip in the middle of the cake when I added the second sponge layer. At this point, I also realized that I did not have enough buttercream for the number of layers that I was planning. With less than an hour remaining, I decided to whip up a quick chocolate buttercream, thinking that I could alternate flavours between layers. After piping the dotted ring of my chocolate layer, I decided to use one of my wonkiest sponge layers to level out my cake by trimming it down about an inch on all sides and dropping it in the centre of the ring of buttercream. I topped it with my last layer of sponge, a thin topping of chocolate buttercream, and piped pistachio buttercream around the edges. 

Now for the truffles, I pulled my chocolate out of the fridge and it was set enough that it scooped nicely with a spoon. I rolled it in icing sugar and tried to roll it a bit to form a ball... and it instantly melted. 

So, I re-melted the chocolate and drizzled it over the edges of the cake and then sprinkled the top with crushed pistachios.

I still had half an hour left so I whipped all the leftover buttercream and pistachio paste together and added some piping on top of the cake and drizzled more chocolate over everything.

Anddddddd... Voilà!

Time: 2 hours, 43 minutes

While it's a little wonky (especially on the side not shown in this picture) I'm pretty happy with the overall look. The taste was good, I especially liked the pistachio buttercream and the sponge by itself. The addition of chocolate buttercream was a mistake, as it overpowers the more subtle flavours of orange and pistachio. Also, there is FAR too much buttercream. I could only handle a very small piece of this cake.

Things I would change if I made this again:

• I would not cut the sponges in half, and I would use only the original amount of pistachio buttercream that I had made. 
• I would plan the decoration better and maybe do some research on how to make truffles. Or maybe an orange decoration. Something light and fruity. Less chocolate. 
• I would use a flat cake dish.

Overall, not bad for my first baking challenge! A nice, low bar was set.

Edit: This cake tasted WAY better after sitting in the fridge overnight. The orange and pistachio flavours really popped! Dang, maybe future me needs to watch out...

Recipes used:

Genoise: https://natashaskitchen.com/easy-sponge-cake-genoise/ (I know it's not a "proper" genoise but I'm still an amateur, okay?)

Pistachio buttercream: https://www.sweetandsavorybyshinee.com/pistachio-buttercream/