Happy Birthday Daisy

I like to bake and make fun, good-looking and great-tasting stuff but what I really like to do is give it away and see people enjoy it! Being it is just Andrew and I here in Vegas, I have been sending my baked goods off to work with him, always a bit unsure if they make it there UN-eaten...afterall giving Andrew food to DELIVER and NOT EAT is pretty much doomed from the start.
HOWEVER...I should have more faith in the boy because apparently he is delivering the goodies and while he still eats most of what he brings...at least he shares!!! So, you might wonder how I know he is actually sharing...well about a week ago he came home and said a co-worker needed a Birthday cake for her friend Daisy...she wants a fruit cake with daisies...I was immediately excited because I obviously love what I do but there was no way I could possibly make that cake in a week since my culinary classes leave me exhausted at the end of the day and I don't have much time in the morning...I told him sadly I couldn't do it!




Now here is what I learned from that conversation...I had brought him some baked goods from class and let him eat all he wanted while I was telling him there was no way I could make the cake in a few days...DO NOT TELL ANDREW IMPORTANT INFORMATION WHILE HE IS ENJOYING SWEATS....HE DOES NOT LISTEN!!! It may appear that he is listening and he is usually a great listener but in his massive sugar coma he completely "yessed" me to death and told his co-worker I would do it.

THREE DAYS BEFORE CAKE DELIVERY;
ANDREW: "Hey Babe, hows that daisy cake coming?"
ME: "Ummm, I don't know..where is it coming from?"
ANDREW: "Well, shouldn't you start making it?"
ME: "UMMMm...hell yea I should start making it...if I took the order."
(this went on for several minutes until I realized he can no longer be trusted to relay information)





Ok...so I had three days to bake, fill, decorate and package this cake and I certainly was not going to make it any less perfect than anything else i made. So... I made Andrew a list of everything I needed from the store, (made him pay for it of course) and told him not to come home until he got everything!! And I meant everything!

Ok so while he was gone, and I was at class I felt increasingly bad for being mean...he totally meant well and I couldn't blame him for the miscommunication..I did help induce the sugar coma that caused the problem.



So i decided to be nice to him again and I brought him more goodies as a Thank You for the thought (and the groceries) and I started to bake...I baked a yellow chiffon cake and filled it with delicious pastry cream, fresh whipped cream, strawberry puree (homemade of course) and fresh strawberries...So i had to bak the cake, make the pastry cream and strawberry puree and i needed to make the fondant for the daisies. That was Day 1.
Day2 I made the daisies...a million of them..ok maybe like 65 of them but it felt like a million!!
Day 3...assembly and deliver.
I brushed the daisies with luster dust and they looked like beautiful silk daisies..nothing at all like edible sugar...I just wish I took a picture of the cake before I decorated it so you can see how yummy it looked!!
Maybe I can get a picture of it sliced!!

But i do really like how it turned out..I was going for a rustic look of a bucket of daisies!

WARNING: The photos your about to see will make your mouth water!

I hope you grabbed a drool bucket...or at least a napkin. Here are a few things that have been baking in my kitchen over the past few weeks. I have begun the Pastry program at Le Cordon Bleu but I still do a lot of baking in my own kitchen because people just really seem to love my goodies and when I stop making them (I tried taking a break since I bake 5 days a week in class) they seem to go through withdrawal. So here you are ... enjoy...and if you want any recipes or have any questions...you can always feel free to e mail me at Lauren.glinski@gmail.com or check out my full album at this link and leave me a comment here or there.

Let me begin with one of my favorite desserts ever! CHOCOLATE BABKA CAKE...if you don't know what it is, my heart aches for you but yet you will live a slightly skinnier life for not understanding how amazing this sweet chocolate bread is!!!

Back in New York, Brooklyn more specifically, there is a bakery "Your Baker" that would make this cake or bread whatever you want to call it. My grandfather used to bring it for dessert as a special treat and i always loved it. (let me explain something about my family, and more specifically about my grandpa, the Ravi family loves there dessert! And, every night we would have dinner together and he would always have some form of dessert, often an Entenmann's goodie but sometimes something even better, like this Babka cake...oh and he also always brought fresh italian bread..he always brought italian bread, even if we were ordering chinese food for dinner or eating tacos, he always had the bread...another reason i have a rather large butt!)

OK moving on....this Babka recipe is perfect and i tweaked it and tweaked it to recreate what I remember from after dinner treats from Brooklny...which is nice since I am on the West coast these days ... it is sooo good. It is a semi-sweet dough, twisted with cocoa powder and chocolate shavings baked into a cake shape (or any shape you like) top with streusel and a drizzle of chocolate. YUM

I made these one day when i was bored and had to clean out my cubbard.

These are yummy! These are devil food chocolate cupcakes with a homemade sweet graham cracker crust stuffed with a giant marshmallow and topped with whipped chocolate ganache. The middle cupcakes are topped with toasted grahams and a drizzle of ganache....look inside these things

The cupcakes below were EVEN better!!

These have a cinnamon graham cracker crust with yellow butter cheesecake batter topped with homemade chocolate frosting, dipped in chocolate ganache and topped with toasted coconut.

And some of them had a chocolate surprise baked into the middle...yum!

Key Lime pie with graham cracker crust and Chantilly cream.

Strassburger and Bryssellkex cookies.

French apricot macaroons.

Pate a Choux also known as "shoe" paste ... really its cream puffs filled with delicious pastry cream.

These are my famous and incredibly delicious banana bread truffles taken up a notch with toasted coconut. SERIOUSLY these are sooo deathly delicious and i have no words to describe them.

If you are ever in Vegas ... i suggest you place an order so you can try some of my truffles!!

Navy Retirement Cake

I know...It has been way too long since I made and interesting cake...but frankly, I cannot bring myself to make a large, elaborate, expensive, detailed cake just to take a fork to it...or let Andrew just gobble it up as if it took no time at all to make...No, I just do not have the heart (or money) to do it...So, I put an ad on Craigslist ( I know I know) and eventually an order was received!

A very nice woman wanted a cake for her husbands retirement from the Navy...she was throwing him a surprise party and wanted something with her husband saluting a ship. Well, I needed to make it more detailed than that of course! I made sure to get a picture of her handsome husband, a description of his uniform and the name of the ship on which he was stationed...Let's just say the ship was no row boat and it was a pretty HUGE aircraft carrier. So that meant I needed so fighter jets!

I made some white modeling chocolate and sculpted these fighter jets...which was very fun!

After the models firmed up...I covered them in homemade gray Marshmallow fondant and painted the details with food coloring and a tiny brush and some serious patience.

I also took some time to make the Navy retiree out of some modeling chocolate and sugar paste...he came out pretty good but not as buff as his picture..the hardest part was making his eye glasses...not so fun!

The ship was GIGANTIC, the pictures do not do it justice (as if I will ever learn..i used my cell phone camera..I know I need to take the picture taking more seriously).

I had to make A LOT of cake and didn't have big enough pans so I used cookie sheets (apparently you CAN bake a cake on a cookie sheet (and also in a pot...see the Chicken Nugget Wedding Cake). I used tons of chocolate frosting and stacked and stacked and carved and covered in fondant, then airbrushed, then hand painted ...you get the idea! I also made ocean out of poured sugar and waves and well..It was a LOT of work!

I really wish I had better pictures!

I am waiting for pictures of the cake at the party..as soon as I receive them, I will post them!

I also do not have a picture of the COMPLETE cake...since this cake had to be delivered across town I did not want to put the sculpture of her husband on the cake until it arrived...so..these are not complete either .. bummer!

Treats to be Thankful For

I know...an UN-acceptable amount of time has passed since the last cake I created and i apologize .. but it's not entirely my fault. Cake making (well making these fun, detailed cakes) is not cheap and after the cost of the move to Vegas from NY and the cost of finally moving into our sweet apartment I haven't had much time or money for anything more than multiple banana breads, pumpkin breads and some truffles (which I of course did not take pictures of because, well, I don't know..but I didn't).

So this was my very first major holiday away from the family and let me tell you... BUMMER!!! It is funny how when your a kid all you want to do is shove that plate of food down your throat and get back to the neighborhood to hang with friends...but now all i wanted was for the family to come on over and taste some delicious cakes! I also missed the BIG FAT ITALIAN THANKSGIVING because nothing can compare to the holidays with a big fat Italian family and i really kinda missed that stuffing that I used to complain about as a kid...

Okay, enough about my sad holiday (it really wasn't sad since I had Andrew who always happily eats and tastes everything that comes out of my kitchen..or any kitchen for that matter, but I did have a broken toe and missed the fam so I broke even)

So ABOUT THE FOOD!!! For a while now I have been looking into a good chocolate cake and I love banana so when I found a recipe for Banana Foster Cake covered in Chocolate Ganache I knew I had to make it and add a few touches... I made a super yummy double chocolate cake with chocolate chips (3 layers)...then I made banana foster filling (chopped banana, rum, brown sugar and butter) some home-made cream cheese icing, and chocolate ganache (use your fav recipe but all are pretty much 1 part good chocolate and 1 part heavy cream and a pad of butter for shine) let everything cool a bit...then assemble.

Cake..then a thin layer of cream cheese frosting (you don't want it to be too sweet) then the banana foster then cake...repeat until you top it off with your third layer of cake. Then sit your cake on a wire rack over a baking sheet lined with waxed paper (this just makes life less messy) and pour the cooled ganache over the cake and put it in the fridge to chill... I sprinkled on some shaved coconut flavored white chocolate that I found (which is sooo good I think Lindt made it)...That is it..super delicious...next time i might just used fresh sliced banana and some strawberry instead of the foster. The best part of the cake was its yummy texture and that semi-hard chocolate ganache on the top and outside..LOVED IT!

I am not a huge Pumpkin Pie fan but I wanted to make a pretty pumpkin pie and I figured I would mix a few recipes together to make this pie WHICH WAS AWEEEEESOME!!!! SERIOUSLY this was the BEST pie I have ever had!It is a mix of fresh pumpkin pie and a NY style cheesecake mixed into this yummy concoction!!

I will post the recipe soon.

Start with a pie crust recipe or ... screw it and buy the Pillsbury stuff from the fridge (no one has to know)... Place it in a pie dish and bake it for about ten minutes (weigh the inside down with beans or something) then fill it with the pumpkin mixture all the way to the top (it will shrink back down..no worries) and bake until it stops looking like liquid ( a knife or toothpick inserted near the middle..not IN the middle will come out pretty clean) it is done let it come to room temp and then fridge it...I though it tasted better the next day straight out of the fridge!!!

To make the pretty decorations, I used a paring knife and just cut pretty leaves and stuck them on...simple but time consuming...but delicious!!

Now that I perfected this pie I just need to work on my cell phone blog photos...sorry!

Having Cake-Making Withdrawel

Viva Las Vegas....We are here to stay...aren't the Bellagio fountains beautiful!?!

Hey guys...I know it has been way too long since my last cake post, and TRUST me I am having major withdrawal symptoms from not baking and designing a fun new cake!!

After driving across the country in a giant Uhaul with our car in tow and our dog Jackson in the passenger seat between us, driving for four LOOOONG days and sleeping in cheap hotels for three nights and eating awful fast food, we arrived in Vegas exhausted, full of cholesterol and totally broke...but we got here, yay!

Luckily we missed the 100 degree heat and it has been pristine spring/fall-like weather =).....but enough about the weather and my very serious hatred toward McDonald's, I need to make a cake...STAT! Unfortunately right now I do not have any extra money to fund my own love for cake making but I will surely make the exception since Halloween and Thanksgiving is soon approaching!

Oh yea, and my sister's birthday is right around the corner and the HOT DOG CAKE I made for her birthday last year is what sparked this "cake-making fire" under my butt. So yea expect a cake in the near future!

One thing for sure is I have been cooking up a storm since getting to Vegas and staying with my extended family, Andrew's brother and wonderful wife (who is expecting little baby Sophie soon). I have made three banana breads, cheesecake truffles, red velvet balls, chocolate covered bananas, and two pumpkin cakes and we have only been here 2 and a 1/2 weeks!!!

Well, thanks for sticking with me and I promise to have something fun posted soon!!!

Here are some fun pictures from our recent Vegas adventures...

And if you've always dreamed of seeing the sights between New York and Nevada here is a link to some photos. ROAD TRIP

Pumpkin picking in the toasty warm weather is a nice change from NY cold!

A great discovery...an awesome martini bar off the strip with yummy tapas!

Yea, Andrew ordered an Almond Joy martini while i like a straight dirty but hey, I'm grateful he has such a sweet tooth since he is my #1 taste tester!