Cake Chart

Abstract

Figure 1

Background

It’s been an embarrassingly long time. For a while knitting design was consuming all of my creative energies. Then I got a job. While it is my dream job, it has been consuming all of my time, or at least it feels that way.

I’m doing database development for public health researchers. Each year the programmers put on a poster session for the rest of the staff. Since this year’s session happened about two weeks after I started work, I couldn’t really participate, except to bring to treats. Except... to... bring... treats!

Methods

The cake is another iteration of the Rombauer jam cake[1], this time a single recipe made with plum preserves and cooked in a 10.5 inch springform pan. I don’t know why it sank so deeply in the middle. We didn’t have that problem last time.

I used our standard sour cream frosting[2] with a bit of vanilla powder. For optimum taste, the cake to frosting ratio should have been higher, but that’s something about which you will rarely hear complaints.

Technically, licorice whip would have satisfied Article 2 of the Manifesto[3] better than chocolate in conjunction with a spice cake, but I was seduced by the glamour of the chocolate fins. To make them, we melted 4 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, spread it into a 10 inch circle on a piece of plastic wrap, and popped it into the fridge to harden. Before it was completely set, Matt scored it into 16 wedges. This worked beautifully. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to cover the top of the chocolate disk with plastic wrap. The bottom of the disk came out lovely and smooth, but the top was a bit rough.

The data labels were applied directly to the cake where feasible. Prep bowls were used for messy ingredients, or those best not eaten raw. The egg was hard-boiled to minimize the risk of a hazardous spill.

Results

I didn’t expect this would be a difficult chart to apprehend, but many people didn’t get it right away. The most frequent first comment was probably, “Is that an egg?” Admittedly, an egg on top of a cake is incongruous and worthy of note.

Figure 2

During the presentation I was mortified to realize that I had made a massive oversight and completely omitted to record the brown sugar in the cake. I also overestimated the chocolate because we used only half of the fins that we made. My colleagues graciously consumed the evidence of these errors.

Figure 3 shows a corrected schematic. The comparison is by mass, and includes the ingredients in the cake, frosting and chocolate fins, but not the data labels themselves.


Figure 3

Conclusion

Job – blog death knell or creative kick in the pants? Further research is clearly indicated.

Acknowledgements

As is so often the case, Matt provided much of the creative genius, labor and, in this instance, geometry.

Citations

[1] I Rombauer. The Joy of Cooking. 1953.
[2] S F. Cut-Up Cakes for Grownups. www.sharonmattnadia.com/2008/06/emperor-penguin-cake.html#frosting.
[3] Ibid. www.sharonmattnadia.com/2008/05/cake-manifesto.html#article2

Adelie Penguin Cake

My brother recently celebrated a multiple-of-ten birthday, and my sister-in-law organized a surprise party for him. I don't know what made me look at airfares, but when I found they were ridiculously cheap, I decided to fly home to be part of the surprise.

Of course I felt honor-bound to create a cake. (As usual, skip to the end for specs and recipes.) But what design? Sister-in-law suggested: his whippet; a bicycle; his whippet riding a bicycle; a penguin. Given that bicycle and whippet riding a bicycle were way beyond my skills, I tried sketching the whippet (curled up, for ease of sculpture). I came up with a cute sketch, and was looking forward to decorating in all those shades of brown, but realized the whole concept was just gross - eating the family pet and all. So I tossed that, which left penguin.

I know how to do a penguin, but figured Charlie deserved an original. So I combed the web for pictures of other kinds of penguins. Adelie penguins were the obvious choice for sheer cute-power (although you have to admire the rockhoppers' attitude). Found an excellent photo (which I have now misplaced) of a penguin jumping, thought, "Wait, I've seen that before!" and found a penguin in exactly the same attitude in Mr. Popper's Penguins. Robert Lawson's illustrations are impressively true-to-life.*

I knew I was on my own for this design, since Matt was not accompanying me to St Louis. Intimidating, but also exhilarating to be able do everything exactly as I pleased. Plus, I had my mom for a sous chef and dad for a portraitist, so I wasn't completely without resources.

My brother didn't identify the cake as a penguin at first -- thought it might be the Doubtful Guest. An understandable mistake, but the lack of tennis shoes should have been a dead giveaway.

Design Process

I will include a wordy and picture-laden discourse on designing a cut-up cake in a future post. It would make this post excessively long.

Specs and Recipes

I used my usual chocolate sheet cake recipe from Cooks Illustrated (Issue 48, Jan 2001), and the same frosting recipes as for the emperor penguin. The white sour cream frosting recipe didn't make quite enough -- you would want to increase it, say one and a half times.

I poured unsweetened chocolate glaze over the assembled cake before frosting.



The feet are dried papaya spears, as is the beak. The feet are curved spears cut to appropriate thickness. The beak, of which I am particularly proud, I carved a little. Technically speaking, the feet ought to have had long black claws, but I decided that would be too distracting. A wee nubbin of licorice whip defines the chin.




The eye is a sugar eye I bought at Cookies for the cookie-making party. Orient the pupil carefully - it makes a real difference to the facial expression. Before you call me on it, yes, the pupil probably is made with food coloring. A white jordan almond with a dab of chocolate ganache would be truer to the manifesto (unless of course the candy coating is whitened with titanium dioxide, but at a certain point, I just stop asking).

The cake board is foam core covered with tinfoil and then waxed paper. I used a spatula to gently scrape off icing drips, and polished with a damp paper towel. Use the latter sparingly -- I managed to tear a hole in the dampened waxed paper by overly vigorous rubbing.


*I've ready MPP multiple times, but only this time made the connection that it has the same illustrator as The Story of Ferdinand. Once I realized that, I saw that Mr. Popper's grief-stricken posture near the end is exactly that of the frustrated toreador in Ferdinand. Um, yes, I am a children's literature geek.

Highly Imaginative Cupcakes

I recently ran across the blog Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit, which has a fabulous collection of recipes. Sadly, the blog is no longer active, but it will still take me a while to work my way through all of the attractive combos.

I've tried the horchata cupcakes and the mooncake cupcakes so far. The cherry chocolate cupcakes with fennel cream cheese frosting may not be far behind. And if you made the green ube cupcakes with bubble buttercream, you could have a truly multicultural St. Patrick's Day experience.

Tres Horchata Cake

I made my own horchata, largely per Chockylit's instructions. While it was an interesting process, it was quite involved. If I make this cake again, I will use store-bought horchata. Being the thrifty cook that I am, I couldn't stand the instruction to discard the almond and rice after squeezing out all the juice. So I saved the glup and used it in bread, where it was quite tasty -- it would be an excellent base for cinnamon raisin bread.

Instead of cupcakes, I made a 9 x 13 cake. After baking, I poked holes all over it and poured about 1/2 cup of horchata over it. When cool, I frosted it with the horchata frosting. In the end, it was a very pleasant cake, but didn't really wow me.

Mooncake Cupcakes

The mooncake cupcakes (a white cake cushioning a dollop of red bean paste), on the other hand, were very fun and tasty. Not being inclined toward a lot of fuss and bother this time, I used store-bought red bean paste, which was quite sweet. I can see that it would be nice to make your own and reduce the sugar.

I essentially followed the cupcake recipe. Chockylit doesn't specify, but the cupcakes take about 20 minutes to bake.

We formed balls of red bean paste that were a bit more than a teaspoon. As directed in the recipe, I carefully spread out the first layer of batter, and the balls sank to the bottom of the cake. Another time I would leave the first dollop of batter in a mound and perch the red bean paste on top of that. Even though the ball of bean paste appears to stay pretty self-contained, its flavor permeates the cake in a pleasing way.



While the fashion in cupcakes these days seems to dictate a 1:1 frosting to cake ratio, I've never been able to stomach that much frosting. It is true that a thin layer of frosting has much less presentation pizzazz, but it's really what's wanted in this recipe. Even with a modest amount of frosting, the combined sweetness of the red bean paste, cupcake and frosting is nearly overpowering.

We made green tea sour cream frosting by adding about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of matcha powder in our typical sour cream frosting recipe. If I'd had more matcha in the house, I probably would have added more. As it was, it gave the frosting an elegant pale green tint. One recipe was plenty for a dozen cupcakes.

Chockylit specifies salted sesame seeds. I don't know if you can purchase them that way, but ours were unsalted. I tried mixing a little salt in, but it didn't really stick and anyway, I don't think it's necessary, as the plain sesame seeds are very savory.

I found that if you want to sprinkle the seeds on the cupcake, you need to do it immediately after frosting, before the frosting has a chance to set. If you are rolling the cupcake in the seeds, time is of less essence.

Dear Abby Cake

This is Matt's traditional birthday cake. I will never, ever get to make him any other kind of cake for his birthday. Fortunately, the Dear Abby Cake is both delicious and beautiful.



The recipe was originally published in Dear Abby's advice column. I have added a lot of my own annotations.

Cake

1. Grease and flour the bottoms (not the sides) of two 9" round cake pans OR two 8" round cake pans and two custard cups. (I add waxed paper in the bottom of the pans after greasing and flouring. If you have Magicake Strips, use them to help prevent doming. Avoid non-stick pans because the cake will dome more and cook too quickly because of the dark coating.)
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Add to double boiler:
1. 3 one-ounce squares of unsweetened chocolate (Scharffen Berger, Callebaut or Ghirardelli are good; avoid Hershey's or Baker's; I accidentally used bittersweet once - it made a very moist cake, but it wasn't quite as good or chocolate-y)
2. 1 cup water
3. 1/2 cup butter
4. Heat until chocolate and butter melt. Set aside and allow to cool slightly.
5. Sift into large bowl (really, do sift it - it makes mixing in the wet ingredients much easier):
1. 2 cups cake flour
2. 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3. 1 teaspoon salt
6. Beat in medium bowl:
1. 2 eggs
2. 1 cup sour cream
7. Beat in with eggs and sour cream:
1. 2 cups sugar
2. 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
8. Slowly add chocolate mixture to egg mixture, beating constantly.
9. Mix half of chocolate-egg mixture into flour at a time. (This feels strange, because usually you would mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Nonetheless, it is correct.) Mix until just blended. (I think this is probably to minimize doming.)
10. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. (Cake in non-stick pans will cook faster than this.)
11. Let cake cool in pans for 10 minutes and turn out onto cooling rack.
12. If cakes have domed significantly, wait until they have cooled completely, then use a bread knife to gently saw off the domes. Reserve the domes for the cook.

Frosting

1. Prepare frosting once cake is completely cool.
2. This frosting will come out differently every time you make it, as it is extremely susceptible to environmental conditions, cooking technique and the phase of the moon.
3. This recipe makes exactly the right amount of frosting.
4. Combine in double boiler:
1. 3 egg whites (if you are using dried egg whites, before putting over heat, mix all dry ingredients, then add water and beat until whites are dissolved)
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
4. dash salt
5. 3 1/2 teaspoons cold water
5. Cook over simmering water, beating continuously for at least 10 minutes or until firm peaks develop. (I have found that firm peaks tends to be a bit overcooked, so I stop just shy of that stage. More like soft peaks - as in the picture below - but not floppy.)



6. Remove frosting from heat and stir in:
1. 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
7. Frost cake immediately. (You don't have to work in a great rush, but don't dilly dally too much, as the frosting will start to set up. Don't worry if it's not beautiful - any imperfections will be camouflaged by the chocolate glaze.)

Note that if you are going to use waxed paper strips to keep your plate clean, they should not be inserted nearly so far under the cake as these were. When I pulled them out, they pulled cake with them and I had quite a job to shove the cake back in place. Thank goodness for the chocolate glaze.

Chocolate Glaze

1. Heat carefully in saucepan or double boiler, making sure no water gets in.
1. 1 tablespoon butter
2. 1 one-ounce square unsweetened chocolate
2. Melt and whisk together.
3. Drizzle glaze by spoonfuls onto frosted cake. Allow to dribble artistically down the sides.
4. Whelve the cake (isn't that a fantastic word?). We don't have a cake keeper, so we have to get creative with large bowls.

We typically increase this recipe and make a three-layer cake because Matt does not want his friends to go hungry. Use larger bowls and increase all ingredients by one and a half except the following:

• increase baking soda to 1 3/4 teaspoons
• increase cream of tartar to 1 teaspoon
• do not increase chocolate glaze

The Quest for Green Frosting

In preparing for our biennial cookie making party, I continued my attempts to make green frosting without food coloring (cf. Article 5). I came up with a variety of interesting shades, but only one passed the Article 2 test of actually tasting good.

The base frosting for all of these experiments was Quick Icing from the 1997 Joy of Cooking. Had I been planning better, I would have used vanilla powder, instead of vanilla extract, so the frosting would have been whiter to start with. (While shortening is whiter than butter, using shortening is a non-starter for us.)

All photographs were taken in natural light, unless otherwise specified.


clockwise from left: frosting colored with stevia, chlorella, matcha, and turmeric

Stevia - odd and sweet
Stevia is a natural, non-sugar sweetener. Some stevia is sold as a green powder. I used a 16:1 frosting to stevia ratio. If you don't mind stevia, it doesn't taste bad, although it's powerfully sweet. It makes an olive green that isn't particularly pretty.

Chlorella - blech
This was just a mistake. I meant to buy chlorophyll. Chlorella produces a grainy grey-green that tastes like seaweed. Great verisimilitude if you want to frost a sea serpent (and not eat it), but otherwise useless.

Matcha Green Tea Powder - nice
I got the idea of using matcha from The Cake Bible. The frosting made with matcha actually tasted good, and fairly strongly of green tea. The color is a bit avocado-y, but not objectionable. The frosting looks much more attractive in natural light than incandescent. I used an 8:1 ratio.


matcha frosting under incandescent light

Spirulina - mild and salty
Spirulina is rather salty, so you would definitely want to use unsalted butter. It doesn't have a very pronounced taste, but it doesn't make a very "pretty" green either. Spirulina frosting also looks much better in natural light. It would be a good reptile color. I used a ratio of 32:1.


spirulina turmeric frosting

Pistachio - delicious, but not very green
I made pistachio marzipan from The Cake Bible, thinking I could use it as a cake topping. It's quite a bit of work to get the red skin off so that the green color comes through, and even then, it's very subtle.



Turmeric - tastes like turmeric
I used the yellow of turmeric to brighten some of my green experiments. I found the taste odd; Matt found it objectionable. It is possible that fresher turmeric would be more pleasant. Anyway, a ratio of 32:1 makes a rather nice yellow - the color deepens noticeably over time. If you used it to frost a pumpkin cake, you might even be able to kid yourself that the turmeric was pumpkin pie spice (well, probably not).


matcha and turmeric frosting


stevia and turmeric frosting

Other Ideas
Here are a number of other ideas for green (and yellow) that I haven't yet tried:

• Chartreuse would undoubtedly make a fabulous frosting, but it is not cheap, and you could probably only use enough to elicit a very pale green before your frosting got too runny.


• This link includes suggestions of wheatgrass, barley and chlorophyll.


• Here's a recipe for avocado icing that I definitely want to try.


• Some time ago, in the comments, mycakes suggested decorating with kiwi slices.


• Annatto is an option for yellow. The sources I've looked at disagree about whether it has a taste. I would guess the taste wouldn't be too noticeable, as we're all used to having annatto in our butter. Depending on how much annatto you use, or its composition (sources disagree), you can get yellow, orange or red.


• You could also try pureed cooked squash, pumpkin or sweet potato to add yellow or orange.

Hosting a Holiday Cookie Making Party

Every other year in December we throw a cram-the-house-full, pull-out-all-the-stops cookie making party. Going over the top is one of our fun things, but rest assured that it is also possible to hold a most excellent party in a much more low-key fashion. (Apparently it is also possible to go even further over the top - why on earth would you make fudge to send home with people after a cookie making party?)

This has turned into a really long post, so here is an index (as always, you can skip the blather and go straight to the recipes at the end of the post):

Picture Gallery
Venue
Hosts
Guests
Refreshments
Cookie Dough
Frosting
Decorations
Supplies
Cookie Boxes
Cookie Recipes

Picture Gallery

This is the best adaptive re-use of the creepy hunchback Santa that I have ever seen.






The temptation to mix the two cookie doughs is well-nigh irresistible. Fortunately they bake for the same time at the same temperature. I think spritz disk impressions on rolled cookies were an innovation this year.


This chessboard was the most time intensive project of the evening. It survived baking reasonably well, although some of the chess pieces fell over.






The frog seems to have been particularly inspiring this year (in previous years it's been the orca or the coyote).


The letters are always popular. We scored a full alphabet from the thrift store.

Venue

We use our teeny-tiny house which is poorly laid out for the endeavor, but the crowding adds conviviality. At a minimum you need some room for seating, some room for circulation, a lot of decorating area, a place to lay out the beverages, and an oven.

We advise that your work space be free of carpets or rugs of any kind, but work with what you have.

With 15-20 guests, baking two sheets of cookies at a time will just about keep up. With more guests, an oven with three racks would be a big help.

Hosts

This party really requires more than one host, unless you bake the cookies beforehand, because one of you will be in the kitchen pretty much full time until late in the party.

Guests

As many as you can reasonably cram into your venue, and then one or two more for the pot. Most of our guests are adults. I'm sure there's a whole other batch of considerations if your party is mostly populated with small ones. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to consider them.

Refreshments

These can be minimal. Milk always goes over well. If you put it out on the counter in a thermos, it will stay reasonably cold. Coffee is also well received.

Some light snacks are nice to blunt the sugar high. This year we put out chex mix for people to munch on while decorating and, inevitably, some of the mix made its way onto some of the cookies. Once people start thinking, there's no stopping them.

Cookie Dough

Several days before the party, we make two kinds of rolled cookie dough (sugar and gingerbread) and spritz butter cookie dough. We use the spritz recipe from Cooks Illustrated (Issue 71, Nov 2004).

[HUZZAH! We think we have an ID on the mystery sugar cookie dough from the grand cookie tea cup experiment. You'll find the recipe at the end of the post.]

It is helpful to test the properties of the cookie dough before the party. Is it sturdy enough to be moved from rolling surface to cookie sheet, or does it need to be rolled out directly onto parchment paper? Is it sticky enough to need waxed paper between it and the rolling pin? Keep in mind that the dough will get stickier as it warms up.

Spritz cookies pose a bit of a conundrum. They're delicious and people love to play with the cookie press. Just don't expect the finished product to be beautiful. Spritz dough seems to have a working range of about two degrees. Too cold and it breaks off. Too warm and it puddles. We have the old fashioned metal tube presses. I expect you could get more reliable results from the modern "guns," but you'd lose most of the fun. Also, not many people end up getting to play because it's so easy to pump out a lot of cookies quickly that people don't realize how much cookie dough they've gone through before they hand the press off to someone else.

No one should fault you if you make only one kind of dough. Gingerbread is a good choice, because it rolls out so beautifully, transfers to the cookie sheet without distorting, and keeps well.

In fact, if you don't want to hang out in the kitchen during the party, you can even roll, cut and bake the cookies beforehand, and just have a cookie decorating party.

Frosting

For this party, I just grit my teeth and throw Article 5 to the wind. This year I did experiment with natural greens, and found that matcha powder works reasonably well. I will document my search for green in a future post. (Edited to add: see The Quest for Green Frosting)

We make two to three recipes of Quick Icing from the 1997 Joy of Cooking(the standard powdered sugar, butter and milk recipe). I divide it into six or seven batches to color. I make plenty of red, green and white, and smaller quantities of orange, blue and yellow. Don't bother with purple unless you own purple food coloring. Every year I think I'll make purple by mixing red and blue food coloring, and every year I am disappointed. It's just muddy and ugly.

We make an egg white and sugar frosting for piped outlines and writing. We also provide little store-bought tubes of colored icing for the same purpose.

Decorations

Let your imagination run wild here. At a minimum, supply frosting and some things to sprinkle.

• spreading frosting - you can even buy it from the store
• piping/writing frosting
• cinnamon red hots
• crushed peppermints or Lifesavers
• sprinkles of all kinds
• googly eyes (we are blessed to have Cookies nearby, where you can buy hard sugar decorations in just about any shape you can imagine)
• colored sugars - the huge or medium crystal kind are most festive, but you can't beat good old cinnamon sugar either
• raisins and other dried fruits
• nuts
• toasted coconut
• licorice whip
• chocolate chips - regular and tiny
• we don't really believe in them, but butterscotch or white chocolate chips

We tried to divide the decorations between pre- and post-baking areas, but the people didn't want to be separated (the best kind of party), so everything ended up jumbled together.

Supplies

• prep bowls - roughly a gazillion, to hold the various decorations; if your house is not as unusually rich in prep bowls as ours is, try cottage cheese tubs or paper cups
• butter knives - for frosting; as many as you can scramble
• cookie sheets - about one cookie sheet for every two guests; more is better; borrow if you need to--you don't want to have to be washing cookie sheets during the party
• cookie cutters
  
  • we have an eclectic collection, some childhood favorites, a large and random thrift store selection, and some from the aforementioned Cookies (I can't tell you how hard it was to resist buying the buffalo this year, but we have to pace ourselves)
  • if people bring their own cutters, make sure they can identify them so they'll get them back (this year's discovery: a quick cell phone snapshot is a big help for this)
  • plan to wash all of the cookie cutters after the party, because you just can't tell which have been used and which haven't
• a cookie press or two if you make spritz dough
• tables - leave room for circulation and then fill the rest of the space up with tables
• kraft paper - covering your tables with kraft paper makes cleanup much easier
• parchment paper - for lining the cookie sheets; this way, you can re-use the cookie sheets without washing them and it makes cleanup after the party much easier; people can also roll the cookies out right on the parchment paper and then transfer the paper to the cookie sheets
• waxed paper - for putting between rolling pin and cookie dough to prevent sticking
• rolling pins - we've found that three seems to be about right for 15-20 people
• cooling racks - as many small ones as you can round up, for cooling cookies and ferrying them out to the decorating table; if you find you don't have enough cooling racks, you can put cooled cookies on paper plates or such-like
• a really good dust mop - I'm planning to make this for next time; even so, resign yourself to picking up those tiny colored balls for weeks to come
• odd things that guests request and you will have no way of predicting - it's one of the fun parts
  

Cookie Boxes

We have learned from experience that one must be rigorous about insisting that every guest leave with a plate of cookies. Just imagine the trauma we've suffered in years past after being stuck with all those extra cookies. Now stop laughing.

Matt enjoys grade-school art projects involving tuberous roots, so he decorates plain white pizza boxes with potato prints. He buys the boxes from our local pizza joint (we suspect the counter guy pockets the cash, but we don't inquire too closely). We cut a couple pieces of waxed paper to fit inside each box so that cookies can be stacked in layers.


Yes, those are Christmas bats. Why do you ask?

For the more restrained among you, paper plates small enough to fit into plastic bags work well (if you trust in plastic wrap to keep cookies on a plate, you are a braver cook than I). Another option would be pie or cake boxes.

Cookie Recipes

Roll Cookies
[transcribed from 1974 Joy of Cooking, page 711]
Yield: about forty 2-inch cookies [We generally make 2 1/2 batches for 15-20 people.]

Remarkable for its handling quality, this dough can be shaped into crusts for filled cookies or tarts, as well as cut into intricate patterns.

Cream:

1/2 cup white or brown sugar

with:

1/2 cup butter

Beat in:

1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour [Joy cautions against adding extra flour, but it would make rolling out easier.]
2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Chill the dough 3 to 4 hours before rolling.

[We have found it is most foolproof to roll the cookies out onto parchment paper with waxed or parchment paper between rolling pin and dough. Then transfer parchment paper and cookies to the cookie sheet. If you don't use parchment paper, grease the cookie sheet.]

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Bake 7 to 12 minutes. [We find that 8 to 9 minutes is about right.]


Gingerbread Cookies

[This recipe makes a lot of dough--we generally make a 2/3 recipe. We have added numbers for a 2/3 recipe in parentheses, being a bit generous with the spices.]

Cream at low speed:

1 cup sugar (2/3 cup)
1 cup butter (2/3 cup)

Beat in:

1 1/4 cup molasses (5/6 cup)
3 eggs (2)

Combine dry ingredients:

1 tablespoon baking soda (2 teaspoons)
1 tablespoon salt (2 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon allspice (3/4 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (3/4 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon cloves (3/4 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon ginger (3/4 teaspoon)
3 cups flour (2 cups)

Beat wet and dry ingredients together.

Add 5 to 6 cups (3 1/2 to 4 cups) more flour to make a stiff dough.

Refrigerate before rolling out.

These cookies aren't as sticky as the sugar cookies above, but waxed paper is still helpful for rolling out, and parchment paper for lining the cookie sheet. Otherwise, grease the cookie sheet.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 8 to 9 minutes.

Baby Dragon Cake

We made this dragon cake for a young friend's first birthday. It was one of our more difficult collaborations. Matt wanted a flying, twisted, fire-breathing serpent. I wanted something that I felt confident we could achieve in cake. We produced a vast number of sketches, and very nearly ended up making the cake into a representation of . . . a nicely frosted 13x9 rectangle.

We finally settled on a fat baby dragon without too many protruding edges or inside corners. My inspiration for the design came from the book Artie and the Princessby Marjorie Torrey. (This is a wonderful old children's book, and it's a pity that it's out of print.) Our dragon didn't actually end up looking much like him, but Artie got us pointed in the right direction.



Despite the struggle and fuss, I think our dragon turned out pretty well. I am particularly proud of the decorations. Some day, though, we'll probably try the flying, twisted, fire-breathing serpent.

Pattern

Here's a look at how we start translating the design into the actual pattern. A lot of trace paper is involved.

Cake

We made the double chocolate sheet cake from Cooks Illustrated (Issue 48, Jan 2001). I wouldn't be surprised if the recipe is also available in one of their The Best Recipecookbooks. As with all the recipes in Cooks Illustrated, this one is tasty and reliable. After cooking, we froze the cake to make it easier to cut.

Frosting

We used a double batch of the Quick Icing recipe from the 1997 Joy of Cooking. I wanted a very dark brown icing, almost black, so I thought I would add cocoa and blueberry puree. (At least, I think that's why I did it. The problem with posting months after the fact is that I just don't remember any more.) Unfortunately, I couldn't add enough puree to get the color I wanted before the frosting got way too thin. Tasted good, though.

Another time, I would use the fruit puree to replace the liquid in the recipe, rather than in addition to it. Also, the puree made the frosting look grainy. I think the puree probably would have worked better in a cooked frosting (for example, Quick Icing 2 from Joy).

Blueberry Puree

I started from a fruit puree recipe in The Cake Bible. Thaw 14 ounces of frozen blueberries in a colander over a bowl. Smush the thawed berries so more juice goes into the bowl. Microwave the juice on high for eight minutes until it dries up and smells burned - discard. (Another painful reminder that all microwaves are different. Four to six minutes might have produced the desired reduction.) Puree berries in the blender (with reduced juice, if you manage it without incident). Add 2 teaspoons lemon juice. Makes 1 1/4 cups.

I now have a cup of puree lurking in my freezer just waiting for me to need purple frosting. It may be a while.

Decorations

Outlines - licorice whip
Horns - dried papaya and cantaloupe spears
Nostrils - dried cranberries
Eyes - dried bananas with chocolate-covered coffee beans for pupils
Belly - slivered almonds
Toenails - cashews
Tail - sprinkled with extra coarse sugar

Chocolate Glaze for the Wings

Melt 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate and about 2 teaspoons of butter together in the microwave. Pour over wings (place licorice whip first as a sort of dam). Reheat the glaze as necessary to facilitate pouring.


Transport

Figuring out how to transport these large cakes is often a problem. For this one, we tried using a flat Rubbermaid box, with a bit of non-slip shelf lining to rest the cake board on. It actually worked quite well, although we didn't end up keeping the box because it was too big to have hanging around the house, and isn't wide enough for all of our cakes.

Other Ideas

In the course of brainstorming, we came up with lots of ideas that might be good for other dragons. Keep in mind that we decided against some of these because we were skeptical they would succeed.

• add a treasure hoard made of mixed dried fruit


• make a cloud of smoke out of meringue, with dried papaya for tongues of flame


• use cake to make a gout of flame and cover with apricot puree and papaya spears


• use cacao nibs or finely chopped candied ginger for texture on part of the body (like the belly)


• make frill and wings out of fruit leather - cut large pieces into a the shape of a wing and fold it up (I haven't found any commercial fruit leather without artificial color, so you might want to make your own -- per Article 5 of the manifesto)


• make frill and wings out of crepes


• drizzle a fruit glaze on the wings instead of the unsweetened chocolate


• use a pale green frosting (with matcha green tea powder) for the body


• make teeth out of flat pieces of dried fruit cut into interlocking triangles

Four Tea Cake

We made this cake for a British friend's fortieth birthday party -- a tea party, of course. I came up with the "four tea" idea pretty quickly. I figured I'd just cut a flat cake into an appropriate shape and "draw" four tea cups on it. I sketched something up, thought of some decorating ideas and was quite pleased with myself. Matt the architect objected, saying it was cheating to make a flat drawing, rather than using the actual shape of the cake. Intense interspousal negotiation ensued which finally resulted in a much better plan. Or at least more ambitious. Certainly more architectural. And full of learning opportunities.


The first question was how to make teacup-shaped cakes. We envisioned using 4 small metal bowls. They didn't have anything like that at our local cake decorating store, but they had something even better - a Wilton 6 Cup Kingsize Muffin Pan. (The only problem with the pan is that I can't imagine what else we might use it for.)

The highly experimental cake turned out better than we had any right to expect. We used the White Cake from The 1997 Joy of Cooking (White Cake 1 in earlier versions) and added some tea and lemon to the batter. Then we added chocolate to half the batter and made a marbled cake, with the idea that it would look reminiscent of tea with milk swirled in. We made four cupcakes and baked the remaining batter in a 9" round pan. (Recipe details are at the end of the post.)

The sour cream chocolate frosting (also from the 1997 Joy) worked as advertised. (Our commission included a specific call for chocolate, or we probably would have ventured in another direction.) The flavor of the frosting was a bit assertive in comparison to the delicate cake, but not incompatible. It took about half of the recipe to frost the single 9" round.

Decorating with coarse sugar and lemon zest was elegant, although the zest flew everywhere when the guest of honor blew out the candles. The effect was festive, if a bit chaotic.

Then there was the crockery. It ought to have worked. We considered the qualities of our materials. Matt made a jig...



...and a prototype.



The prototype used up all of our frozen sugar cookie dough. We weren't sure what recipe we had used for the frozen dough, but figured it wouldn't matter too much. (Edited to add: I think we have finally identified the mystery recipe. You can find it in the Holiday Cookie Making Party post.) So we picked a recipe and whipped up another batch the night before the party. And made bikini cups.



Tried another recipe a couple of hours before the party. Added extra flour. And made Jabba the Cup.



The lesson here is probably that cookies are meant to be cooked horizontally. Given the success of the prototype, I am still not ready to accept this. Had there been time, I probably would have tried using a gingerbread cookie dough that is specially designed for making gingerbread houses. Fortunately, there was no time for that quixotic venture, so Matt employed surgery to salvage one of the Jabbas...





...and I made the other two cups out of rolled marzipan.



We made a paper template to help in rolling out the marzipan. The handles tended to pull off under their own weight. They might have worked better had we been able to prop them up and let them sit for a day.

The cookie saucers (baked over a greased Pyrex bowl) generally worked better than the cups, but some of them required special decanting techniques as well.



We would never let cookies go to waste, so we served the broken crockery on the side.



As usual, we came up with lots of other ideas for materials. We cannot vouch for them as we haven't tested them (and apparently even testing provides no guarantee), but here they are for what they're worth.

• Apply decorative bits to the cup and saucer to create a china pattern - slivered almonds, flattened gumdrops, marzipan shapes, cookie shapes, chocolate candies, etc.


• Make the cups from pie crust (we are kicking ourselves for not thinking of this earlier).


• Make cups by frosting the cupcakes. Make sure the frosting projects above the cake so your "tea" doesn't overflow. The saucers and cup handles should probably still be made of cookie or pie dough.


• Pour a brown glaze over the cupcakes to simulate tea - maybe caramel sauce or a thin penuche frosting (this brown sugar brandy sauce looks good). This would work best with cookie or marzipan cups, unless your frosting cups set up really firmly.


• Omit the cupcakes altogether and just fill cookie teacups with a light brown cloud cream per The Cake Bible (colored with maple syrup, perhaps).


• Try different tea flavor combinations. Put macha powder in your cake and frosting for green tea. Make spice cake and gingerbread cups for chai.


• Make coffee cups instead. Use a mocha cake and top with swirls of whipped cream.

Marbled Tea Cake

Starting from the White Cake recipe in The 1997 Joy of Cooking (White Cake 1 in earlier editions), we made the following modifications.

• omitted vanilla


• added zest of 1/2 lemon to butter and sugar


• for the milk we substituted 1 scant cup double bergamot Earl Grey tea, cooled, 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice


• if you wanted to keep the whole milk, you could omit the tea and add a tiny bit of oil of bergamot instead


• you can buy oil of bergamot at the health food store in the essential oils section
• bergamot is a citrus fruit that actually doesn't taste a bit like tea but is evocative of tea because of its use in Earl Grey
• there is also a purple flower native to the Great Plains called wild bergamot, which is unrelated to the citrus fruit
• added 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to dry ingredients (to compensate for the added acid of the lemon juice and chocolate)


• marbling


• before adding egg whites, divided batter into two parts and added 2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate to one part
• then mixed half of egg whites into each half of batter
• alternated spoonfuls of each into prepared cake pans and drew knife through to marble

By measuring the volume of our pans, we had previously determined that about 10% of the batter should go in each of 4 muffin cups, with the remaining 60% for the 9" round cake pan. We put a little water in the empty muffin cups to prevent warping.

In retrospect, we should have made an extra muffin. Usually, when you make a cut up cake, there are plenty of tasting opportunities. Since these cakes weren't cut up, we couldn't taste them until the party - that was hard on us. It also meant we didn't have any extra "canvas" on which to experiment. We might also have made the muffins slightly larger. Had we done that, the 9" round cake probably would have cooked for more like the advertised 25 minutes. As it was, it took a lot longer.