a little bit savoury | a whole lot sweet
When there is a birthday at the hubby’s work, one of the women in his office is the dedicated birthday cake maker.
For one of the recent birthdays, she was unavailable so I was asked to make the birthday cake for D. The cake chosen was one I haven’t made before, being a Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Icing, but it was super simple and went down a treat with everyone, most importantly the birthday girl.
My father loves golf. Most weekends he would be at the golf club playing a round or being a part of the committee and whenever there was a tournament on TV he would be watching it no matter what time of the day or night it was. As much as he would try to get my brother and I to play as well, which we did a little when we were kids, it wasn’t until I was in high school that a group of my friends would play on a Friday afternoon after school. A couple of the guys played competitively, but the rest of us were pretty darn average… well probably less than average in all honesty. But we had fun.
I came across this golf course cupcake cake quite a while ago and pinned it until I had a chance to make it for dad. As it was his birthday in September, it was about time I made it.
Last, but by no means least, of the flavours made for the 30th birthday macaron tower were the Cherry Ripe Macarons as chosen by C. When I found out that this was C’s flavour and I can honestly say it was something I wasn’t expecting and was a little bit freaked at first because for whatever reason, I couldn’t recall ever eating a Cherry Ripe before in my life. But I took one for the team and tried a few Cherry Ripes when I was testing out a couple of recipes for the ganache and I can say I am a fan.
A few months ago I finally signed up to be a Daring Baker, which is something I had been hearing about via some of the blogs I follow. The main reason it interested me was so that I would make something I might normally not have made as I tend to stick with what I am comfortable with.
This month was no exception. I had heard of a “three milk cake” a few times recently and it definitely intrigued me. When I saw that September’s challenge was for Pastel de Tres Leches, I had the reason I needed to finally make this cake, even if I didn’t get to eat it myself.
Since I first started making the popcorn and malteser macarons, I have had lots of practice at them as they are certainly my most popular variety. It also happened to be one of the first posts on my blog and so some, well the majority, of the photos left a lot to be desired.
Even though I have made them quite a few times since, and have always meant to take some more photos, I never did. When the time came to make the macaron tower I thought I would at least get a couple of new feature photos rather than doing the step by step process again.
One of the most popular flavours around these days is salted caramel. I see it in tarts, biscuits, cupcakes and certainly macarons. So when B requested Salted Caramel Macarons for her part of the 30th birthday macaron tower, I was excited to give it a go.
There are numerous recipes out there for salted caramel macarons, and the one I used was from one of my 100+ cookbooks being Secrets of Macarons by José Maréchal. It is an awesome little book with lots of info on how to make these fiddly little things and I refer to it regularly.
September is a busy month birthday wise, as I am sure most people appreciate. For me, across nine days there are nine birthdays (plus a few stragglers at the beginning and end of the month), with six of those falling on the 11th and 12th. This year also happens to be the year all my friends from school are turning 30 (I am next year given I was the youngest of the group). One of my friends, who you may remember from My Best Friend’s Wedding… Cake, decided to have a party for her 30th and I volunteered to make the cake. M hadn’t decided what she wanted but when I told her that I was going to buy a macaron stand (US readers check out the Macaron section of my store for your link) that I had been eyeing off for a while, the decision was made. M requested a macaron tower for her 30th birthday.
A few months ago I started my subscription to Cake Decorating Central’s Kit of the Month as a way of learning a few new cake decorating techniques and improve my skills that little thing called fondant. The kit for August was all about the dad’s being a Father’s Day BBQ Cake.
Now this was an absolutely perfect centrepiece for Father’s Day lunch given both my dad and the hubby’s dad have spent a lot of time around the good ol’ BBQ cooking up a storm over the years.
Where I work, on your birthday you bring in a cake to share with everyone but if truth be told, any day is a good day for cake in our office. Recently it was K’s birthday and the cake she made was an Orange and Almond cake. After the first few bites, there were a few requests for the recipe and I decided to give this moist, gluten free cake a go myself last weekend.
The hubby grew up on a farm just out of town and on it was a lone blood plum tree. His Grandpa tried to get him to eat them when he was a youngin’, and of course he protested because he had no idea what they were and kids are just fussy. But Grandpa wouldn’t have a bar of it and shoved a blood plum in his mouth and told him to try it (not that he had much choice at this stage). Obviously Grandpa knew what he was talking about and the hubby immediately fell in love with them.
In recent years, the hubby started brewing his own liquor and had a thought one day to source some blood plums to soak in the alcohol for a little bit more of a grown up trip down memory lane. Once the first batch of blood plum liquor had been made, the hubby had the wondrous idea of using it in a sauce for some pork ribs he had sitting the freezer after recalling one of his favourite combos in Chinese cuisine being pork and plum sauce. Hence, his Pork Ribs with Blood Plum Sauce were born.