stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2018-05-23 10:08 pm
stevenpiziks) wrote2018-05-23 10:08 pm
Cake and Mirrors
I'm a terrible cake decorator. Awful. World-class dreadful. I can make a delicious gourmet cake so good that a single forkful will make you swear you just had sex with a angel. But the moment the frosting comes out--wham! It lumps and slides and gloops under my spatula, and any three-year-old can write better with colored frosting than I can. Hell, I worked in a freakin' BAKERY for a year, and still couldn't master basic cake lettering. That tells you how awful I am. Eat the cake, but close your eyes first.
I came to terms with this awful limitation long ago and thought I was good with it. Then I came across mirror glaze (sometimes called mirror cake). It's a glaze made with condensed milk, white chocolate, and gelatin that you pour over a frozen cake. It hardens into a smooth, shiny surface that is easy to manipulate with an offset spatula into lovely designs. Google it. Very easy to find.
I watched a few videos of this phenomenon and got weirdly excited about it, like I'd found a treasure chest in the garage. My main thought was "Holy shit! I could actually =do= that!"
And right now, I'm between major writing projects, so my afternoons and evenings are free.
So I headed to the store with a grocery list.
Since this is the learning and experimental stage, I wanted to run through a bunch of these. To that end, it would be better to use box mixes for the cake part, rather than make a bunch of cakes from scratch. Box mixes generally taste bland, but I'm more interested in the glazing process and the final look than in the taste. I chose a red velvet and a lemon. Mirror cakes usually have one layer, so this would give me four cakes to work with.
Mirror cakes are always frozen before the glazing process, and they're often encased in mousse. But mousse takes a lot of whipping cream, which is expensive, so I got ingredients for one batch of mousse. The other three cakes I would glaze naked. :)
This was yesterday. Today, I mixed the cake batter and poured them into parchment-lined pans so there was no risk of breakage when they came out. While they baked and cooled, I whisked eggs and sugar and hot cream and white chocolate and vanilla into a mousse, which I refrigerated. When everything was cool, I lined a springform pan with a layer of creamy mousse, set on it one of the chocolate cakes, and covered it all over with more mousse. This went into the freezer, along with the bare cakes to chill and harden overnight.
Tomorrow we'll try the actual glazing. Watch this space!
I came to terms with this awful limitation long ago and thought I was good with it. Then I came across mirror glaze (sometimes called mirror cake). It's a glaze made with condensed milk, white chocolate, and gelatin that you pour over a frozen cake. It hardens into a smooth, shiny surface that is easy to manipulate with an offset spatula into lovely designs. Google it. Very easy to find.
I watched a few videos of this phenomenon and got weirdly excited about it, like I'd found a treasure chest in the garage. My main thought was "Holy shit! I could actually =do= that!"
And right now, I'm between major writing projects, so my afternoons and evenings are free.
So I headed to the store with a grocery list.
Since this is the learning and experimental stage, I wanted to run through a bunch of these. To that end, it would be better to use box mixes for the cake part, rather than make a bunch of cakes from scratch. Box mixes generally taste bland, but I'm more interested in the glazing process and the final look than in the taste. I chose a red velvet and a lemon. Mirror cakes usually have one layer, so this would give me four cakes to work with.
Mirror cakes are always frozen before the glazing process, and they're often encased in mousse. But mousse takes a lot of whipping cream, which is expensive, so I got ingredients for one batch of mousse. The other three cakes I would glaze naked. :)
This was yesterday. Today, I mixed the cake batter and poured them into parchment-lined pans so there was no risk of breakage when they came out. While they baked and cooled, I whisked eggs and sugar and hot cream and white chocolate and vanilla into a mousse, which I refrigerated. When everything was cool, I lined a springform pan with a layer of creamy mousse, set on it one of the chocolate cakes, and covered it all over with more mousse. This went into the freezer, along with the bare cakes to chill and harden overnight.
Tomorrow we'll try the actual glazing. Watch this space!