Saturday, April 14, 2018

Automobile mechanic's cake

This cake has a layer of pastry cream, so to make this cake you must know how to make that. I picked the shortest video.



Pfft. It's a custard. So any custard will do. Cheat: boxed pudding

This cake is coated with fondant. It's an essential element. You can buy fondant in buckets on Amazon but it's easy and inexpensive to make. I picked the shortest video again and you can skip the first 45 seconds.

Fondant is melted marshmallows with butter, water and corn syrup and a lot of confectioner's sugar. Marshmallows are made of gelatin, sugar, corn syrup, confectioner's sugar, vanilla and cornstarch. 

Cornstarch is used to roll out the fondant. So, a lot of cornstarch. Doesn't it sound awful?

Oh man. I made marshmallows one time. The ladies around here loved them. I hated them. Chocolate marshmallows by me. I should make those again.



Okay, now for the cake.

Did I accidentally say Automobile mechanic's cake? I meant to say Sissy Princess Cake.



Those layers kind of reminded me of a cake I made one time. For a princess automobile mechanic.

I used box cake mix and tinned Mandarin oranges, and the juice to create a wet layer.
Four layers, alternating lemon and chocolate.

The chocolate layers have Grand Mariner. Lettering chocolate ganache. 

You know, boxed cake mix is just low protein pastry flour, sugar and baking powder, cocoa powder. Their instructions for you to add egg and oil and vanilla is your clue for your own scratch cakes, to use oil for tender cakes, and not butter with sugar creamed into it as all recipes tell you to do.

Story time.

A tiny old woman at the Federal Reserve Bank where I worked was a holocaust survivor so out of respect I gave a very wide berth to be insane.

The office was planning a pot luck party. She decided now was the time to grace us with her poppy seed cake. You have to read this in your little old Jewish lady voice to get this properly.

She said, "I make my poppy seed cake from sk-datch. Sk-datch! From sk-datch I make this cake. My own poppy seeds I put to it. A whole jar of poppy seeds I put to this sk-datch cake. The whole thing. I make from sk-datch this cake. From sk-datch

She kept emphasizing from scratch. 

The next day, I did not like the cake. Too many poppy seeds. I don't know why that was even a thing. She walked right up to me toe to toe. She's half my height. "You like my cake?"

"Yeah! That was great." I lied.

"You want the recipe? I give you my recipe. Top secret, this recipe. I give to nobody this recipe. I give you my recipe. Here. You write this. Write this down. You write this recipe. Step one. Buy one box vanilla cake mix."  

3 comments:

deborah said...

lol you remind me of something my son brought home from school in the first grade...one of those sheets of paper with the dotted lines running horizontally to help to print properly...printed a recipe for blueberry muffins. The directions were to open a box of blueberry muffin mix, pour it into a bowl, add water, mix, etc. Too sweet. Always meant to give it to my aunt, a super cook.

Some Seppo said...

My family poppy seed cake recipe calls for cream sherry. One time my Mom was asked for the recipe from a ladies' club she had attended and served it to. Since they were all teetotalers she just told them it was a family secret.

And no, the secret is not an entire jar of poppy seeds. The secret is that it contains yellow cake mix, yellow pudding mix, and cream sherry.

deborah said...

"You know, boxed cake mix is just low protein pastry flour, sugar and baking powder, cocoa powder. Their instructions for you to add egg and oil and vanilla is your clue for your own scratch cakes, to use oil for tender cakes, and not butter with sugar creamed into it as all recipes tell you to do."

r u serious? This is big. I respect your cooking chops so much, and for you to tell me I don't have to cream sugar and butter for a scratch cake means so much!!!