All caught up from the snow days and ready to move forward! I had been looking forward to Week 9 – Cheesecakes and Butter Cakes. Cheesecakes are something I have a lot of experience with, but would like to improve upon, and as someone with very traditionalist, American taste in baked goods I was excited to learn more about classic, creaming method butter cakes.
Day 1 Cheesecake lecture was great, lots of tips on how to prevent cracks, fallen cheesecakes & soggy cheesecakes:
- Moisture in the oven! Either a water bath or pan of water in the oven with the cheesecake
- Run a knife around the edge as soon as the cheesecake is out of the oven
- Don’t overbeat the cheesecake; low steady speed on the mixer throughout the process
- Make sure it is completely cooled before wrapping
Everything is better with butter! Day 2 of Week 9 was Butter Cakes; room temperature butter creamed with sugar until light and fluffy, eggs added slowly with dry ingredients folded in alternating with any liquids. This was a really fun day in that once our team of 3 completed one of the basic recipes for butter cakes (we did Spice & Ginger Cake), a batch of Financiers and Gateau Basque (amazing combo of dough filled with Almond Cream) we then were given a basic formula that we had to use to create our own individual recipes. It being winter and March (home of St. Patrick’s Day!) my butter cake:
Spiced Chocolate Stout Cake with Dark Chocolate Chunks & Whiskey/Coffee Glaze
Super busy day and we didn’t have much time for pictures, although I did get a few before the spoils of the day were divided, packed and sent off to freezers, spouses, neighbors…after sampling each one of course!
overworked & underbaked 