Friday, July 25, 2008

the hubbs b-day feed

Admittedly this is another tardy (hee hee, tardy) post. My husband birthday was about a week and a half ago and to celebrate this day I tried my hand at a layer cake and a John Barrymore Onion Pletzel. Specifically a chocolate cake with cannoli filling and a coffee buttercream.

I used my super-trusty, go-to "why would you ever make a cake out of box ever again" chocolate cake recipe. The recipe is the Moosewood Collective's vegan chocolate cake It is a snap to put together, literally just dry into wet. I can attest that it is virtually impossible to mess up always tastes wonderful and can be enjoyed by all. The cannoli filling was simply some ricotta sweetened with confectioners sugar. Let me tell you it was pretty hard not to just eat the entire bowl and claim to our guests that 3-layer cakes generally do not have anything between the layers.

The coffee buttercream was a bit of an experiment and lessons were learned. 1. making frosting of any sort on a 90-some-odd degree day makes things a little drippy. 2. Anything with 3 sticks of butter as a primary ingredient will return to a sold butter consistency when cooled. This was a recipe from The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook. Basically the powdered sugar is replaced with fluff in this buttercream. It comes together like a dream and did not taste overwhelmingly of marshmallow. Toss in a little espresso powder dissolved in a bit of hot water, and tada! The cute little decorations are the new fancy-schmancy M&M's.

The John Barrymore Onion Pletzel was my first attempt at any of the sweet dough's from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It was good, but I am not totally sure that it was good enough to justify the sheer amount of butter involved. All in all it made for a tasty and special breakfast when paired with a couple of fried eggs.

5 comments:

Jeff Hertzberg said...

I'm Jeff Hertzberg, one of the co-authors of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. You can cut the fat in that dough for the pletzl... try halving it and replacing with an equal amount of water (you might have to adjust the flour up bit. Come visit us anytime at http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com, where you can post questions into any "Comments" field, or into the "Bread Questions" gateway on the left side of the homepage.

Jeff Hertzberg
www.artisanbreadinfive.com

K8 said...

Thanks Jeff!

For the record, my husband and I have not actually bought a loaf of bread since we got Artisan Bread in 5. We love it!

Zoe Francois said...

Happy Birthday,

How great that you haven't had to buy any bread, that is so very exciting!!!

Zoƫ

Unknown said...

I think a pretzl should be thinner, very thin! Like a flat bread almost!

K8 said...

Irene, thanks for the tip. That was my thought if I get a chance to make them again.