The goodness that is Creme Anglaise

I had another cake commissioned for today. It was in a design near and dear to my heart- a U of M graduation cake in the shape of the infamous Block M.

When asked about the cake flavor/frosting flavor I was given "white cake, plain frosting". hm... real adventurous here.

I also had an order for chocolate chip cookies, banana bread and had to prepare for another birthday cake for this weekend. I had to plan out my week and what I would do nightly so I wouldn't be up all night last night. Hey, at least I TRIED. I was still up 'til 1 a.m. this morning.

Anyhow, I whipped up the Swiss Buttercream on Wednesday night. I made a double batch so I had 12 egg yolks with no purpose. I asked my new friend Lisa (@thebutcherbaker- GO CHECK THIS HOT MAMA OUT NOW! she's the most recent addition to @brutalsnack... more on Lisa later. I <3 her) about what to do w/ all of these yolks. She gave me three ideas: ice cream, creme anglaise for buttercream or a really fatty omelet. hmmm... Well, I don't have an ice cream machine and don't know that I want to take the time to figure out how to make ice cream at this point... an egg yolk omelet? while it sounds delicious I don't think my heart will allow me to eat it... Creme Anglaise? What is this "Creme Anglaise"? Sounds fancy...

I started to google. It's this custard type cream/sauce that you can use in buttercream, for a different flavor profile. It uses 5-8 yolks, depending on the recipe. Yup, it's going down.

Let me preface this that I was scared to make this. It involves tempering eggs. As you know- I am deathly afraid of tempering eggs. I've scrambled PLENTY of eggs in my time due to my impatience. I had a boat load of yolks though and so what if I scrambled some, I could keep trying.

I set to work. The recipe I used was very explicit about the utensils you had to use to make this recipe (stainless steel bowls, wooden spoon, whisk, ice bath, sauce pan..) Not anything crazy, but I thought- if they made the effort to clearly say STAINLESS STEEL BOWL, I better get everything out and ready and be a good little chef and do my mise en place.

Here is some:



Here is my half and half coming to 'just under a boil'. I think just under a boil means it starts to steam and you see little bubble forming along the edges of the liquid. Basically, you want to scald the liquid.



While the half and half is heating up, whip the egg yolks and sugar:



OK- now comes the 'scary' portion. I had to really focus on this part so I didn't take any pictures. But this is what happened: The half and half got to the scalded point. I walked it over to the Kitchen-Aid and started to slooooooooowly pour down the side of the bowl into the egg and sugar mixture. By "slooooooowly" I mean really really slowly and only a little bit at a time.
It appeared I didn't scramble the eggs! shriek of joy! Then, I poured the mixture back into the sauce pan and went back to the stove top and put it on low heat:



Then, I stood there and stirred with a wooden spoon for about 25 minutes. Seriously- I was irritated. I had the banana bread in the oven w/ the timer on, so I could see exacly how long this was taking me. I was to be stirring until the mixture coated the back of the wooden spoon. It took a long time and in typical Sandy B. fashion I got antsy and turned the heat up.

DUMB, DUMB and dumb. Guess what happened? The eggs started to scramble. (duh). Know how I knew? Because I COULD SMELL THE SCRAMBLED EGGS. I quickly took the pan off the heat and ran to the fine mesh strainer sitting in the ice bath and dumped the mixture out and pushed through the strainer. Caught in the nick of time... here is what the ice bath set up looked like (my savior):


and, I forgot to take pictures from here on out because the banana bread was done, I had to re-whip the buttercream and start carving the cake. Well- let me tell you what happened. I put the ice bath and creme anglaise in the fridge for about an hour. It cooled off and then I added it to my Swiss Buttercream and whipped the two together.
Then, I tasted it, then I died and then I swore I would do this for all of my cake frostings from now on, just adding different extracts to add different flavors. HOT DAMN was it good. So good in fact that I even let Mr. Papers try it out. He isn't too good with the compliments in regards to my baking, so when he agreed it was "best ever", I knew it was good... (I would like to note that he isn't this picky in regards to 'regular' food- he has been known to eat things OUT OF THE GARBAGE CAN because it was 'still good'. gross)

Anyhow, make some Creme Anglaise, or find a cake/cuppie that uses Creme Anglaise. You won't be sorry and you won't ever want frosting any other way. Trust me.
So- here is what it was all for. My Block M graduation cake:



I'm pretty stingy with the pictures on this one mostly because I consider it a "fail". I should KNOW dude! Whenever I think a cake is going to be "easy" it ends up being way hard. It wasn't until I was rolling out the fondant for it that I was like, hm... It might be somewhat difficult to get into the crevices in the middle. hm... Yeah, BIG HMMMM on that one. Idiot. It isn't pretty, I'm not proud and it was a huge learning experience. I tried to do anything and everything to make it look presentable. This is what I came up with. I know it tastes really good because I carved so much out of the sheet cake and tasted it. But, it doesn't look that great.
I need a lesson on how to lay fondant on letters. Help, please... anyone?

Beautiful Failure (aka GET READY part II)

Yesterday I talked about my epic FAIL of a pound cake and promised you the story... Here it is in all of it's gruesome glory.
The recipe name is what got me- it stated that it was THE BEST pound cake you had ever had. It also had some interesting secret ingredients and I became more intrigued. It also required the use of a Bundt pan..I was hooked- this recipe was going down.
I never ever use my Bundt pan, ever... I actually can't think of a time I have used it since I received it five years ago... I've shied away from it because I've had issues in the past with my mini bundt pans and getting the cake to come out cleanly. But this recipe sounded good, it had secret ingredients and required the never used Bundt pan. I was scared, I'll admit. But, this is an adventure so I felt I should be brave and what the heck?

I followed the instructions to a T. In the recipe it states "grease your Bundt pan". I greased. I greased a lot. In fact, I think I over greased! Not anywhere did it say "grease and flour". Just "grease". So, I didn't flour.

I went for a run and left instructions w/ Nanny J to pull it out of the oven when the timer went off if it wasn't 'jiggly'. Let me tell you about Nanny J- she has 6 kids and lives on a farm. The woman knows how to bake better than I can ever dream of. I'm embarassed when I bake around her because she probably is mocking me internally. But she is so sweet and kind she would never criticize me. She just won't eat what I bake! lol.. One day I will have to tell you all about her, because you will be amazed I found this gem of a woman and you will try to steal her from me. But, she's loyal! she won't leave. So try as you may, you won't succeed. So there!

anyhow, I come home and the cake is on the counter turned upside down still in the Bundt pan on top of a cooling rack. The recipe had indicated that the cake would 'plop' out of the pan, easy-peasy. With excited anticipation, I go to lift the pan and am surprised AND DISMAYED that the cake doesn't budge. It didn't plop and it's not moving at all. I look at the cake with disbelief- WHAT is going on? I GREASED!

My evil genius mind gets going and I proceed to BANG the pan on the counter top on all sides in hopes of releasing the suction like grip. Nothing...I'm about to reach for a knife to help loosen it, but think, I'll just bang a little longer. (GET your minds OUT OF THE GUTTER NOW!) It seemed to work, I turn it over onto the cooling rack and this is what happens:


FAIL, FAIL and FAIL. half the cake in the pan, half the cake crumbled onto the rack. stupid cake. stupid pan. stupid grease without flour.

what am I going to do? I despise throwing away treats. Hate it. It still tastes good, it just doesn't look good. *SIGH...sad...

I stared at the crumbled cake. For a good long time I stared, in a standoff with this failure of a cake. Mad that I didn't flour the pan like I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE and mad that the recipe didn't explicitly say "grease and flour". And mad that I failed AGAIN with a Bundt pan. insert explitives here.... *cleansing SIGH...
Then I got my camera and took some pictures... because along with the good I have to share my failures so we can all learn... As I was snapping away, I thought about my proverbial sack of lemons and making lemon bars and realized I could still use the cake and no one would know it was a failure.
I can make strawberry shortcake!
AND!!!!!! and, I have a freaking Trifle Dish. how many people do you know have a Trifle Dish? This is too perfect! I just had to remove all of the sea shells I had in it, wash it out and use it for it's intended purpose...

I got excited- I was turning my FAIL into something awesome. Here is what I did:

put pieces of the failed cake into the dish:


top with a layer of strawberries and fresh whipped cream (2 batches whipped cream = 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, 10 teaspoons of powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla, chill mixing bowl and whip attachment in freezer for half hour, then pour all ingredients into bowl and whip on high until soft/stiff peaks form) and, don't leave it unattended because you might walk up on this....





then repeat layers until you get to the top











And there you go. That my friends is how you turn an epic fail into something beautiful.