Mom's Baking and It's Dangerous!

So I think I may have joined the culinary equivalent of the Freemasons.....a secret baking society. I've been eyeing the Daring Bakers for a while, especially the Daring Alternative Bakers, and what with all this extra daylight, I thought I'd give it a try. Every month, a different challenge is given and the member has to give it a go, then post the success or failure on the reveal date with the other members. The Alternative Bakers try to tweak the recipe to fit allergies/veganism/other issues. 

Unfortunately, on my first month, the recipe was for an "Opera Cake" with a dozen eggs, 2 sticks of butter, 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 1 1/2 pounds of white chocolate and 2 cups of almonds. Any attempt to tweak this recipe to be egg/dairy/nut free would have been a whole lot of work for a literal pile of beans (albeit soy)...and it would have tasted horrible. So my option was to sit the month out or just make it an adult cake. I happened to be hosting a baby shower for my sister-in-law, so this cake was perfect.
The recipe was 12 pages long with 5 different parts to make. A joconde (the almond sponge cake), soaked in a syrup, layered with buttercream, topped with a white chocolate mouse, then glazed with a white chocolate ganache. The flavors are traditionally chocolate and coffee based, but this challenge was to be light in color and flavor. I didn't get too crazy with my flavors, because I was already getting over-the-top with my design! I chose amaretto and vanilla bean for the joconde, syrup, buttercream and mousse. For the ganache, I infused the cream with lavender and made it a bit thicker than the recipe called for because I wanted the honeycomb to set up. The bees were made from marzipan and the glaze was melted peach jam and honey.

The Flight of the Bumblebees

     The design was inspired partly by this month's Martha Stewart Living bee cake cover (thanks for the subscription Beth!) , partly by the lavender almond tea cakes in Jerry Traunfeld's The Herbal Kitchen and partly from a vague recollection of a honeycomb pie in my vast reading of cookbooks. I searched through my cookbook collection and couldn't find the honeycomb pie, but then I remembered the book! It was a honeycomb pie from The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum that I checked out from the library when we lived in Maine. Whew, that was a long time ago! I never tried her pie, but I remembered the picture and the brilliant use of bubble wrap to make the design!
The unique challenge I encountered while making this was the issue of baking with allergenic materials in a house of rashy kids, one of whom likes to army crawl around on his belly scavenging up random bits and treats. I ended out baking the cake over the course of 3 days, when kids were either in bed or mostly napping. I felt like I was using toxic waste! I'm a messy baker, so it was a bit stressful when egg/nut/dairy goo went flying around the kitchen. Every time I splattered on the floor I wiped up carefully so the baby wouldn't find it. Every cloth I used I double washed in the washing machine. I washed my hands repeatedly before opening cabinets or the fridge. I wiped the floor down after baking to hopefully get any errant almond meal or egg white. Not exactly a relaxing experience to be yelling "No one step foot in the kitchen, mom's baking and it's dangerous!", but the results were worth it.

Now is the time for panic...

There was a point however, when I seriously doubted what I had done. About the time I pressed the bubble wrap into the final product of 3 days work and $40 of ingredients, my heart sank. I was sure I had created a mess. I was so sure it was going to be a disaster that I whipped up a batch of Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes as a back up. But, the ganache firmed up, the bubble wrap released reasonably well and the cake was a success. I got to share the cupcakes with the neighbors instead.
So my apologies to those who read Speedbump Kitchen for allergen-free recipes, hopefully next month's challenge will be tweakable. I learned a lot of new techniques that I know I can transfer to the allergen-free kitchen in the future. Plus, I'm so dang proud of myself I can hardly stand it. Alas, as we say around here, my moments of sheer brilliance are always overly tempered by moments of chicken nuggets and tater tots.( How many meals in a row is it legal to feed that to your kids?)