disney princess cake

For Grace's birthday last year, Emily (the chef who does not blog so I do it for her) baked a turtle cake. It took us a while to figure out how to top that this year, but we finally decided on a princess cake in the shape of a castle. We started collecting ingredients weeks in advance: pink ice cream cones for the towers, pastry tips to make flowers, and princess figurines. The only problem was all the princess figurines we found at stores were ugly and expensive. So we resolved to make our own. Then a few days before the big project Emily started making flowers with decorator's frosting so that they would dry out and harden in time for assembly, and on Friday night (the eve of Grace's triumphant return to campus) we baked the cake. With all the components in place, we started working Saturday morning. It took us all day.

The cake was a simple birthday cake recipe we found on the Williams-Sonoma website, with a thick buttercream frosting (I don't like frosting normally, but I do like butter, and I liked this frosting. It was pretty much just creamed butter). Anyone can bake a cake, and the recipe was certainly not what made this cake exciting. As the Flemish used to say in the early-Rennaisance, "God is in the details."

Emily's flowers were made from a special crisco-based deocrater's frosting (not very good to eat, but better-tasting than the premade flower decorations at the store). This was the most difficult part of the whole process: we didn't have a pastry bag, and the tips that we got wouldn't stay put. We tried parchment/wax paper/ziploc, and nothing worked very well, but Emily perservered and came out with rather nice flowers in the end.

For the towers (the main architectural detail of this cake), we put a marshmallow inside a cone, smoothed out with frosting inside another cone, and stuck a princess cut-out through the marshmallow. I cut crenellations for the cone towers with an exacto knife. How are we ever going to top this?!?

p.s. This post was made by Xiaoxi, but when I changed its date, it made me the poster!

Cause I'm Feeling Bad About Losing Iron Chef

Here's a nice meal I made for my sister before she went to Israel earlier this year:

Broiled Asparagus and Parmesan Sticks with Crema Balsamica



Seared Sesame Crusted Tuna Over a Sesame Cucumber Salad, with Cucumber Ice and Spicy Mayonnaise


Ricotta Gnocci with Tomato Compote and Shaved Parmesan


Deep Fried Hard Boiled Egg Curry with Carrot Air



Melon Caviar with Goat Cheese and Sage


Quatre Quart Cakes under a Pineapple Sorbet and Starfruit Chips with Chocolate Allspice Sugar on a Painted Candy Plate

Valentine's dessert

So since we only decided to make the blog yesterday, and have been cooking in this house for around 6 months now, we decided that retroactive posts are okay as long as we have pictures.

Last week for Valentine's day we had a party with a wide selection of desserts.



I happened to be watching Food Network Challenge when the party was suggested, and decided I needed to make a fondant covered cake. It ends up that fondant can be really easy to make. The recipe i found just involved melting marshmallows and adding lots of powdered sugar and crisco. The cake itself is red velvet.



Anna came over to help decorate



Also on the lovely dessert table above are
Angel Food cupcakes with chocolate frosting - made by Sarah Jeffrey
Valentines sugar cookies - made by Sarah Weisbuch
Seven layer bars - Also made by Sarah Weisbuch

I first had Sarah's seven layer bars when she was living in the Bayit sophmore year, and they are basically the most delicious thing ever. There's chocolate, coconut, graham crackers, butterscotch chips and I don't even know what else, and they're amazing and addictive.