Cake delivery

In yesterday's post I talked about two chocolate cakes. There was one piece left of the Guinness cake and before I left work, I sent Bill a message that I would save it for him because it was really good. I also thought he would like it.

He wrote back and said, why don't you bring it to me?

Now, he was in St. Joseph which is an hour and half drive from Grand Rapids.

I told him not to tempt me. Since I had worked yesterday, the only plans I had for today were to go to the grocery store.

In other words, there was no reason I couldn't drive to St. Joe just to deliver a cake.

Then Bill told me he was making jumbalaya for dinner and planned on watching the Tigers opening game (on delay).

Give me half an hour, I told him.

I packed and drove to St. Joe. I hand-delivered his piece of cake.

It was nice to spend an evening with Bill. We took a walk along the path, which winds around by the lake. There are huge mounds of ice, covered with sand, along the shore. They are easily ten feet high. Neither one of us had our phones, so we couldn't take pictures.

It's too bad my sinuses have kicked in. Why do we have sinuses?

Despite my stuffy, runny, drippy nose, I am thankful for the bonus time I got to spend with Bill.

beauty and the beast cakes

I had thought I would post some pictures, that was when I thought I would have time. No, that's not true. I knew I wouldn't have the time. But I do have pictures. You'll just have to wait to see them.

What I will post about is my cake-baking abilities (this links you back to another post about my cake-baking)and lack of decorating. I know this triple layer chocolate raspberry cake I made tastes delicious. Unfortunately, by looking at it, one might not believe that. I cannot decorate, frost, or make a cake look good.

To try and make the cake look good I did the old slice-off-the tops being that it's a triple layer cake it had more potential to be more "domed" on top. I did that. They weren't perfect, but I knew when I stacked them that would make all the difference.

What I didn't count on is that not all 9" pans are the same size. I had to borrow one of my mom's pans for the third layer (yes, I could have used two, but I thought calling it a triple layer cake with only two layers wasn't p.c.). Back to the third pan; only after I had stacked all the cakes with the too-runny ganache did I notice that the middle layer was hanging over on all the sides.

What? Isn't a 9" pan a 9-inch pan? It doesn't matter if it's 9" or 9-inches. Oh but it does. And since I didn't know that, the middle layer is now the widest layer. Hide it with the frosting. Good idea!

Except I didn't make frosting, I made ganache. Which I have never made and it's really more of a glaze than frosting, icing or anything thicker than what it actually is. That could be because it's nice and humid. It could be for any number of reasons the least of which the "Cake Doctor" told me to let it sit for thirty minutes until it could be spread like frosting. Nope. Runny and "poury". Not spreadable at all. So I compromised. I poured it on and let it "set up" in the fridge.

Do you know what happens when you stick a cake with runny ganache in your fridge? The runny ganache runs over the edge of the cake holder and spreads all over the shelf of your fridge. Thankfully we have the no-drip shelves. At least that worked!

I took out the cake and cleaned up the mess. By this point the ganache had started to set up, so I spread it back on the cake, trying desperately to hide the uneven sides. Alas, that did not work, but I did wind up with more ganache on the cake than on the cake holder.

I topped it with raspberries and am praying that they enjoy it. Because while it doesn't look like anything I know it's going to be tasty.