The Culinary Tales Week 17: Let Them Eat Cake

June 30, 2014

 

Ah, that misunderstood, much-maligned Marie Antoinette. That poor little Austrian princess didn’t even want to go to France (who could blame her) and then she ended up losing her head. (Stupid revolution.)

 

The phrase “Let them eat cake!” has been attributed to her, and in a negative context that projected snobbiness, but really, conventional wisdom is wrong on both counts. Historians are a little iffy on who originated the line, but many would argue it wasn’t even uttered by Mary An. But for those who believe she did say it, the line is theorized to be a sympathetic “Hey, these people can’t afford to buy bread… they can have my cake” kind of thing. (And from what I read, it was technically “let them eat brioche” that was uttered, if it was at all.)

 

Not too long ago, items that we take for granted because they’re pedestrian, ho-hum everyday things (such as books, toilets, cake) were accessible only to the wealthy and aristocracy. But these days, you can easily get a book for free (in places called libraries – we still remember what those are, right?), walk into a public park and relieve yourself at an actual restroom (just ask George Michael), and, barring any calorie-counting nonsense, treat yourself to a piece of cake (even if it’s not your birthday.)

 

 

Week 17, the last week of active learning for Baking I was all about cakes. Finally. Some baking stuff I have prior experience in. Even if it’s cake out of a box. Even with cake decorating, at least I can say I’m not a total stranger to as I spent some time decorating cakes for a fundraising campaign in college.

 

You’d think that this would be a, uh, piece of cake (sorry, had to do it.) It wasn’t. It wasn’t my hardest week either, but this was a chance for me to close out the term with a bang. With the previous terms, I’d been able to bring the A game for the latter half and am usually able to bring my grade up but I went into a downswing for the last two weeks and my product just wasn’t “A” material.

 

We only had to work on five items: a “buffet cake” (which is a three-tiered sponge cake that had to be decorated), a “genoise” (which is a small sponge cake using an alternate method), angel food cake, cheesecake, and the crown jewel that became my favorite dessert ever: the marjolaine.

 

The buffet cake took three days to make, by the way, from baking to decorating. We had to slice it up into three, trim and layer, then coat with buttercream and put fancy shell borders and piped roses.

 

I’m going to think twice before ever uttering “piece of cake” ever again to denote something easy and effortless. Considering the labor-intensive effort that goes into cake decorating, as anyone would know if you watch “Ace of Cakes” or the myriad cake-decorating contests on the Food Network, the $20 sheet cake at Costco is a raging deal.

 

We flavored the sponge cake with rose water – which apparently was very popular with your grandmother’s generation. Personally, I like the hint of flavor it brings. Call me old-fashioned. (I *do* knit and crochet, y’know. Not to mention having an affinity for granny-sized purses.)

 

I had grand plans of making a chocolate or coffee-flavored buttercream, but I ran out of time. (Big surprise.)

 

We also had to pipe 24 identical roses and since I didn’t have time, I just winged it with makeshift tulips. (Compared with my classmates’ work, mine looked horrible; the tulips looked like sperm. At least it tasted good.)

 

 

Cheesecake was surprisingly easy to do (it’s basically a mix-and-pour kind of production) except I bungled it on the finishing and manhandled the cake when trying to get it on the cake board, so the edges weren’t smooth.

 

Genoise is a modified sponge cake but what’s tough about sponge cakes is that you have to be very careful in or the tops will collapse – as mine did. Baking class is tough when you deal with sensitive cakes that can sink (such as souffles) – you have to be careful not to bang the oven door when checking on your work. But you can’t count on everyone who uses the oven to be vigilant and careful; I had to share the oven with at least two other people and I’m sure someone slammed the oven door shut. Not that I’m blaming other people for my ugly work; these things do happen and our instructors are aware of it and willing to cut a little slack.

 

I made the genoise a second time, only to find that the top collapsed again. Chef Giggles thought it might have been her fault because she bumped into the oven while in the early stages of baking, when the cake is at its most vulnerable.

 

At least the buffet sponge cake came out fine on one try. My patissiere extraordinaire friend Dara told me “decorate to hide mistakes” and it’s not a bad motto to live by. For everything.

 

Angel food cake … now there’s a production. You have to whip the egg yolk mixture separately, then whip the egg white mixture separately, and THEN fold the mixtures together. “Folding” is a baking term that I don’t quite know how to articulate for those that don’t know what it is. It’s basically mixing mixtures together but without “mixing” them into a homogenous substance.

 

We also learned how to make French, Italian, Swiss and American buttercreams. American buttercream isn’t really like the other three; it’s that gross filmy stuff that’s used to make flowers and sticks to the roof of your mouth because of the shortening used (it’s also known as Decorator’s Icing or the apt American Grease Cream.) On the other hand, French Buttercream isn’t really considered a “buttercream” either. Considering that it is used as fillings or covers, buttercream is a lot more work than it’s worth – all that mixing and piping, and the cleaning part is the worst! (Especially when we worked with food coloring.) We had never had messier nights than the ones we spent cake-decorating and it was about to get worse because I was told Baking 2 would involve PLENTY of cakes and decorating. Good thing I packed my own dishwashing gloves. (Not joking.)

 

But the highlight of the week was the marjolaine.

 

 

There’s this cake – Concord Cake – which has been my favorite cake since I was about 12 years old. It’s a deliciously indulgent mix of chocolate meringue and chocolate mousse. There’s a Filipino bakeshop chain that has branches here in the U.S. and they do make it but they don’t make it “right” (or in other words, the way *I* like it.)

 

The marjolaine, technically, isn’t a cake. But it reminds me of concord cake and quickly became a favorite.

 

There may be different recipes for preparing the marjolaine, but the school recipe incorporates japonaise (or meringue noisette), whipped cream, ganache, coffee flavored french buttercream and hazelnuts. (For the record, anything with meringue and chocolate is a winner in my book.)

 

To make it, you layer four meringue discs, sandwiching in alternating fillings of ganache, buttercream and whipped cream. The top meringue disc is coated with chocolate and topped with a fresh raspberry. I only made two for class, and promptly ate one for my dinner, and saved the other for breakfast the next day.

 

Our instructors gave us some time to practice our piping on our last day of week 17, as these would appear on our final. First, we had to practice writing: the alphabet, our name, Happy Birthday and Congratulations in cursive. I don’t even write cursive anymore – any time I hand write anything it’s in print. About the only thing I write in cursive is my signature and even then it has devolved into an illegible scribble.

 

Then, we had to practice piping rosettes and making flowers.

 

I sucked at all of these, which meant trouble looming for finals. The good news was that I pulled one of the easiest menus for the finals. (Class Buddy had the only menu that was slightly easier.) I was supposed to make poached eggs, bearnaise sauce, orange-flavored pound cake, sourdough batards, six croissants and raspberry chocolate ganache tart.

 

Many of my classmates had to do a buffet cake or celebration cake (basically that meant a crapload of time spent on decorating, nevermind the actual baking product) on top of having to do something else that takes a buttload of time (i.e. danishes, braided pumpernickel bread, etc.)
Life has its ups and downs, we know that. Sometimes, when you think you can’t take any more challenges, life throws you a few more curveballs. And then there’s that rare occasion, like a blue moon or a vending machine giving you a second piece of Snickers for free, when life hands you lucky break. I’d prefer it to be a winning lottery ticket, but I’ll take the wins in however shape they come.

 

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