Tres Leches Cake

Well, it is fall again which means that Community Groups are in full swing. I love getting back into regular time spent with friends. Summer is a nice break but after a couple of months I miss the time we get to spend together each week. Anyway, so we are back - yay! That also means that my side job of baking birthday treats is back! Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays! There are 1-2 a week for the next month! It is a good thing I enjoy baking so much!

This week was Tyler’s birthday and being a man of habit he requested French Silk Pie. I think this is the 5^th row running. I can’t blame him though; it is a pretty decent request. After making his boys a Lightning McQueen cake for their birthday, he requested that his French Silk Pie be shaped like the Sears tower. I was going to try to attempt something just to be funny, but you can’t really “shape” French Silk. (So, Tyler, you will take your round, normal shaped pie and be happy about it!)

Jaime’s birthday was also this week and he requested a Tres Leches cake. I LOVE when people ask me to make something I haven’t ever done before. I Googled recipes and found a great one on the Food Network that had rave reviews. I decided to go with that one and it turned out delicious! If you have never had Tres Leches before, it actually means “three milks cake”. It is a spongy yellow cake with three types of milk combined and poured over top of it. I was a little nervous pouring 4 cups of liquid over a baked cake but it actually absorbed all of it overnight and the result was a cake that has the buttery flavor of shortbread but the texture of a dense, moist, cake. Mmmm, mmmm good!

This particular recipe called for it to be topped with sliced mango but that doesn’t seem to be consistent with most of the recipes I found. I do like that addition though, I felt like the like, tangy fruit complimented the rich, sweet cake well. This recipe is definitely a winner and I anticipate it making it into the regular dessert rotation.

Tres Leches Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:
6 eggs, separated
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Cream topping:
1 14 oz. can evaporated milk
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup heavy cream

Frosting:
3 Tbs. water
3/4 cup sugar
3 egg whites

*optional - 2 ripe mangoes, peeled and thinly sliced


Directions:

Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 9” x 13” baking dish and set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, beat the egg whites on low speed until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually with the mixer running and peak to stiff peaks. Add the egg yolks 1 at a time, beating well after the addition of each.

Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture, alternating with the milk. (Do this quickly so the batter does not lose volume.) Add the vanilla. Bake until golden, 25 - 30 minutes.

Cream topping:

In a blender, combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream and blend on high speed.

Remove the cake from the oven and while still warm, poke holes throughout the cake with a fork so the cream can absorb evenly throughout the cake. Pour the cream mixture over it. Let sit and cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 4 hours or overnight.

Frosting: 
Once the cake is completely chilled, in a saucepan combine the water and sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Cook until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage, 235 to 240 degrees F. Remove from the heat. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks. While beating, add the hot syrup in a stream. Beat until all the syrup has been added, the mixture cools, and a glossy icing forms. Remove the cake from the refrigerator and spread the icing evenly across the top.

*Optional: top with sliced mangoes

 

*Disclaimer, this is not my picture. I forgot to snap one so this is a random pic from the internet, but my dessert looked like this :)

Lightning McQueen

Today we celebrated the birthdays of my friends, Tyler and Trisha's sons. One turned 3 and the other turned 4. This is the perfect opportunity to try my hand at a more creative cake than the typical ones I make for adults. 
A few years ago, I interned with a woman who made these kinds of cakes and picked up a lot of great tips, but I will say, doing the whole thing by myself was harder than it looked!
The boys like the movie "Cars" so I decided to make a cake that looked like Lightning McQueen. I found a tutorial on Pinterest and followed the directions to a tee. The first step was making all of the car details. They were made a few days ahead of time so they could harden up. With fondant, sometimes you want it to be soft and mailable but other times it needs to be hard in order to keep it's shape. Here I have the front of the tires, the "Rusteze" logo, the eyes, the windows, the headlights, and the back piece of the car.

 

Once all the details were done, it was time to make the cake. I made my normal chocolate cake recipe and stacked it three layers high with frosting in between each layer.  There was a lot of frosting and the end result was a very moist, frosting-rich cake! I carved the cake into a car shape and then after frosting it, I covered the whole thing with fondant and then added the details. 

The hardest part was actually covering the cake in fondant. I ended up rolling it out a bit too thin so Lightning McQueen kind of look like he had been around the track a bit. His finish looked a bit pitted and his tires looked a bit worn. But he looked perfect to the eyes of 3 and 4 year old boys. 

 

As you can see, it was a hit!

 

More of my friends need to have kids so I can make more 3-D cakes. They are fun!

Rainbow colors!

For my birthday my friend, Cheryl, bought me some fun kitchen gadgets. The kind that are random enough that I don't already have them. In case you don't know me, that is an awesome present idea! Among the many treasures, she gave me a small set of cake pans that are perfect for making a rainbow cake. I have wanted to try a rainbow cake for a while and my friends son turned 4 a few weeks ago so it was the perfect opportunity! I made my vanilla cake which is super versatile Recipe Here and just split it into six 1-cup portions. Then I just added food coloring. It was very simple. I think another fun idea is to do various shades of the same color, like dark pink fading into light pink. Anyway, the rainbow cake turned out super cute and is perfect for a child's birthday.

Tea Cookies

Over the last couple of weeks I have made two new cookie recipes. They are light, summery cookies that go great with afternoon tea. It is really too bad I am not British, I think I would enjoy taking a mid-afternoon break to sip tea and have a cookie. The last few hours at work would be much more enjoyable after a cookie. Anyway, These ones are pretty good. Raspberry Almond Shortbread Cookies and Lemon Tea Cookies. I can't decide which is my favorite because they were both winners!

Raspberry Almond Cookies

Cookies:
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. almond extract
2 cups flour
1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
sugar for sprinkling

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
4 tsp. milk
1 tsp. almond extract

Cookies:
In a medium bowl, beat butter at medium speed. Add the sugar and almond extract. Mix until well combined. Mix in flour. Cover and chill for one hour or until dough is easy to handle.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Shape into 1 inch balls, place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheets. Using your thumb, press an indentation in the middle of each ball. Spoon about 1 tsp. jam into the indentation and then sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 10 minutes or until edges are light brown. Cool on cookie sheets for one minute. Transfer cookies to wire racks to finish cooling.

Glaze:
For icing, in a medium bowl, combine powdered sugar, milk and almond extract. Drizzle cookies with icing.

Lemon Tea Cookies

Cookies:

3/4 cup butter

1 tsp. lemon zest

1 Tbs. lemon juice

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup cornstarch

1/3 cup powdered sugar

Frosting:

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/4 cup cold butter sliced into small cubes

1 tsp. lemon zest

1 tsp. lemon juice

Cookies:

Cream butter, lemon zest and juice until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, sift dry ingredients and mix into butter on low speed. 

Divide in half. Shape each half into a 8x1 inch log and roll in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Cut into 1/4 inch rounds. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. Cool and frost. 

Frosting:

On low speed, mix cold butter with electric mixer until smooth. Slowly add powdered sugar until blended. Beat lemon zest and juice. 

Disclaimer: there are not my pictures, I was too lazy to take my own. 

Variations of Vanilla

Yesterday my friends, Ryan and Sasha, got married. It was a beautiful wedding. It is so exciting to celebrate the joining of two people who are absolutely perfect for each other. sigh... Anyway, it was the third wedding where I have done the cake/dessert. I made vanilla bean cupcakes filled with chocolate hazelnut cream. (recipe here) They turned out very cute. I sprayed half of them with a pearl sheen which made them sparkle and the other half I sprinkled with edible pearls. The overall effect was very "wedding-y"

I really love this vanilla cake recipe. It is so versatile! It is actually my red velvet cake recipe with vanilla bean paste instead of red food coloring and chocolate. I used the recipe to make funfetti cupcakes for my co-workers birthday last week. I don't know if the sprinkles give it a different taste of if it is just the fact that funfetti is so festive but I loved these cupcakes. They tasted delicious and were perfect for a birthday. I know I have the vanilla cake recipe in multiple places but I will put the actually funfetti recipe here for easy reference.

Funfetti Cupcakes

Cake:
2 cups sugar
2 sticks butter, at room temperature
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk w/ 1 Tbs. vinegar)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vinegar
1 cup multi-colored sprinkles

Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup marshmallow cream
1 lb. powdered sugar
multi-colored sprinkles for decoration

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter, beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well after each addition. Sift together flower and salt. Add flour mixture to a creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Blend in vanilla. In a small bowl, combine baking soda and vinegar and add to mixture. Stir in the multi-colored sprinkles.

Pour batter into cupcake tins. Bake for 20 minutes (rotating the pans halfway through). Remove from heat and cool completely before frosting. Blend cream cheese and butter together in a mixing bowl. Add marshmallow cream and sugar and blend. Color with food coloring if desired. 

Chasing Winter - Days 10 & 11 (The South Coast and Blue Lagoon)

Day 10

Today we toured the South Coast of Iceland. It was amazing! I think Iceland has to be the most interesting country I’ve ever been to in terms of the landscape. We saw volcanoes, lava rocks, glaciers, waterfalls, sea stacks, and black sand beaches all in a day. Not only that but the weather is crazy! The first couple of days here have been so nice. Cold, but sunny and clear so not too bad at all. Silly me left my waterproof pants at the hotel because I really didn’t need them yesterday and it was kind of annoying to wear so many layers, so I decided to just stick with my jeans. Well, today, I needed them! It went from sunny and clear to unbelievably windy and sleeting sideways. We were walking to a glacier and I got soaked in about 5 minutes. Literally 10 minutes later the sun was out and it was great again. Crazy!

Here is a picture of the glacier! Isn’t it amazing? Some people went on a hike on the glacier but we went to the beach instead. Notice the beautiful blue skies. This was about 15 minutes after the wind/sleet storm!

I am so glad we went to the beach… it was not your normal beach. First of all it was black sand and pebbles. All of the beaches in Iceland are black sand beaches because of the volcanoes. I brought a bag of black beach pebbles back for vase filler or something. Forget little trinkets, this will be my Iceland souvenir! And then there were the sea stacks. We saw those in La Push and again here. I LOVE sea stacks, they are so cool. They make San Diego beaches seem so boring.

Oh, and look at this crazy cliff! It reminds me of the Rock Biter from The Never-ending Story. It was so amazing looking. You can’t tell from these pics but the wind here was crazy. It even pushed my mom over when we were walking!

We drove to tons of waterfalls. Iceland has hundreds of them! The road on the way was curvy even though it could have been straight because Icelanders believe in elves (really).  So much so that they will build a road around what they believe to be an elf home so that they don’t disturb, consequently Iceland’s roads don’t always make much sense. I couldn’t grab a picture of this because we were driving but in the middle of nowhere there were tiny little doors on big rocks. These were the elf homes.

Here are a few more pics of one of the waterfalls we went to. LOVE the rainbow! It was so beautiful!

After our tour we went out for a fancy lobster dinner. It is a good thing that the only food we had to buy in Iceland was our dinners because food in Iceland was EXPENSIVE! So we just decided to go for it and eat like queens. It was delicious!

We tried to see the Northern lights again tonight but they still didn’t show. I am very sad as I was dying to see them but oh well, you can’t control Mother Nature. I will just have to come back I guess!

Day 11

Today was our last day in Iceland. We went to the Blue Lagoon. It was so perfect!!! For the last two weeks we have been waking up early and going to bed late and walking on average 10 miles a day so soaking in hot geothermal baths before boarding our flight was the perfect ending to our trip. We floated around for hours letting the silica waters soothe our skin. We got algae masks and silica mud masks. Our skin feels amazing. I would love to go back just to soak in the Blue Lagoon some more.

 

We are now back in Seattle and tomorrow morning mom will fly back to Idaho and I to San Diego. It has been a great trip! It was really great spending time with my mom. Now that I know she is so adventurous I will have to suggest more trips! Alaska maybe? The Northern Lights are still pretty high on the bucket list so I see more trips to the great white north in my future.

In spite of the fact that we missed the lights, I would say we had a great trip! We packed a ton into the last couple of weeks and I feel satisfied with my vacation. I feel ready to go home. Fortunately I had the foresight to take a couple of extra days to recover before going back to work. I don’t have to jump back into the daily grind until Friday! The best part of vacation? Going back home, curling up in my own cozy bed and sleeping in, then lounging around in my P.J.’s all day and binge watching Downton Abbey for two days. After all of these adventures, I am exhausted! Good night world and thanks for tuning in…

Chasing Winter - Days 7,8 & 9 (Reykjavik and the Golden Circle)

Day 7

Today we got up and went back down to Pike Place Market. We didn’t get our fill yesterday and had to spend a couple more hours exploring. We actually ended up getting some great local smoked salmon and homemade garlic jelly along with some dried fruit and nuts to bring with us to Iceland. We will be going on a couple of day trips so this will make a perfect picnic. I also found some perfect hand knitted woolen mittens to put over my gloves. Now that I am actually using my gloves I realize that I need more warmth! (It is hard to tell when winter clothes shopping in San Diego!)

We got to the airport in the early afternoon and parted ways with Cheryl. If you see her, give her a big hug because she got stuck in San Francisco for a looooong time! By long time I mean, mom and I flew all the way to Iceland and explored Reykjavik for a few hours before she made it back to San Diego. How horrible!!!

Well, we missed the Tardis in Portland but at least she got a picture with Dr. Who before we left!

Our flight, on the other hand, was painless! We met a few people who purchased the same package we did so we compared notes on our plans and were just basically giddy together – going to Iceland! I tried to force myself to sleep on the plane even though it was only 3:30. I didn’t sleep much but I rested my eyes pretty well in preparation for the next day!

Day 8

We arrived to Iceland at 7:00am. Ready to hit the ground running! We checked into our hotel and took a shower and then we were out the door. The secret to getting over jet lag is not to stop moving! Before we left the hotel, we grabbed some breakfast in the communal room. We met a woman who went out on a Northern Lights tour the night before and got a spectacular show. She was raving about the breathtaking beauty of it all! I couldn’t help but start to get excited even though I have been telling myself that seeing the Northern Lights is just icing on the cake and it probably won’t happen and not to get my hopes up. I couldn’t help it though. The woman said that the night started at a 3 and ended up at a 7! (The lights are graded on a scale of 1-10 and 3 is a good show only getting better from there. I have been watching the forecast since Christmas and have only seen it hit 4-5 a handful of times) Last night was a 7?!? Tonight was forecasted to be a 3 and the skies were clear of clouds so I was sure we were going to hit the jackpot!

Completely pumped, we headed out for our day in Reykjavik. We started with the Hallgrímskirkja, which is a huge Lutheran church, and if you climb to the top you can see all of Reykjavik. It was the perfect day. Clear skies and warm-ish (for Iceland) weather. I could not stop taking pictures!

We then walked along the water front and saw the Harpa Concert Hall and the famous Reykjavik sculpture, the Solfar Sun Voyager.

We got some lunch at Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, which is a hotdog stand in the middle of the city that Iceland is famous for. The hotdog has different ground meats in it, lamb, I think, and is served with fried onions and mustard and a special sauce. It looks pretty gross but I liked it. My mom not so much! (like the little hot dog holder?)

Our hotel is on the main shopping street so we walked through all the shops. They sell tons of great woolen items – hats, sweaters, mittens, etc. It’s too bad I live in San Diego where I could never where them! Oh well, fewer things to buy.  Reykjavik is a really tiny city (the population of Iceland is about 320,000 and two-thirds live in Reykjavik) so we walked the city pretty thoroughly in a few hours. We went back to our hotel to grab a quick nap and try to recover a bit from our flight. 

When we got up we headed out to dinner. My friend, Jen,  was here three weeks ago and she sent me some restaurant recommendations so that has been great! We went to a restaurant called 3 Frakkar and decided to enjoy some of the local cuisine. Mom had whale steak and I had horse steak. The horse was really good – like really flavorful beef. The whale… not so much. Could have just been the texture. It was served very rare and I found the flavor pretty strong. We were going to try puffin as well but it is not in season right now.  I normally don’t post pictures of my food but I normally don’t eat like this either so here you go:

Horse:

Whale:

After dinner we boarded the boat to go on a three hour tour to see the Northern Lights. I was already worried because the earlier forecast of 3 dropped down to 1.  Nonetheless, we had to try. We got all bundled up in everything we brought and then put on jumpsuits over it all. Like the look? Ha ha…

All of these clothes were great. We were on top of the boat for hours and stayed toasty warm. As the boat sailed out into the dark waters, the guide shared all about the science behind the lights and then recited Icelandic poetry and sang Icelandic songs about the lights, trying to seduce them into coming out. It was the equivalent of a rain dance and given the fact that we were all just staring into the sky waiting, it was quite entertaining… for the first hour… after that, I started to get over it. The guide kept telling us to look over there because there is a faint green shadow and if we can squint really hard we might be able to see something. He kept telling us not to lose hope, they could still show up. I’m sorry buddy, there are not dancing for us tonight. By that point, I was just ready to go to sleep. The red eye flight had caught up with me and I was tired and grumpy that we missed the best Northern Lights show by one day and was just over it. Oh well… no lights tonight. 

Day 9

Today we took the Golden Circle Tour. It covers a few main attractions in Iceland - The Thingvellir National Park, Gullfoss waterfall, Geysir hot spring & Haukadalur thermal area, Hveragerdir earthquake town, and the waterfall Faxi.Our guide, Javier, picked us up. He is from Spain and moved to Iceland to study geology 16 years ago, fell in love with the country and stayed. It was great to have a geologist as a guide; we learned tons of interesting information about this crazy country.  Iceland is filled with volcanos and glaciers, and sits on the tectonic plates of North America and Eurasia. We went to two different waterfalls – Faxi and Gullfross.
It really isn’t that cold out right now but there is still tons of ice.

Then we went to see Geysir, which is the oldest known geyser and is where the name came from. It explodes every 5 minutes or so which is pretty awesome!

Then we went to Thingvellir National Park which is were the tectonic plates meet. It is also the home of the oldest Viking parliament. It was cool walking around there imagining Viking settlements.

Tonight we went to a restaurant called Sjavargrillid, another recommendation from Jen. Once we got seated we discovered that they had a guest chef in for the weekend and there was only one menu option tonight: a four-course meal. It looked pretty amazing so we decided to splurge! Again, more pictures of food, but seriously it was great!

Course 1 – some kind of sushi

Course 2 – fried fish and lobster tails

Course 3 – lamb and lamb heart (don’t know which was which but both were amazing!)

Course 4 – hazelnut cake, skyre, and blood oranges

Everything was delicious!

Oh, walking back to the hotel, and around the city for that matter is crazy! I have never felt like such a tourist. I am looking at a map and trying to pronounce the street names and sounding so ridiculous. If I need directions I end up just point at the map and grunting. I feel like a stupid American. But seriously, Icelandic is crazy! Can you pronounce any of these streets?

Aðalstræti

Ægisgata

Æsuborgir

Bjarnarstígur

Bókhlöðustígur

Drafnarstígur

lyðrugrandi

Skólavörðustígur

And my internet is defaulting to Icelandic now that I am here and I have to keep translating pages back to English to read them! So crazy!

I do have to say though, that the Icelandic people are incredibly nice! Every person I have spoken to have bent over backwards to be helpful. It is such a friendly culture. I am really enjoying the people.

Anyway, we decided to go back to the hotel and turn in early because we were still fairly tired today from our flight. Of course, mom is sleeping and I am blogging so I don’t know how effective that plan will be.  Another big day tomorrow so I will call it a night!