Sweet and Simple

Hola!

So, it wasn't enough that I've written two, very long, blogs on the subject, plastered proof of my novice capabilities on my facebook page, and have whilst become utterly obsessed with finding the perfect recipe, I now needed official judgement passed on my delectable edibles...or at least I hope they're edible!

So, I put my pride on the line and hastily put together a panel of judges to participate in the cake-testing. They were to provide culinary insight and critique, to the most important question of the year to date: Which cake shall be the one worthy of presenting (and eating) at Giovanna's birthday?

You know, how did this whole thing get this far anyway? One day, a fickle 4 year old requests a Minnie Mouse cake, and for the next three weeks, I devote hours and dollars to this, oddly addicting (possibly successful, home-based business if all goes well) hobby. I've had to question myself on several occasions, "what is the real motivation behind all of this?" Most people would've just gone to the store and bought the first chilled cake that was the right color and filling from the bakery section of the supermarket. Or, I suppose the really devoted homemakers, would have bought a box cake, slapped some frosting on it and called it a day. I, on the other hand, have baked a total of 8 trial cakes of varying sizes and flavors, and 4 sample buttercream icings, after researching different recipes and variations of ingredients on online websites and blogs. Let's keep in mind, before I started all this, I didn't even know the purpose for baking powder. Or that, if whipped enough, eggs can practically (or definitely -- I didn't whip that long) turn into a solid. As a result, I now have a wealth of knowledge of the chemistry of baking, the difference between using oil, butter, or applesauce, the effects of cold milk, and the fact that what makes cake flour different from all-purpose flour is its gluten content. Impressive, if I say so myself. But back to the question at hand: Why, then, do I become a perfectionist about certain things in life, when the majority of the things in my life are completely, un-perfect?

I'm not organized, I procrastinate, I can be very messy. A sink-full of plates can remain for days without evoking the slightest care. I could walk by the same Mr. Potato Head ear part for days before finally bending down to pick it up - - and then place it on the side table instead of putting it away with the rest of the haphazard, half-missing Mr. Potato Head parts that have miraculously found their way back to their intended storage bin. Yet, when I open my cupboards, inevitably after a visit from Blanca, my mother-in-law, who most likely was the one to wash that sink full of plates, and has now put away the dishes at random, I find myself annoyingly arranging and rearranging, and perfectly aligning the tall glass set with its alikes, and the smaller, blue, plastic tumblers with their partners. Everything else in the house can be randomly strewn throughout the living space, but my coffee table line-up, that includes a serving tray decoratively displaying 3 design books, a candle, and the controls for the TV, has to be perfectly (yet random-looking) placed at its intended 45 degree angle, opposite the vase of fresh flowers (only orange-y/red tones will do, of course, to match my decor). My bed has to be made a certain way, with the pillows aligned just like I like them - - if I actually decide to make my bed, that is. These contradictions in my personality are just confusing to me.

What's more confusing, is my absolute need to try to conquer any new skill that piques my interest, yet get bored with it once I've mastered it, like I've done with my husband. I'm just kidding! (It was too easy to resist). But some true examples are, like when I was in sixth grade and I was learning to play the clarinet. I started out 4th or 5th chair, and I tell you, I wasn't having it. I was determined to declare first chair, and I practiced, and studied, and blew my little (well, I've always been big actually) heart out until I won that chair. Then, as if in vain, I lost all interest in woodwinds, and didn't even become affected when I eventually lost my spot at the top. Or when I obsessively challenge the enemy in some video game, losing sleep, continuing the fight in my dreams once my eyes have become too strained to stay awake any more, only to never play again once I've triumphed, and released the spell the evil dragon had cast on all the village for centuries. And now, cakes. I have not stopped until I succeeded in creating a perfectly moist and delicious combination of flavors for all to enjoy. And you know what? I'm willing to bet that after I bake that special cake on Saturday, it's likely to be my last.

You know, I think I may know the culprit of all of this systematic chaos. It has been pointed out to me recently, that perhaps I've struggled with ADD throughout my life, and am now continuing to battle it as an adult. It would make perfect sense. I'm here and there and everywhere, never able to finish a project, grossly procrastinatory, yet at times meticulously devoted to a particular, unimportant detail. I have trouble with memory, and I have bouts of extreme displays of forgetfulness.

You see, I'm doing it now, getting sidetracked. I came here to write about cakes, and doggone it, that's what I'm going to do!

It was about 8 o'clock in the Spina-Oneto household, which means everything was abuzz. TVs going, stoves cooking, kids running, the typical pandemonium that I, admittedly, cannot live without. However, for my sister Nicole, who prefers things to be more scheduled, had already eaten dinner, and was preparing for bedtime with her son, who had school the following day. But I made cakes and I was ready for them to be judged. Colie (our nickname for my sister) was initially against the idea of coming over for the sheer purpose of digesting unwanted calories caused by a jazzed up version of butter and sugar. She'd been talking for days now about how "fat" she's gotten recently, and how "bad" she's been because she bought a burger from McDonald's. We discussed, most recently, her only options for losing the 7 lbs she gained over winter would be, naturally, the most obvious solution, a colon cleanse. I also suggested a 10-day liquid diet. There was of course the option of starvation, which she offered to try. Oh, and how could we forget about that new berry pill craze thing, it apparently does wonders!

So, before I continue, let me introduce you guys to Nicole. She's a tall and slim, legs for days, raven-haired Scorpio. She's a fun and outgoing, sensitive and complex girl who has definitely had her share of memorable life-experiences, and an unusually high dosage of bad luck. When recounting her point-of view of a particular incident, or simply declaring something, she tends toward the dramatic, which in turn makes all of her stories colorful and hilarious.

"I'm stuck to wearing nothing but sundresses now that I've gained so much weight and my muffintop spills out over my pants," she proclaims. Allow me to insert picture here, so you get where the drama comment originates from...

Since Colie wasn't coming for the cake, I had to con her into it by bartering her presence for some already arranged, previously promised services, like cutting out her wildy overgrown bush in her wildlife preserve of a backyard, and staining the deck (that was supposed to have been completed the year before). Her son (my nephew) Noah, was along for the ride, anything to divert the ordinary and possibly delay his bedtime. And my mom, who happened to be in town, I knew would be game, since she's got the sweetest tooth of anyone I've ever known. I also invited Deisy and Javier, who had hopped on the cake-baking wagon after trying Dario's and my first-round flops.

I displayed all of the cakes on the counter, iced and decorated to my best ability. I created evaluation cards for the judges to critique the moistness, texture, icing flavor, and overall taste of each cake. I cut up an old shirt into individual blindfolds so when they bit into each sample, they could rely mostly on their sense of taste without an abundance of distraction. I set out shot glasses of water for each judge to rinse their palates between tasting. Between each bite of cake I placed on the small plates, I took care to remove the leftover crumbs from each fork, and dipped the cutting knife into water to wash away any lingering flavors from the previous slice I cut into.

Surprisingly, everyone was up to the challenge...well, at least the critique, if not the actual tasting. With each bite she took, Nicole reminded of a contestant on Fear Factor challenged to eat a fried tarantula.

Mom and Noah, however, seemed to be loving every minute, happily obliging to try each and every portion. Occasionally, they would get ahead of themselves, concentrating only on the cake itself, and not so much the evaluation, and forget to write down their comments, so distracted by what I can only imagine was the delicious taste of the samples.

Assuming the reaction would be drastically different between my American family and my Latino friends, I had them undergo the testing in waves. Plus, my American family had to get back to their schedule, for it was now past 9 and way too late to be out. Deisy and Javier, although they had to be up for work the next day, were leisurely enjoying some mate (tea grounds drunk from a gourd through a metal straw-like bombilla, typical in South America) with Dario, watching una novela on tv.

As expected, when they got around to trying my cakes, it was if I were in front of the American Idol panel and my family were Paula and they were Simon. I received encouraging and mostly positive feedback from my family. Deisy and Javier however, were harsh critics of the drier-than-they're-used-to cakes, that weren't even filled with any kind of fruit filling or dulce de leche (caramel). The torta de tres leches con durazno (three-milks cake with peach filling) Deisy brought to the competition to sample was the favored winner amongst them. (caramel)! Of course, the wonderfully moist,

Overall, I got some wonderful feedback from all of the participants and I really appreciate everyone taking part in my silly (to them, serious to me) experiment. It reminds me of how special friends and family are. They are willing to support you, to be there for you, to encourage you, to be honest with you, and to even partake in ridiculous, mock-judging panels from time to time.

Thanks guys.

And while the moral of the story has been revealed, I still have one last cake to bake. The cake that was overwhelmingly rated highest, happened to be the one that was the simplest to make, both the cake and the icing. A quick and easy recipe, that delivered good old-fashioned yellow butter cake flavor, with sweet icing that makes you want to dip your fingers into it and lick them all, one by one. And what I have decided to do, which is what I do most often in my current life, is infuse the styles of American and Latino by modifying that recipe oh so slightly. I will apply a milk wash to the cake to achieve high levels of moist and sponge-y morsels, while following the main ingredients of a normal yellow cake, with, of course, the ever-important Minnie Mouse design. If I throw some pineapple into the mix, I will have completed the triangle of cultures that define me by representing Hawaii too...NOT!!! That's one of the biggest misconceptions, that Hawaiian-style food is simply adding pineapple to whatever you're cooking. That's up there with the common and sometimes ignorant notions that we live in huts, wear coconut bras, and actually speak Hawaiian...but that's an entirely other blog entry!

Aloha y'all later!

The Results Are In!

I'm using this wonderful shade of brown as an ode to my birthday cake bake-off. Although I didn't make chocolate cake...

So! I survived the night. Last I left off, it was 11 at night and I was going to start baking. And I did. Until 2am. Yup.

One of the Uruguayans' birthday was last night and Dario went to Club Mambo to help celebrate. I didn't feel like going, and I think I decided to stay up and bake, much like a parent stays up and reads the paper when their teen goes out for the night, to make sure he got home safely. He is very responsible and never drinks and drives, but we do live out in the country and the windy, curvy roads at night make me nervous of the other people who might not be as conscience of others' safety.

So I baked. Let's keep in mind people, that the idea of baking a cake, like from scratch, had never even occurred to me. It was beyond my realm of comprehension that some people BAKE FROM SCRATCH for their friends and family. I thought everyone just bought the box recipes, if they even did do the baking themselves. So, these have been my first attempts at baking a cake, and I'm sure I've committed some common pitfalls along the way, which I'll explain. And if anyone has the answers to why some things happened the way they did, please offer your advice and suggestions.

The first recipe, which I was dying to try, was from Sylvia Weinstein's book Sensational Cakes. It calls for a couple of key ingredients that the other recipes didn't have, like ginger and sour cream. I can tell you that the batter was absolutely delicious! And fluffy and light, just beautiful! I prepared everything perfectly and carefully (to my knowledge). The only question I had was about the amount, because it's supposed to yield 3 round pans worth, and I used 2 9" rectangle glass dishes to bake them in, and placed them on the top rack, one level middle of the oven.

After the recommended 45-50 min was up, the cakes were perfectly golden yellow and aromatic. I removed them from the oven to cool. After about 15 min, I removed them from the pans to find that the middle hadn't cooked all the way through. This is where I may have gone wrong...I placed them back in the oven after placing the rack right in the middle of the oven. I cooked them for about another 10-15 min, took them out to cool...and went to bed.

The second cake I was baking simultaneously came from the blogspot blog, Cakerella. It proclaims that the buck stops with this yellow cake recipe. the pictures verified what I was looking for, that sponge-y, hole-y, textured looking cake, moist, yellow. Naturally, I had to try it.

This batter, too, was dee-licious! It was similar to the first, minus the ginger taste, and a little less rich. This time, since I was running out of baking pans, I dropped the batter into a 13x9 baking pan. It had to bake for 10 min more than the suggested 25-30 min, but when it was done, another beautiful display of cake! The secret to moisture retention in this recipe says to wrap it in saran wrap after cooling a bit. I had to improvise with plastic grocery bags, which I'm not sure has the same effect or not, but I'm assuming the point was to suffocate the cake with its own humidity (hey, I told you guys I wasn't a baker. I don't know what the baking terms for this process would be!).

Speaking of improvisation, it's a tool that I am coming to learn and utilize more often, after spending the last 7 years with my husband, Dario, who is originally from Uruguay. He, along with all the other countrymen from Uruguay that I've met, have an incredible ability to make, fix, create things that us Americans aren't capable of. If something, even so slightly, is broken or not working, we just throw it away. Dario constantly scoffs at how much I waste (and how little I know) and will return a short while later with the newly transformed, and once again usable item. Some examples range from the most simple things - like when I bought a new mailbox, the little plastic thingie for the flag broke and I thought I'd have to go buy a whole new one, and Dario simply found a piece of metal, tied it around the piece, and it never again has been a problem - to more extreme cases. For example, he bought a car he was enamored with a couple years ago, which in my opinion was better fitted for scrap metal. He took his time, adding a body kit, pasting tinted paper to the windows, putting in a system, changing out the rims, all on his own!...okay, no big deal, right? Then he sanded it down, primed it...and most recently...PAINTED IT! He painted a car! And it looks awesome! It's completely transformed, and now everywhere we go, people stop us and ask us about this former piece of scrap metal!

He knows how to horesback ride (bareback), he could plant and maintain a vegetable garden, install hardwood and tile floors, take apart, clean, and repair a spray gun machine, make a homemade deodorant AND wine, and the list goes on. I believe it is a fundamental difference in the two cultures. In Uruguay, there were many times in his life when there wasn't money even for food (which is also why he knows 28 different ways to make rice more interesting tasting). In Uruguay, there's no such thing as broken, and that's why their resourcefulness is a necessity of life. Not that all of Uruguay has and needs to learn these lessons. Of course, there are many successful and wealthy Uruguayans that have never gone a day hungry. But my husband was not one of them, and it's one of the reasons I respect and love him, and why everyday he continues to fascinate me with his knowledge and creativity.

So, back to the cake. This morning I awoke anxiosuly anticipating the results of my cakes! I gave the buttercream icings another whirl with the mixer to freshen them up, spread it on the cakes, and voila!

I cut myself a piece of each cake and dug in. The Weisntein cake was still undercooked, and the icing that I accompanied this cake with was a failure (too buttery and weird consistency). However, the cake was moist and very good. The only change I look forward to making is adding a wee less ginger and sour cream because the flavors were a little overwhelming.

The Bakerella recipe was initially my favorite one. There were a couple of drawbacks. It was a little dry, even after I poked the holes in it with a straw and coated it with the sugar water mixture. This was done the day after however, and maybe it has to be applied as soon as the cake was cooled. Or it could've been the grocery bags too :) The other disappointment was that this cake had more of a pound cake consistency, not the fluffy interior I was expecting. The icing, however, which was also from the same recipe, was AWESOME!!!

I shared some with my niece, Azul.
She liked it, of course. She has a MAJOR sweet tooth!

Even Dario had to admit that they came out pretty good, especially for a novice cake-baker! This was his exact reaction - - I think he pretty much knew I'd knocked him out of the competition.

These are the questions I have if anyone (as if so many people are reaading this..."anyone" refers to you, Jenn and Britt!) knows the answers:

1. What ingredient(s) do I add/take away/use less of to make the cake super moist?

2. Why did the second cake come out more poundcake-like and dense, and not fluffy and songe-y and hole-y?

End

(The first part of this blog was written a couple days ago. Let's check in with the contestants to see what they've been up to now that some time has passed, and get the final results).

3 days later: "Where are they now?"

So, now I'm addicted to cake-baking (another venture I suppose!). I'm going to try a couple more versions of these two recipes and see which turns out best. I'd like to try the Bakerella recipe with cake flour instead of all-purpose, I'm going to try to "wash" it with milk to see if it'll get really moist, and try the ginger one with the other icing that I like better.

Dario, in the meantime, has vowed to avenge his loss.

He's trying more recipes.

I will post a recipe once I have the perfect and exact one. For now, all I can do is think about cakes and wanting to try different versions, and add a touch of that, subtract a little of this.

Therefore, the FINAL RESULT IS THIS: After all's said and done, between all of the trial cakes I'll make, I'll probably have spent more than the $55 it would cost to just buy another homemade recipe cake from the home-based business lady in the neighborhood!

Happy Baking!

Birthday Cake Trials

well, so far, so good. this blogging thing is indeed turning out to be enjoyable, albeit this is only post #2, and in the same night as post #1!

so, i'm not sure if i'm committing a "blogging" crime by not choosing a specific topic to blog about. hopefully, it'll work itself out. but for now, i intend to just share my thoughts and experiences as they come.

for example, tonight's post will be about the birthday cake i am attempting to make for my daughter's soon-to-be 4th birthday.

i was inspired by a friend of mine, bailey. she's the girl that can do everything. she's a witty and intelligent, busy dermatology resident and mom, in MN. she's a great athlete, fashion-forward, level-headed...and add to her repertoire of accomplishments, a martha stewart-like cake-baker. (well, at least the recipe was martha's!). she recounted to all us girls, when we met out in mammoth, CA for brittany's wedding a couple weeks ago, how she slaved over this, lion cake. it took her a day and a half to make and she used a cupcake for it's snout and varying shades of orange and brown to create the mane, and, well, long story short, it turned out to be a really yummy, chocolate-y, moist and delicious cake!

after i heard this courageous and daring tale, i set out to try it myself. and believe me, it has nothing to do at all with the fact that, if a doctor in her most trying years of residency, who hails from a family of like 500, who is constantly requested her presence at birthdays and weddings, and to top it all off has a 1 yr old little boy who's learning to walk and must chase after him at all times can do it, it would make me a bad mother if i didn't at least try, seeing as though most recently, i spend my days leisurely caring for the most self-sufficient and independent 4 yr old you'd ever meet! (deep breath in, collect some oxygen, long breath out. whoo, that was a long one. as i mentioned in post #1, i have a penchant for unusually long strings of words that supposedly form a really long, really grammatically illegal sentence. you'll grow to interpret them correctly. you see, you just have to read them in your head like one of those car commercials whose orator speaks oddly fast at the end of the ad - - and make sure to gradually increase voice level and pretend to run out of breath by the end. go ahead, try it again this time. you'll see what I mean.)

so, to summarize, my mother's guilt has me puttin' on an apron and mixin' up some flour in attempt to bake my way into my daughter's heart.

the fun part is that my husband, dario, is super into this kind of stuff. he used to be a baker in uruguay, actually (among dozens of other interesting trades), and oftentimes will bust out his inner panadero (baker) and whip up scrumpchess treats for us. he is also uber-competitive, so, you know, well...it's turned into an all-out competition. normally, it's futile to attempt to compete with dario because he's just so damned good at everything (it's so annoying!) but this time, i think i've got a good chance at the prize.

after spending $55 on cakes for the last 3 years, i was kinda fed up with having to buy birthday cakes. that, coupled with bailey's motivational baking experience, dario and i, on a whim, unofficially embarked on the competition a couple nights ago. i scoured the internet for a recipe. i was looking for a reliable yello butter cake that was moist, sponge-like in visual appearance (hole-y) yet not sponge-y and light, medium density, and of course, delicious. dario was following a recipe for a traditional biscochuelo. start your ovens, the bake-off had begun. basically, the victory was a landslide. my cake: decent taste, nice overall appearance. dario's: dry, crumbly, flat. conclusion: the war must go on!

that was all the inspiration he needed to continue down his path towards recovering his orgullo machista (macho pride). the next event, i sat out (due to the lack of unsalted butter sticks) and continued my internet search for the perfect recipe, as he pressed on. this evening, he had an audience. deisy and javier were visiting. javier pintos, or "el negro pintos" is a childhood friend of dario's. they grew up together, were inseparable as teens, and are fortunate to continue their friendship and experiences here in the u.s. deisy is originally from mexico. we met when we worked together at the caribbean-inspired restaurant, bahama breeze. it was actually coincidence that we became friends through javier and dario. anyways, deisy, having experience on the restaurant production line, is a great cook. she observed dario as he conjured up a second round of torta (cake). this time, when all was said and done, the cake had good flavor, but was undercooked and resembled more than anything, "mochi" (a popular and traditional japanese, gummy, rice-flour based treat i grew fond of in hawaii. it is most often made for the japanese celebration of girls' day, march 3...mmm! one of my all-time favorites!). this would mark the second loss for dario's tally.

round 3: tonight, i've armed myself with all the goods required to make the perfect birthday cake...unsalted butter, salted butter, sour cream, vanilla extract, heavy cream, cake flour. i found a couple more recipes, and i can feel, i've got a winner on my hands.

unfortunately, i've been blogging for hours now so it's a little late. it is saturday however, and due to the sporadic, unscheduled nature of the uruguayan lifestyle, 11pm would not be an unnatural time at all to start baking a cake. therefore, i will leave you for now, in suspense mode, until i reveal my results in a search for - - "the world's best yellow cake recipe (out of the 4 or so i am attempting) according to erica!"

My very first time...let's see how long this will last :) ...

So, here goes. The title is as such because I tend to get bored with things easily. I started a myspace page to keep in touch with the people I hadn't kept in touch with for 15 years (in that very sentence provides all the clues for one to guess how that's turned out!) It was so AMAZING, the BEST THING EVER! And then I got bored. So I tried facebook. Oh, this was waaay better. Easier to maneuver, I didn't have to try to compete with the 15 year old, technologically savvy, Gen Y-ers who had pimped out pages and half-thousand friends. I was doing really well for a while. I even started a group for my elementary class of '91. I have a following of 13. We reminisce about our days of innocence, and the cruelty we endured and imposed as pre-adolescents. Update: I haven't posted anything significant for almost 2 months.

So, we'll see how long this will last :) I'm excited about this new venture, like all of my new ventures, however, I'm hoping this will stick. I love to write, and I'm encouraged all the time to create some platform to express my sense of self-deprecating wit and run-on sentence charm. Especially by one friend in particular, Brittany. She's a pretty good writer herself, and I've been inspired by her to start this blogging thing. She has her own blog here on blogspot called blogbybritt.blogspot.com. She just got married at the top of a peak of the Sierra Nevada mountains...literally, the top. 11,000 ft above sea level to be exact. But, we'll talk more about her later; Since she's one of my greatest friends, and will surely be a major, positive influence over this here blog and its longevity, there'll be a lot of mention of her I'm supposing. So, thanks Brittany, in advance.

For now, I just want to introduce myself to you, for the 10 or so people I am going to initially invite (and re-invite, and remind to come read my thoughts), that happen to already know me pretty well, and for those of you who will hopefully, eventually, start your days with a cup of coffee, and me.

The domain name of my blog site, (I love that, "my" blog site) is to be read: Hola Aloha Y'all. In a nutshell, I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, am married to a Uruguayan and spend most of my time speaking Spanish, and live in the South. I thought that would make for a compelling mix of interesting points-of-view, experiences, and blog-like sharing.

So, let's get started. Welcome, and thank you for taking the time to allow me to share a little bit of my...well, me-ness!