A Vision in Lemony Yellow

This cake is like a shopping list of dairy products: Sour Cream Cream Cheese Butter Cake. Actually it's just Cream Cheese Butter Cake but it does have a lot of sour cream in it. I predict 100% Alpha Baker satisfaction with this cake because it's dead easy, incredibly quick and absolutely delicious. The only change I'd recommend is to double the recipe. This recipe goes straight to the pool room*.

*check out the film The Castle if you're not familiar with this expression.

Although the icing is called buttercream, forget nightmares of never-ending instructions or *shudder* pouring hot syrup into whizzing egg whites. This is just a simple lemon curd with butter beaten into it. With an immersion blender!  Barely any washing up...except for the two bowls, saucepan and sieve (yes I even sieve things these days). The only difficulty in the whole process is standing over the lemon curd patiently stirring while it thickens on the stove (do NOT walk away but if you do, a bit of wild whisking can resurrect a curd on the brink). 

Oh, and it's absolutely delicious.

I used ordinary unbleached (Australian*) plain flour rather than cake flour (which Rose notes is critical to this recipe). I mentioned early on in the Alpha Bakers that I wasn't that keen on the texture and taste you get from cake flour. This could be because it reminds me of lower quality commercially baked goods (which is the only place you really find cake flour here and they always taste of preservative), or perhaps because cake flour isn't commonly used here by domestic cooks and I'm used to more 'robust' baking. Whatever it is, in this case my cake certainly does look robust, although it had a very soft texture. I'm not sure if it was the flour or actually just the baker :) but it would be interesting to try it again with cake flour. And maybe I will. Particularly since I have had (oops) some lemon curd icing left over.

*which, as bakers around the world will know, differs from flour in the UK and USA (and elsewhere) in many ways, including the protein levels.

Next week we're making Lemon Curd and Raspberry Pielets. I just looked at the recipe and it requires 18 egg yolks!! No wonder spellcheck keeps changing pielets to piglets.

My kind of (Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse) Tart

This is my kind of tart. Hazelnuts, chocolate, cream cheese, praline. Could there be a better combination?

Hazelnut and chocolate are one of my favourite food matches. In this tart it's combined richly but not excessively sweetly with a creamy cheesecake-type filling and topped with a chocolate Frangelico ganache. It is absolutely delicious and not at all tricky or time consuming (I know! Hard to believe, huh?).

This recipe calls for shop-bought hazelnut praline paste. I have never heard of or seen such a thing (that I can remember) so I made some praline and added in a bit of oil to make it into a paste, as Rose suggested. (Yes I made toffee and it went fine.)

I had a moment of panic in my local small supermarket when I thought they were out of blanched hazelnuts. Lucky I found the last lonely packet on the shelf. Let's hope they stock up again. Otherwise future projects will be made with hazelnuts with skins because there is no way I'm standing over a pot of boiling hazelnuts. I have my limits.

Actually I needed more than one packet but I manage to eek it out to make enough praline for the tart base and the mousse filling. 

I was surprised that the base worked so well since the mixture turned out so wet. It seemed pretty unlikely that I'd be able to press it into the tart tin smoothly but, lo and behold, it worked! I was just congratulating myself (well the cat doesn't provide much positive reinforcement) when I noticed that some of the sugar in the small processor bowl had whizzed itself out into the big bowl during the base whizzing procedure. It was quite a lot. Damn. I gingerly peeled off the gladwrap, sprinkled the recalcitrant sugar over the base and sort of massaged it in with a fork. I could have taken out the mixture, mixed it in properly and put it back but somehow that didn't seem like an attractive option... 

Amazingly it seemed to be okay. The gods of cooking were feeling kind that day.

After last week's mediocre efforts I tested the oven and found the heat was fluctuating. I monitored the heat while I baked the base and it may have overcooked a little on the sides but it was mostly fine. It's quite an unusual base - a wet mixture, a cakey texture when baked, and then you press it down to compact the puffiness. 

The mousse filling was so ridiculously easy to mix I even had the energy to put the beater blades in the fridge to cool before whipping the cream.

Mmmm, looks delicious. I wonder how it'll taste? And, more to the point, I wonder why the Frangelico bottle is wearing that rather snazzy rope belt? Does everyone's Frangelico bottle sport the same natty (knotty) nautical style?

I didn't make the chocolate ganache by Rose's exacting and probably superior method. Instead I blasted the chocolate and cream at intervals in the microwave and stirred. It looked pretty good. And anyway there was Frangelico.

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Coconut Cupcakes with milk chocolate ganache.