Thread: Cake/Deserts

My wife does nearly all the actual cooking in the house, but I love baking. Mostly desserts but also bread. This year I've undertaken to bake all the bread eaten by my family, which is going pretty well.

Each year I bake a handful of apple pies in the fall and usually some summer pies like blueberry, rhubarb, or peach. I actually like pie rather better than cake; I think its just as hard to bake a great pie as a great cake, and while you can find good cake at a restaurant or bakery it is nearly impossible to find good pie. A few months ago I baked a couple pies for a party using home churned cultured butter and home rendered leaf lard for the crust. I use 3 parts butter to 1 part lard or shortening for my crusts. Picture attached. If you haven't tried incorporating some leaf lard in your crust, give it a go; it really ups the flakiness!



I also like making cream puffs, eclairs, ice cream, cookies, and cakes. I've baked cakes or cupcakes the last couple years for my kid's birthday parties, and did a wedding cake for a friend of my wife a few years ago. A couple pictures attached.





Right now I'm working on cakes for a joint birthday party for my two eldest daughters. Both are smallish, two tier cakes, total of 8 layers each. One is buttermilk chocolate filled with dark chocolate ganache lightened with whipped creme fraiche, with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting. The other is a white chocolate lemon cake filled with lemon curd and frosted with lemon swiss meringue buttercream. We'll also make some little decorations to go on top with marshmallow fondant. I'll post a pic when they are done.

Glad to hear that other men enjoy baking; I can't say I've met all that many of them! Some of my other manly pursuits are doll making and sewing clothes on a treadle power machine.