Franish Nonspeaker

A Baker's Ramblings

franishnonspeaker

franishnonspeaker
Location
Austin, Texas, USA
Birthday
March 25
Bio
Salut! Franish Nonspeaker refers to my absolute lack of an ear for languages. Case in point- I speak French with a Spanish accent. And I use the term "speak" loosely. I attempted to learn French because I spent 5 weeks in Paris to attend Le Cordon Bleu's Patisserie Program. Mostly I learned that I picked up more Spanish than I thought when I studied in Madrid in college. I have a terrible habit of forgetting a French term and subbing Spanish. I started this blog to chronicle my adventures in Paris and found I really enjoyed writing. I'm now back in Austin and still baking (and writing) away. I hope you enjoy! Love, Shelley

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Salon.com
APRIL 23, 2012 7:31PM

Carrot Cake 2.0 --> Bouchons!

Rate: 2 Flag

I've had a streak of bad luck with cakes as of late. As I've mentioned before, cake making is not my bag. Despite my lack of cake making mojo, I plug on. Sometimes I persevere and sometimes, not so much...

Lately, it's been more of the latter than former. For that reason, when I recently got a craving for my mother's carrot cake, I decided to go in a new direction. I broke out the popover pan I use to make Thomas Keller's chocolate bouchons and went to town.

Et voilà! I give you carrot cake bouchons!
The carrot cake batter rose like a charm and the bouchons were the perfect shape- just like the champagne cork they're named for. I topped them with piped cream cheese icing and candied carrot peel.

You'll find my mom's carrot cake and cream cheese icing recipes here. The recipe will make approximately 24 bouchons but I filled my popover pan cups to the very top of the brim to ensure that I got a nice rise and wound up with 22 bouchons.

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Wow! What a great idea for "carrot cake." Photos are amazing! I now use part oil and part melted butter when I make carrot cake. I think it makes for a moister cake.
From The Midwest
April 24, 2012 08:54 AM
I know I've said it before, but I really do wish I had your gift for photography. And those garnish curls. How do you do that? I'm not a cake person, much, either, but I have made Lisa Kuebler's (an OS blogger who is AWOL these days) grandmother's recipe, and although I've tweaked the cake part a bit, the intriguing part of the recipe is a buttermilk syrup that's used to soak the cake before frosting. It makes a carrot cake that's soooo moist and flavorful, even without the frosting. And I've used the same syrup for a prune-cake recipe I'm working on. I tried to find it on Lisa's blog, but it seems like she's taken it down. Luckily, I printed it out long ago. Thank you Lisa's Nanny!
Bellwether Vance
April 26, 2012 05:42 PM