So far, I've gone really easy on myself. I've only chronicled recipes that I know I would totally dominate (oh wait, I've only done one. Well there you go). This time, I have tried to rise to the challenge set forth by our other sister... a Buche de Noel (I know, I'm totally skipping all the appropriate special characters. If Blogger had a glyph menu, maybe.)
Remember that we are novice bakers and, in my case, don't have the knowledge to veganize non-vegan recipes yet. So first I had to find a vegan spongecake (or genoise) recipe. I found a few, none that I thought was a clear home run. I chose this one. I decided to get even more fancy-pants by choosing a hazelnut cream filling and nutella buttercream frosting that I also found online but can't find now to link to it. Poor form, Laura.
I'm not going to bore you with photos of the prepping of all the batters since my photos are not as glorious as the Emily and James photographic powerhouse. I WILL bore you with my musings on the experience of making them (theoretically, that's what you're here for).
First, I made the hazelnut filling. My recipe called for hazelnut butter which I dutifully purchased. Making it was a simple affair handled easily with a hand mixer. Next, I made the veganized nutella. This recipe had me toasting the raw hazelnuts, wiping off the skins and then liquifying it in the food processor to make....HAZELNUT BUTTER! Muther effer. I'm not really sure which I'm angrier about; the hassle of making it from scratch or spending a pretty penny buying it pre-made. I tell you what, that vegan nutella is damn good. Then most of the nutella went into a buttercream frosting that came out cra-mazing!
So all that happened last night, today I made the cake. I was dubious about egg replacers ability to reach the soft peak stage and sure enough, it didn't. It did, however, get pretty fluffy and I think that was good enough. The instant gratification girl in me loved how quickly the cake baked (15 min). Finally it's picture time!
The still warm cake is placed on a cocoa powder dusted tea towel. On every cooking show I've ever seen with a genoise cake featured, they brush liquor on it. So I did too. Kahlua. This may have been a bad call (not the Kahlua choice, just any kind of liquid).
Here's the hazelnut filling. I had originally made it about peanut butter consistency but ended up thinning it out a bit to make it more spreadable. And spread it I did. Right away. Now some recipes I read have you roll the cake unfilled and let it cool before filling. But at least one said it could be filled for that first rolling.
It rolled up easily without any major cracking. Hooray! But that warm cake went to town on the filling and it got oozy melty. Hmmm..."maybe it'll firm up as it cools," I think.
I leave it alone for many hours before cutting it to create the more realistic log shape complete with truncated appendages. This is when I learn that I've made one seriously moist cake. Almost pudding-like in its moistness. So it seems like this needed less...uh, moisture. I don't think skipping the Kahlua alone would have made much of a difference. Maybe no Kahlua, less of the hazelnut filling and let the cake cool before filling. Maybe.
This is the insanely awesome nutella frosting. It's super tasty. It's not, however, very tree bark colored. More like the color of my coffee (yeah, I drink wussy coffee). I had contemplated covering the whole thing in ganache. But now I realize that would make a huge mess since I couldn't transfer the cake back to the wire rack without its bread pudding innards collapsing. I decide I could use a vegetable peeler to make shavings off my block of chocolate to mimick bark. Being Southern, I can only picture pine bark so I attempt to carve big pieces. This only sort of works.
I knew I had to warm up the chocolate to get it more pliable but that was messy so I was reluctant to do it again when the block started cooling off and my shavings got smaller and more brittle. You can probably follow my progression along the cake surface based on the size of chocolate pieces. At this point, I'm thinking its a hot mess. Mushy insides, janky birch bark on the outside...how can it be salvaged?
It's the miracle of confectioners sugar! What holiday problems can't be solved with a lovely light dusting of snow?
