Don't underestimate Pastiche!

We've had many of the fruit tarts or flans or whatever you want to call them from Pastiche on Federal Hill in Providence, one of our favorite bakeries.  Most of the time they are adorned with sliced fruit in a pretty pattern and of course finished with a glaze to hold the fruit in place. The fruit is usually chosen to create a colorful presentation and usually consists of berries, mango, and kiwi - you know - things with contrasting colors.

Always a favorite ..something from Pastiche!

Yep, those are cranberries!

Piled pretty high, too!

A few raspberries for flourish!

The glaze and the pastry cream helped the tart from being too tart!

Imagine our surprise when this time around the tart is covered to the max with a mix of raspberries and many, many cranberries. Yep, I mean cranberries. Granted this is the cranberry season but given that they tend to the sour side their prolific use on this cake was quite audacious.  We imagined we would all be going home with puckered lips from the sourness but that did not turn out to be the case at all. The glaze was just sweet enough to offset the cranberries which did provide a tang. That tanginess was further moderated by the raspberries and the pastry cream below the fruit. So despite the belief that because of the cranberries this could turn out to be a miss it was indeed a hit.

French Modern Cake Art

One of our newest colleagues hails from France as in Vive la!  For one of her first contributions she reached to a French recipe. How appropriate!  This was a yellow cake with many layers and homemade chocolate frosting. Despite the disclaimer that the cake did not rise correctly in fact the layers looked pretty good. The cake was a little squat so squeezing all four layers into it is an impressive accomplishment. Of course the best part was the decorative chocolate "art" on the top of the cake.  Not content to leave it a plain surface the cook used decorative shards, shavings, drizzle and a dollop of fruit to embellish it in a very modernistic way. This is the kind of thing that contemporary pastry chefs do. Throw conformity and all those florets to the wind and be creative with your cake decorating. It's definitely imaginative and probably a lot easier because you don't have to get out one of those pesky pastry bags.

Un gateau français

Compact but multi-layered

Jackson Pollock au chocolat

The cake certainly tasted good and the chocolate was great. As a bonus we got a French version of chocolate chip cookies both with and without the chips. As in the case of most Euro-treats these were nowhere near as sweet as the American version but we won't quarrel with an American classic. We enjoyed these extra tidbits with the artful layer cake and were impressed with the first cake offering of our new colleague française!

Cookies de la France!

 A lighter and less sweet version of the Toll House!

He's here, the Phantom of the Opera!!

In September 2010 the rights to perform Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" became available to amateur groups only, i.e. high schools and colleges.  The Braintree High Theatre Guild in Braintree, Massachusetts became the first public high school in Massachusetts to perform this internationally recognized piece this month. The director of the program and this production of the Phantom is one of our own cake hour friends.  (In fact if you wonder why there has been a paucity of posts in the last eight weeks it's because he was headed off to rehearsals and everyone else was too lame to keep it going.)  But I digress! Anyway, since so many colleagues are supportive and appreciative of the arts and have decided to attend the show, a cake hour reception is held every year to thank them all for the support. This year there clearly was a phantom theme!

The Phantom requests the honor of your presence!

The cake says what we already know

A killer chocolate mousse cake.

Two treats to be savored

Now that's a chocolate mousse!

Multi layered tiramisu

The phantom charms the ladies - but none of these sing!

Channeling the phantom!

The treats were from Pastiche Bakery which is getting a lot of our attention since Ursula's closed!!  We had two creations - a mascarpone torte or cake version of tiramisu and a chocolate mousse cake. As the latter was covered with whipped cream it was, of course, bound to be a hit. Both were delicious of course. The mascarpone torte was lighter than expected and was indeed reminiscent of tiramisu. I think we are spoiled by the many tiramisus that we have had that were homemade by our Italian colleague.

The chocolate mousse torte was fabulous as usual. It has an oreo like bottom, a very dense dark mousse and of course real whipped cream. It is a signature chocolate mousse cake and sets the standard for just about every other one. We enjoyed both as we listened to the music of the Phantom from the original cast recording. 

The show in Braintree has been a big hit with an added weekend and all performances sold out. Too bad if you missed it!

The birthday boy and his moment of fame

Happy Birthday to Dr. Moss. We were happy to celebrate his birthday and did so with one of those gorgeous fruit tarts from Pastiche Bakery on Federal Hill in Providence. We've had quite a few creations of theirs and they are always very fresh and delicious. This particular item was no exception. Well decorated with beautifully laid out fruit including mangos, berries and pineapple. It was almost a big tropical.

Not only was Dr. Moss celebrating his birthday but he is also enjoying his 15 minutes of fame! A report of his that describes the cost manifestations of treating people who intentionally swallow bizarre items has gone viral or as viral as anything scientific can go.  To check it out follow this link to view the video. Just don't swallow that fork Dr. Moss!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=patients-who-swallow-foreign-object-2010-11-01

Week o' pies

Could it be autumn, mass hysteria, or the fact that people who work together start to think alike. Whatever the reason from October 18th through the 25th everyone ended up seeking out and bringing in pies. But, who's complaining.  There are actually several farms in the area who make fresh pies which are very, very good. Then there is always the supermarket or trusty old Sam's Club where the pies are very, very big.

Two American classics

We started off with two pies from Schartner farms where they make Fruit Pies with character! We had a classic American Apple Pie and a classic American Pecan Pie.  The apple pie was very traditional and fresh. The pecan pie was also very good and not as sickeningly sweet as they sometimes can be. Of course, the best pecan pie comes from one or our own so even though this measured up it did not surpass.

Sam's Club does pumpkin pie

A few days later and we had another American traditional pie which is definitely related to the fall season.  When else do you see pumpkin pie?  This one was courtesy or Member's Mark Bakery aka Sam's Club.  So what if it is discount pie it still tastes good and you can't really mess up a pumpkin pie much anyway.  We just happened to have some whipped cream on hand which is the perfect complement to the pie, don't you think?

Good old blueberry pie

We finished off the week o' pies with - you guessed it - a classic American Pie - this time blueberry.  There are indeed some variations on blueberry pie but this was your solid blueberry pie with traditional pie crust. We all know that blueberries are good for you so there was no hesitation polishing this baby off even without the whipped cream. 

ENGAGEMENT CAKE!

It's hard to tell what's going on around here - maybe it is the algae in the drinking water - but over the last several months three of the female graduate students working for their PhDs have gotten engaged!  Is it possible that as they approach completion of their degrees the future spouses are concluding they should take the plunge now to ensure that their highly educated partners will be able to support them in life?  That's too funny. These are PhDs after all, not MDs, so I wouldn't bet the house on the projected future earnings. There must be only one explanation ......LOVE!  (You can gag now!)  The fiancée in today's featured relationship is from Europe. We are hoping that in-law attitudes have softened somewhat from the previous maternal comment about how her son would move to Europe "over my dead body!"  That must have been early in the relationship.  The ring included Grandma's diamond so relations must be cool!

To celebrate we had one of those classic chocolate layer cakes from Gregg's. We are starting to know the Gregg cakes very well!  Good moist chocolate cake with a real chocolaty frosting that some find a little hard to take. At least the frosting was not made with lard which is REAL hard to take. 

We discussed the award of the Nobel Prize in Medicine to the discoverer of in vitro fertilization. It's too bad one of the pair responsible for this breakthrough had to die before the Nobel Committee got around to recognizing them. (A little late!) From there the conversation went to multiple births, then Octomom, then to polygamy and finally to Mormon's.  We also wonder how TLC can still be considered a "learning" channel if they continue with their expanded line up of screwed up family situations. Jon and Kate, anyone?

Nonetheless, congratulations to out latest betrothed colleague!

Coldstone is still around

At least their ice cream cakes are.  This is called Strawberry Passion! It was brought in by one of our newest cake hour members and was a refreshing treat on a sticky Tuesday.  Many have noticed that Cold Stone Ice Cream stores are becoming few and far between. The main one in the theater district of Boston shut down but there is still one in the city. As it turns out running a Cold Stone Franchise is not the easiest thing to do so the stores may suffer but the company is chugging along. 

Nonetheless this cake, which is a combination of ice cream and red velvet cake is very good and it was a big hit judging by the number that showed up to grab a slice. It was very popular amongst the younger crowd although who ever argues with ice cream.  A good debut for our new cake hour cackler!

As it appears in your grocer's freezer

Strawberry passion, anyone?

Our new friend has his first hit!

Our pieces were a lot smaller than the suggested slices

Red velvet cake and ice cream - good combination.

Today's conversation included reminiscences of two of our colleagues who spend their times on NIH study sections. Apparently no one misses the days of shipping the hard copies down for review and those here are perfectly fine with things now being sent electronically.