A pseudo tiramisu, a tiger cake and a visitor from Nashville!

Another day, another cake hour in student cake month.  Today we had a tiramisu - sort of.  If you go back to a few blog posts here you will notice that we have had our share of tiramisus.  Furthermore, a graduated Italian colleague had spoiled us by frequently bringing in one from an authentic Italian recipe - or so we were lead to believe.  Hence we are somewhat snobbish when it comes to this particular dish.  There have been a few attempts to supplant the recipe but they were unsuccessful.

A bowl full of tiramisu...sort of!

There is an added layer on top!

It's missing the powdered cocoa but the whipped cream is a great substitute!

Today our student competitor brought in his version of a tiramisu.  Clearly it was different.  Notice the lack of cocoa powder on the top.  Instead the top was a layer of whipped cream. That is not a usual ingredient and the top layer is normally mascarpone.  Since it is whipped cream we surely don't mind but for tiramisu purists this could be an issue.  Under the whipped cream was the requisite mascarpone layer(s) and the lady fingers. Since this is a variation on the classic recipe we dubbed it a pseudo-tiramisu.

Whipped cream, mascarpone and lady fingers - almost a tiramisu!

Its' got the layers!

That doesn't mean we didn't like it. Hell, no! If you are going to add anything to tiramisu whipped cream would always be a good idea.  It added another layer of lightness to this version that went will with the mascarpone. The lady finger were fine as was the mascarpone cream. Said cream had a little more texture that what we have had and it's not clear why.  it tasted good though.  We weren't sure if this recipe included the lady fingers being dipped or soaked in coffee or if the obligatory rum or amaretto was included.  It didn't matter because the pseudo way it was prepared was fine with everyone and we give it a four and a half star rating.

Four and half stars with some consideration for the bowl!

With the amount of people that have been showing up for cake hour we just managed to have enough to give folks a reasonable tasting.  For those that wanted more there was an unannounced surprise.  A former colleague who moved on to medical school in Tennessee, of all pieces showed up for a visit as she is summering doing research nearby in Boston.  As she well knows the cake hour drill,  she brought with her an additional cake treat as well as a bottle of vino.  This enabled us to give a little extra to all.

The cake we called a tiger cake. It was a chocolate roll with vanilla cream that was frosted with chocolate which was then overlaid with stripes of vanilla. It looked a little bit like the negative of tiger stripes.  The cake was good although a few found it to be too sweet.  It might have been better if the filling had been whipped cream which is often seen in one of these.  But it was a nice unexpected treat.

It could also be a caterpillar!

Chocolate roll - make that white sugar cream whipped cream and its a hit!

We were going to save the bottle of wine for another day but someone suggested cracking it open and it was done. A bit of a wine tasting ensued. There was also a bottle of champagne.  Now you would think having a bunch of students around, presumably with some affinity for alcoholic beverages,  when a bottle of red wine and a bottle of champagne are offered up, that there would be some celebration.  Surprisingly that was not the case. We take that to mean that they were anxious to get back to work and not that they are total neophytes and unappreciative of good wine. In the end, since only about three people tried the red wine we stuck with that and the champagne will wait for another day.

Now to appreciate a good merlot!

Ahh,  so great to be back in PVD!

On a hot day have an Eiskaffee!

We have done this before and it being a sweltering day it seemed appropriate to settle for something very cooling and delicious.  So we served up some more Eiskaffees! In case you still don't know what these are, they are the Euro-version of ice coffees.  Instead of just cold coffee over ice an Eiskaffee is cold or iced black coffee served in a tall glass with one to two scoops of vanilla ice cream. This is topped with whipped cream, a piece of chocolate and/or a wafer cookie.

The necessary ingredients!

Happy to the first to get the treat!

It looks a lot better in a tall glass!

Take the shot quick so I can dig in!

I'm down for an Eiskaffee...can't wait to see what it is!

I'm gonna love this Eiskaffee!

It is a great treat for a hot summer day and goes well with any kind of pastry.  Since today was an open day for student cake month and it was very hot, we opted to bring these back and introduce them to a new group of cake hour friends. Several of the summer people were missing...probably off drinking beer somewhere.

What the hell IS this?

I guess it's not so bad!

I already finished it but take a photo anyway!

Why are you taking my picture!

The Pro does it again though we didn't know the strawberries were "macerated"

If you are going to participate in student cake month it helps if you have done it before. You know what to expect and can gauge the competition (or lack thereof this year.) What also helps is if you have had experience in the food and restaurant industry prior to deciding to become a scientist. That is the case with today's contestant. Our boy worked the restaurant scene before he decided he was better suited for research.  The two are not that far apart. Both involve using recipes and protocols to achieve a successful result. In the case of a food career you may end up with a successful restaurant, product endorsements and perhaps cookbook deals.  In the realm of science you get your PhD, a few publications perhaps with a decent impact factor and maybe a patent or two.  Which one sounds more glamorous?  If you choose science good for you!

Having experienced the previous week, I have every right to look comfident!

Nicely done angel food cake!

Add to that some "macerated" strawberries!

Our buddy today sort of dwarfed any competition with his creation that was heavily influenced by how freaking hot it has been around here.  He wanted something cooler and summery.  He came up with angel food cake topped with fresh sliced sweetened strawberries and served with homemade mascarpone gelato. As a finish he added a touch of aged balsamic vinegar. This may sound weird but did you know that balsamics get sweeter and more sugary with age?  That being the case it does not come as a surprise to have one embellish his dish.

Let's slice it up and get things going!

Cake, "macerated" strawberries, a dollop of gelato and a touch of aged balsamic!

Everyone got a slice of the cake, with the strawberries and a dollop of the gelato. The titch of balsamic went on most of them but there was an issue with pouring it so the early slices did not get any.  The angel food cake was spot on and very good being made from scratch. The strawberries made for a perfect topping.  The balsamic added and interesting taste for sure. And the gelato was awesome.  The recipe called for mascarpone, sour cream, yogurt and heavy cream.  If you have dairy issues this was definitely not for you.  The texture was perfect and there was none of the grittiness cause by ice particles that frequently mars homemade ice creams.  No added flavoring was added which is interesting given that it was quite flavorful. This was probably due to the mascarpone.  It was very rich and creamy and exactly like the gelatos that you get in Italy.  We know because we have had a lot of them!

Gelato as good as in Italia!

This cake hour entry gets kudos for preparation, execution and overall creativity and our foodie turned science geek gets his usual five star rating.

A classy summer treat!

News flash:  The recipe for the angel food strawberry mascarpone gelato concoction ostensibly came from the father of the chef.  As it turns out that Emeril guy has something similar  Check it out: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/mascarpone-gelato-with-balsamic-macerated-strawberries-recipe/index.html.  Doesn't macerated sound really special? You think that something really difficult must be happening. But in the case of strawberries it involves slicing, sprinkling with sugar and letting them stew in their own juice.  Macerated is so-o-o-o-o much chicer to say, however.

Fruit Loops Cake and Mamma Fuku to you too!

Our student cake master for the day paid a visit to the Wayland Bakery over on the East Side of PVD. He brought in the large box so we figure it would be something big and indeed it was.  The cake was a large cake intended for birthday's or other events with an empty space on the top for a message.  There was none and we dutifully informed our student colleague to have them put something for an inscription next time like "Student Cake Month 2013" or "Go LRC"! In other words, get creative.

Stopped by the Wayland!

In this view the cake is as big as he is!

This would make a great birthday cake!

Big empty space for your greeting!

The cake had a very precisely smeared chocolate frosting that was of the butter cream type.  It was embellished with some white frosting swirls along the top edge and the base of the cake. For color they added the candy confetti on the white frosting decoration. It looked....fine!  It is just the type of cake that you would get for your kid's birthday.

They did a good job frosting this cake!

Three layers with white frosting in between!

The cake was not chocolate, though. It was a yellow cake with three layers and in between the layers was more of the white frosting.  The cake was basic and....fine. We give it a three star rating. The rating got a half star extra because the cake was very well assembled. Otherwise, although we are sure this was prepared fresh, there was nothing particularly distinguishing about this cake.

Not bad but a tad generic!

Unless of course you believed all the summer student interns who observed that the cake tasted like Fruit Loops...the cereal.  What was interesting is that once one person volunteered that, the next person who was asked, without knowing what was previously said, also said that it tasted like Fruit Loops. Assuming this was no organized mania, to those familiar with the cereal I guess the cake really tasted like Fruit Loops. For those of us for whom the memory of fruit loops is very distant the connection and the taste sensation was not there.

It's the cereal with the Toucan, man!

And the cake supposedly tasted like these!

This conclusion led to a broader discussion about breakfast cereals.  Truth be told, the preferences for our crowd definitely tended towards the sweeter ones.  For a few Lucky Charms was the ultimate cereal whereas others were creeped out by the marshmallows.  Regular Cheerios were deemed inedible as compared to Honey Nut Cheerios...the most expensive cereal on the market. And for a few, things like Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cereal was breakfast nirvana.  We can't wait to see if, as these age, they develop a taste for steel cut oats or other cardboard tasting grains in the interests of better health.

Enjoy those sweet cereals now because this is what the future holds in store!

The talk of cereals included a remark that cereals like Fruit Loops color the milk.  From this we learned that there is some restaurant in New York where they take such milk, flavored by cereals, and use it to bake cookies.  (I don't know many cookie recipes that call for milk but whatever.) There was some incredulity about that but lo and behold it does exist, http://milkbarstore.com/

It's for real, and they do something with "cereal milk."

Somehow then the name of the restaurant came up which was Mamma Fuku or something like that.  Next we ended up hearing about the restaurant offering a 16 course lunch for $175.00 and a 10 course dinner for $125.00.  The obvious question was asked...who has the time for a 16 course lunch. Check out the website, though: http://momofuku.com/new-york/ko/about/

It's only twelve seats for a 16 course three hour lunch.

Mamma Fuku, despite it's resemblance to an English expletive, is supposed to mean "Happy Peach" in Japanese.  We called for our Japanese colleague to get a confirmation but the did not appear..  We did confirm later that Moma is the word for peach and fuku can mean happy.  Glad we settled that and no one needs to get offended, then, saying the name of the restaurant which, as you see, is Momafuku.

And Moma Fuku to you too from the Happy Peach!

Cake-o Dominicano is not how you say Dominican Cake in Spanish

The correct term is Bizcocho Dominicano.  We had never heard of this before and had no idea what we were getting today was called any particular thing.  This was the latest offering/competitor for student cake month.  When we first saw the cake from afar it looked like somebody's chapeau.  It appeared somewhat lacy and was very, very blue.  Probably the most intense blue color we have ever seen at cake hour.  We were skeptical at first thinking it was another super sweet American style cake but were then told that it was a Dominican Cake.

I'll be at class but hope you like the Dominican cake!

Apparently Bizcocho Dominicano or Dominican Cake is an established item. Gleaning info from recipes as it is apparently not yet worthy of its own Wikipedia page, this is a yellow or vanilla cake cut into layers with a pineapple or other tropical filling between the layers.  The frosting on the top is meringue based and has the taste and consistency of marshmallow.  Our student of the day brought this because he has Domincan heritage and had had this cake as a youngster.  He wanted to share the concept with us and we were certainly happy to be enlightened.

Is this a cake or someone's Easter bonnet?

The frosting was described as Bahama Blue.

This cake was something that no one had really had before.  Visually it was quite remarkable with the aforementioned blue color. The white frosting used for decorating the cake was a nice contrast.  This color and decoration together with the paper doily made the whole thing look very frilly which is okay.

It is actually quite a nice looking cake!

The decorations are a tad on the frilly side!

This cake had four layers which is surprising given how relatively small it was.  In between the layers was a guava filling which no one expected.  Frequently, with this cake, the filling is pineapple but guava was absolutely acceptable.  The cake was very fresh and moist, which is a good thing, and together with the java filling tasted quite good.

Guava filling was a first for cake hour!

The surprise was the frosting.  We expected it would be the usual shortening or lard based coating but this being meringue based was quite different.  It was lighter, not at all dense and reminded people a lot about Marshmallow fluff. It was bit on the sweet side but that was okay.  Everything together worked very well and we could understand why this cake would be popular. We give this a four and a half star rating. Extra points are for originality and the added effort to provide something unique.

That layer of frosting looks thick but was not at all heavy!

Some of our cake hour attendees were caught sharing a music experience.  We don't know what it was they were listening to but they clearly liked it!

Intently listening to God knows what!

Oh yeah, that's cool!