White Chocolate Mousse Passion Fruit Cake

With the arrival of the spring/summer birthday season I am attempting to make season appropriate cakes by incorporating summery things like colors and flavors. For the May birthday we just had a work I decided to rework a past successful cake which was a dense strawberry cake layered with bittersweet ganache and covered in white chocolate mousse. Instead of strawberries, I used passion fruit.

This is actually a super easy cake to make because you start with a box mix. And while I usually eschew box mixes and I suppose I could have reworked a recipe, I needed the time for decoration on this cake. So super super easy:

Cake:
1 box of yellow cake mix. Make as instructed with the following changes:
         Add 1 egg
         Add 1 8oz block of cream cheese
         Substitute water for fruit puree (I used passion fruit this time but any berry especially would be great)

Ganache:
Heavy whipping cream
Bitter sweet chocolate
Vanilla extract

This I don't really measure. What you need to do is start with the heavy cream and vanilla in a heavy saucepan. Heat it on medium until it starts to form little bubbles around the edges of the pan. You really don't need a lot of cream...my trouble is that I always make too much ganache because it looks like I'm not using enough cream so I add more then I end up with enough ganache for like three bakeries...Once the cream has the little bubbles, remove it from the heat and stir in chocolate. Doing this a little at a time helps it melt better. Set aside and let cool.

White Chocolate Mousse*:
White chocolate chips
4 oz cream cheese
Dash of heavy whipping cream
Big tub of cool whip

Combine about 8-10 oz of the white chocolate chips, the cream cheese, and a dash of cream in a bowl and microwave until smooth. Fold into cool whip and refrigerate.

For construction I only put the ganache between the layers and used the mousse on top but you could put mousse between the layers. Also if you're using a berry fruit it's nice to put those between the layers as well.

While I was, of course, hoping for a tasty cake, my mail goal with this was decoration. Naturally I went very trepidatiously assuming it would be another of my decorating fiascos...but it didn't turn out too badly. I started out with pre made fondant. I dislike the taste of fnodant and have yet to find a recipe that doesn't taste like industrial strength marshmellow...but this was just for decoration. So we had the pre made fondant:

Gel food dyes

A silpat mat (thanks Sarah!) and decoration gloves.

Decoration gloves are a must when coloring fondant. If you don't use them then your hands will by dyed for days. Also, if you're using a lot of color or many colors, it's a good idea to use a pair for each color otherwise you run the risk of blending colros you don't want blended. I used fondant cutters (sorry forgot to take a picture) to cut out two sizes of flowers and two sizes of leaves. When the flowers were all done I used water to "glue" pealized sugar balls in the centers. I was quite happy with how they turned out.

The cake itself didn't turn out so well. I blame the mousse. It was too runny. But it didn't look all that bad.

*I think that my mousse went wrong because I used low fat cream cheese. It's just what I happened to have on hand already and didn't feel like buying more. I think that was a mistake. Go full fat cream cheese!

La Nozze di Figaro

Because KMac and I went to the Pre-Kentucky Derby party last week we had to move our opening night opera tickets to Thursday. This production of La Nozze di Figaro/Marriage of Figaro was possibly the best overall opera I have seen WNO put on in at least two seasons. It was stunningly cast which is not always, or rather ever, a given for WNO and all the principals not only had fantastic voices but could act.

Director Harry Silverstein set Marriage very classically which I appreciated. I am not partial to people who try to be "creative" because that usually fails dramatically. Silverstein set Marriage in what would have been almost 'contemporary' for Mozart. The dresses weren't paneled or bustled quite as much as they would have been in the 1770's but still it was well done.

The cast, which included Ildar Abdrazakov as Figaro; Veronica Cangemi as Susanna; powerful Victoria Livengood as Marcellina; Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Count Almaviva; amazingly controlled Virginia Tola as Countess Almaviva; Michele Losier as Cherubino; and the promising Emily Albrink as Barbarina. It took me a little while to warm up to Cangemi's Susanna. While well acted I thought her voice paled in comparison to the rest of the cast but I liked her much better by the end of the three hour and six minute production. The impressive resume's of everyone else in the cast and any acclaim accorded to them are well deserved.

I know it sounds kind of hokey to say but seeing this opera was like fulfilling some life-long goal. I grew up watching the 1984 film Amadeus and Marriage of Figaro is one of the most featured operas in the film. To finally actually see it was amazing for me. There were several moments during which I was completely in tears. One of them was towards the finale during the Ah tutti contenti which is the piece that kind of wraps up everything and during which everyone makes their peace with one another. It's stunning and as Salieri's character in Amadeus said, you really could hear the true sound of forgiveness in their voices. That teared me up but what really set me off was mezzo soprano Michele Losier's aria Voi que sapete earlier in the performance. My mother, who introduced my siblings and I to opera, is a mezzo and this is one of her pieces. I haven't heard her do it in years and had, in fact, forgot that it was even from this opera until I heard the opening strains. I cannot express in words why it had that affect on me other than to say that it was the somewhat overwhelming experience of momentarily reliving some of the very best parts of my childhood.

So long review not made any shorter...I would completely recommend that people see this opera before it's over. I think you can even get discount tickets still on Goldstar!

Pre-Kentucky Derby Party

Last week thanks to KMac and some of her friends I had the opportunity to go to the 29th annual Pre-Kentucky Derby Party. When KMac asked if I wanted to move our opera date and go to the party instead I thought, free booze? big hats? horses? Heck yes! I love hats. I just got a new one for Easter that would be excellent for the party. See, isn't it pretty?

The party was at the Collingwood Estate in Virginia. Sadly it was pretty cold that day but the weather did not distract from the setting.

When we first arrived I saw this building that looked quite a lot like a stable and was excited that there might actually be horses. I love horses and was horse mad when I was younger. Actually I think I even faked sick once to get out of church so I could watch the Derby.

I was, however bound for disappointment as there were no horses in the building. It was where they kept the food.

That was fairly disappointing. At least there were cucumber sandwiches. Although not traditional cucumber sandwiches on dry white bread with herbed cream cheese. These were like, cucumber mousse sandwiches; which was odd and fascinating.

There were also mint juleps. What else would one serve at a derby party?

See here I am smiling with my mint julep. I don't like mint juleps. I know I look happy but I think that possibly that was before I'd actually taken a sip. Turns out I do not particularly care for bourbon. The strawberries were nicer than the bourbon.

And yes that is a silver bowl full of powdered sugar.

It being a derby there were also hats.

We assume that's his girlfriend's hat. There were also some interesting outfits.

And the one that took the cake:

There's just no competing with that.

I really enjoyed how into it everyone was. As made obvious by the above, it wasn't just the ladies who were into it. Gentlemen were all dressed up as well in hats and outfits one wouldn't expect to see anywhere else. It was like a sea of seersucker. Everywhere you turned there was seersucker. It was really kind of awesome. We will attend again next year.

I shall need a new hat.

Candied Bacon Ice Cream

That's right, you read it correctly...candied bacon ice cream. A slightly bacon obsessed friend of mine just had a birthday and as a gift I made her candied bacon ice cream. I knew she would enjoy it because this was the same person who introduced me to candied bacon and took third place in our office's Iron Chef competition with chocolate covered bacon. Since I'm not the first person to have thought of this concoction, I decided to follow David Lebovitz's recipe.

Pretty simple really with a fairly standard custard-based ice cream. I was a little dubious about adding the rum because a) I don't like dark rum (or dark liquors as a rule really) and b) I was worried that the addition of the rum would make the ice cream not set up very well. Nevertheless, I made the custard according to the recipe and chilled it overnight in a stainless steel bowl. I find that it helps to have the mix as cold as possible before putting it through the ice cream maker.

Next I proceeded to candy the bacon. I tried this once before for our Saint Nicholas party but didn't let it cool properly. Candying bacon is actually fairly simple. Cover a cookie sheet or shallow pan with tin foil (shiny side down) and lay out your bacon. The sprinkle each slice with light brown sugar.

Bake in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes (adjust for your oven and the thickness of the bacon). After 10 minutes, flip the slices over dragging the unsugared side through the greasy, sugary goo in the pan.

Hugely important-when you put the bacon back in the over...don't set the timer for another 10 minutes because then this happens:

And despite the wide open balcony door and hastily turned on kitchen fan, my smoke alarm started screaming at me. Granted we have the world's most sensitive smoke alarm and it goes off if we set the toaster more than half dark. So I had to drag the step ladder across the kitchen and try to climb it and turn off the alarm while at the same time covering both my ears from the shrieking reminder of my bacon candying failure. That done...I tried again and this time left the bacon in only 3 minutes after the drag through goo flip phase. Much better.

Now Mr. Lebovitz says to cool the bacon on a wire rack. I don't have a wire rack so I got a little creative.

And yes those are bamboo skewers resting on two boxes of Fiber One bars. But you know what? It worked.

Fast forward to the next day and it's time to run the custard through the ice cream maker. I love my ice cream maker. It took much longer than usual for it to really start freezing and I don't know if it was the rum, or if it was because I had the ice cream bowl in the freezer for only about a day (I used to keep it in there permanently before we started running out of freezer space).

When I saw that the ice cream was starting to form I broke up all the bacon and let it mix around a little before taking the ice cream out of the mixer and freezing it.

The birthday girl was kind enough to share the ice cream with a couple of us and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I was skeptical. But even with the rum it was pretty great. You got some of the rum up front followed by the brown sugar/cinnamon creaminess and then finished of with the sweet bacon. Really it was good.

No really.

The Liar

There is usually at least one play in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s season that I enjoy and this season it seems I had to wait until almost the very end of the season to see it. Pierre Corneille’s The Liar, adapted for STC by David Ives, was brilliance and roll in the aisle funny. A cast of STC favorites including Christian Conn as Dorante, Aubrey Deeker as Philiste, David Sabin as Geronte, Colleen Delany as Isabell/Sabine, Mirian Silverman as Lucrece and Tony Roach as Alcippe are on hand to send audiences howling. They are joined for this performance by STC newcomers Adam Green who was wonderful as Cliton and Erin Partin as Clarice.


The play chronicles 26 hilarious hours of master fabricator Dorante. Upon his arrival in Paris he hires witty sidekick Cliton then proceeds to cut a swath through Parisian high society, wreak havoc with his father’s plans for his [Dorante’s] marriage, woo any number of high-born young ladies, fight a magnificent duel, and get the girl! But which girl…?

Don’t let the fact that everyone speaks in pentameter verse turn you away-David Ives’s translation and adaptation made this a completely approachable comedy. I once translated a book of Pablo Neruda’s poems from the Spanish into German and that (relatively) simple exercise was more than enough for me to know that I wasn’t going to be doing that kind of work professionally. My hat way off to him and other translators of his level for being able to not only translate the play, but keep the meter, the rhyme, and throw in a lot of references to past STC productions!

I found this to be both charmingly and exceptionally acted. And wondered not just once how the actors manage to keep such straight faces when delivering these lines and when the audience is roaring with laughter. There was not one person who was not fully engaged in his role and I, as ever, especially enjoyed Aubrey’s performance. We (meaning me, Lauren, KMac, and a few other friends) always enjoy when he’s in something at STC. The return of Christian Conn (of Beaux’ Stratagem and Love’s Labours Lost fame) was magnificent and Colleen Delany (Way of the World, Titus, Beaux’ Stratagem, Love’s Labours Lost etc etc) could not have played her two roles better. Who doesn’t, after all, love a closet dominatrix? I will also single out Adam Green. His incapable of lying Cliton was the perfect foil to Dorante who apparently could not tell the truth to save his life.

The one warning you will get about this-bring your wool sweaters and ladies don’t bother wearing skirts. It’s bloody freezing in the theatre were it maintains a crisp 68-72 degrees. The actors are all in period costumes (which were beautiful) and giving their energetic performances under hot stage lights so they try to keep it a little cooler to help ensure they don't pass out and deprive the audience of their wonderful performance. There are also lap blankets available in coat check if you forget the sweater! And when you walk in the theatre and get your program, don’t forget to grab a copy of the Asides and read what the always brilliant Akiva Fox, the STC dramaturge (isn’t that just the best word?!) has to tell us in both.

For some crazy reason STC has already released a limited number of discounted tickets for this through Goldstar so snap them up there or directly through the theatre quickly! This one will have full audiences until the end of its run for sure. I guess they really do save the best for (almost) last!