Cherry Orange Cornmeal Cake, or How To Have Polenta All Day Son by Randi / December 30, 2015
lolz
Some people might say that Yule logs – rolled up filled cakes, similar to jelly rolls but with a stump – are only for Christmas. Nothing says seasons greetings like a hacked tree stump, especially when it’s made of icing and food coloring. My intention with this post was to jollily say, ‘Hey I disagree! Yule logs can be for an anytime party, especially New Year’s Eve!’ But alas, I now firmly believe Yule logs are for never. FOR NEVER.
First of all, how do you even. If you made an edible or even delicious cake, as I am wont to do, then why do things that will 99% guaranteed destroy it? Why not just eat it? It’s probably going to crack if you try to roll it up. That’s because it’s not a stone cold piece of crap cake that you could have built in shop class. I’ve heard that it may be easier to roll cakes while they’re still warm; that might prevent crackage. BUT then you can’t add the filling because it’ll melt! So what the hell is the point! Is it even worth it? Why not just have a regular old frosted cake? It saves you the anguish but tastes and looks just as good. Why do we do this to ourselves? Regardless of that last question posed, I do expect you to make this. I want to know how it goes and how badly yours falls apart. Also, the recipes are f-ing delicious, if I do say so myself and oh I just did so there we go. Great cake, great filling. I’d be so happy with myself if I didn’t have a disintegrating pile of broken cake on my stove right now.
Maybe you think my New Year’s resolution should be to learn how to do this better, become a master at rolling cakes so my next related post might be an actual tutorial to help others who want to success at tree stump cakes. But no. I don’t believe in rolled cakes anymore. I’m also not going to improve my food photography, in case you were going to ask. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Maybe you think my New Year’s resolution should be to learn how to do this better, become a master at rolling cakes so my next related post might be an actual tutorial to help others who want to success at tree stump cakes. But no. I don’t believe in rolled cakes anymore. I’m also not going to improve my food photography, in case you were going to ask. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I decided to make a gingerbread-ish vanilla cake to go with this fancymazing chestnut puree we found at Fortnum & Mason, which I think is the English version of Williams Sonoma, probably with its own ludicrous holiday catalog (for ludichristmas, as I like to say). We went sometime in November or December, which you should never do because it is wall-to-wall tourists taking pictures and buying $18 jars filled with 4 shortbread cookies. (Remember that’s in pounds.) But the saving grace of this experience was finding vanilla-scented chestnut puree in this adorable little tin. It was pretty cheap too, considering where we were and how much they could have charged. We always buy little interesting foodstuffs, usually when traveling, and then forget to use them before they expire, or we even actively try to ‘save’ them for the right occasion which also leads to forgetting to use them. Such dumb! So waste! With this little chestnut tin, I decided early on to use it…early on.
I figured New Year’s Eve would be a great time to celebrate with a special chestnut-puree-filled cake, since we decided in advance that we’d be homebodying and what better activity for homebodying than eating a ginormous cake with two kinds of frosting? These recipes really are delicious, so I highly recommend making that as a standard iced sheet cake one day. After you try rolling this shiz.
VANILLA GINGERBREAD YULE LOG CAKE WITH CHESTNUT CREAM FILLING
|
For the cake
Ingredients:
Directions:
For the chestnut cream
Directions:
Assemblage:
|
This is the salt I use in all my dessert baking now. It’s so good and interesting! 
For the buttercream (to cover the rolled log) This is where it got even funnier. I was planning to make a tofu mousse to top it with, but when I went to add my soft tofu to the bowl of whipped butter, shortening, and icing sugar, I saw that my tofu expired. Normally I’d be like eh whatevs, but it expired 3 months ago. I think it’s safer not to risk a 3 month incubation period. So my buttercream base for mousse became just over-liquefied buttercream. Here’s the recipe but with less cream than I used because liquid. Whip until smooth:
then refrigerate to help harden. 
The good thing about cakes you’re going to flip over is that you can scrape off the original top and eat it without anyone noticing. 
Whipping my chestnut cream, feeling the flow |
PICTURE SHOW!!!! BY RKOOOOO
OH HERE WE GO! 
GOD’S WORK 
LUDICHRISTMAS |
BEAUTIFUL 
CHRISTMAS MIRACLE 
|
YUP AFTER DOUSING IT IN THE BUTTERCREAM I FIGURED WHY NOT SPRAY IT WITH EDIBLE GOLD SPRAY PAINT THAT WILL TOTALLY HELP RESHAPE IT AND EVERYTHING.
HAHAHA DID YOU SEE THAT
SILENT NIGHT |
HOLY NIGHT |
Now I realize why all other yule log/jelly roll recipes use chocolate cake, or at least cakes and frostings that would be different colors. You can’t even see my beautiful hard work! But you can taste it. It was really good! Can you even believe this. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
ART IS EVERYWHERE |
I AM ART |
Related Posts
Dishoom: London’s Hippest Restaurant Pretty Good For Vegans
Not that I’m an expert on what the cool kids are up to, but when a restaurant is a) in Shoreditch and b) has at least an hour wait even on a Tuesday evening, I’m pretty confident in calling it the hippest. Especially when the majority of people in the mass waiting in line to get in are wearing jean shorts and black tights. So hip in these parts.
My marked-up menu, courtesy of the most helpful waitress
And Dishoom in Shoreditch (it also has two locations more westerly but East London is for the cooler people) is actually worth standing in that queue for. Billing itself as a Bombay Cafe, its spectacular street-food inspired-ish Indian food stands out in the sea of Indian food that composes East London. Unlike the majority of nearby Indian restaurants, you can feel secure as a vegan that what you’re ordering is, in fact, vegan. (I’ve had too many restaurant hawkers on Brick Lane (what are they called?) tell me a little too assuredly not to worry about the ghee.) The first time I went to Dishoom, when I asked my waitress what I could have as a vegan, she whipped out a pen and marked up my entire menu with her notes. It was hilarious and so sweet! Now, I’ve discovered that they have a whole separate dairy-free menu, showing items that are already dairy-free and what could easily be made dairy-free, so it’s a breeze to use that menu and just look for the items marked (v) for vegetarian. Yayyy fun game.
The thing to know about eating at Dishoom is that, if you are doing it right, your mouth will be on fire. Or at least by London standards. It’s hard to find legitimately spicy foods at mainstream restaurants here — they’ll be like, are you sure you want the 3 bells level of spicy wow it’s so spicy, and then it’ll be something you barely taste. And I’m on the wimpier side spicy-wise, so I’m not exaggerating. But Dishoom gets it so right. Some of the stuff (like the gunpowder potatoes, aptly named) is pretty killer, yet the taste of the spice outshines the heat of the spice, which is so important. So good! Oh, also, the other thing to know is that it’s pretty much the darkest restaurant I’ve ever not seen. Like scary ridiculously goth dark, so my pictures are even worse than usual if possible! Wheee! Let’s see what to order.
The thing to know about eating at Dishoom is that, if you are doing it right, your mouth will be on fire. Or at least by London standards. It’s hard to find legitimately spicy foods at mainstream restaurants here — they’ll be like, are you sure you want the 3 bells level of spicy wow it’s so spicy, and then it’ll be something you barely taste. And I’m on the wimpier side spicy-wise, so I’m not exaggerating. But Dishoom gets it so right. Some of the stuff (like the gunpowder potatoes, aptly named) is pretty killer, yet the taste of the spice outshines the heat of the spice, which is so important. So good! Oh, also, the other thing to know is that it’s pretty much the darkest restaurant I’ve ever not seen. Like scary ridiculously goth dark, so my pictures are even worse than usual if possible! Wheee! Let’s see what to order.
Watermelon is safe
First off, the drinks. When you’re about halfway through your wait, you’ll probably have made it to the bar waiting area, where you are given beepers that beep when your table is ready beep beep. Dishoom’s bar has a pretty lovely non-alcoholic section, mainly because it exists, which is rare here. Do yourself a favor and get the watermelon sharbat, which is fresh watermelon muddled with mint, lime, and sea salt and served over ice. It’s REALLY good, and it’s not very sweet, which is perfect if you are a respectable person with a pink drink and not a drunken foo’ on a hen party with a pink drink. Do yourself another favor and DON’T I repeat DON’T be tempted to get the Kala Khatta Sharbat, even though you’re intrigued, even though the bartender LITERALLY tells you that he doesn’t want to make it for you because you will hate it and how can you ignore how tempting that shit is, even when he really begs you and your friends not to try it, even when he begrudgingly concedes that it’s his job to make what you want and that you can try it if you really want to but that you will really still hate it. He’s right, yall. IT’S AWFUL. It’s kokum fruit juice which apparently is in the mangosteen family according to webs but I’d believe it was part of the this-tastes-like-burnt-wood family, chilli (yes, in your drink), citrus (that’s okay), and FREAKING BLACK SALT. Yeah, like the crap we vegans add to shit to make it taste all sulphury like freaking disgusting eggs, they put in this drink. That’s not even the best part: the menu says this mishmash of ingredients better served for making a table are “left to rest” before being strained over ice. It “will take you straight back to Chowpatty beach”, they promise, which now I believe is a threat. Moral of story, don’t get that, even though I’m pretty sure you’re going to try it now because human impulse.
Moving on. The best things, as in any restaurant, are the starters. I will always start with the same things at Dishoom because they are so good: the veg samosa, obviously; the okra fries, even more obviously; and the bhel, not obviously at all because what even is that? My friend the Wayfarer (who is Indian and therefore an expert on Indian food and she really liked Dishoom so there) ordered the bhel one time and I’m obsessed now. It’s like a really interesting bowl of cereal if you added both sweet and savory things and were like, what am I doing, this makes no sense, but it’s delicious. It’s puffed grains with pomegranate seeds, which sounds perfect, but then onions and tomatoes, which is like whaaat, and then lime, tamarind, and mint seasonings and the thing’s just crazy enough to work. It’s really addictive! I would never have thought to try such a messed up bowl of cereal but I’m so glad I did. As for the samosas and the okra fries, come on, it’s fried goodness, get like 4 orders of each and you’ll be okay. Oh also the menu description for the okra fries reads “Fine lady’s fingers for the fingers”. So that’s a plus, I think.
Okra fries, the only good picture because Wayfaring Siv took it, and she’s a freaking award-winning travel photographer who was positively slummin’ it taking pics of my food so yeah it’s actually visible
Samosas, better than samoas or vice vs.? Discuss. |
Bhel is belle |
I also have enjoyed the Far Far in the past, which is described as “carnival snackery”, colorful fried crackery things that are salty and somehow lemony. But they are easily found in my nearby ethnic groceries so they’re not my restaurant constants.
The fun continues with the more-substantial-but-still-small plates. We get to eat vegetables now, with both kachumber and ‘a bowl of greens’. The bowl of greens is usually too overdressed and vinegary and salty for my taste, but I get it every time because I need greens at every meal or I get grumpers. It’s spinach, snow peas, and broccoli with lime and chili, and sometimes it has too much lime, sometimes too much chili. It’s not the most consistent dish on the menu, but it is the most green.
The kachumber is the classic salad that every Eastern culture has, what I’ve always known as Israeli salad but everyone knows as someone else’s. It’s tomato, cucumber, and onion chopped up. You know it. It goes well in falafel wraps. You’re probably thinking, oh kachumber is a cute name that kind of sounds like cucumber, I see why they chose it. No, it actually means beating someone up nicely. Okay monster man.
The fun continues with the more-substantial-but-still-small plates. We get to eat vegetables now, with both kachumber and ‘a bowl of greens’. The bowl of greens is usually too overdressed and vinegary and salty for my taste, but I get it every time because I need greens at every meal or I get grumpers. It’s spinach, snow peas, and broccoli with lime and chili, and sometimes it has too much lime, sometimes too much chili. It’s not the most consistent dish on the menu, but it is the most green.
The kachumber is the classic salad that every Eastern culture has, what I’ve always known as Israeli salad but everyone knows as someone else’s. It’s tomato, cucumber, and onion chopped up. You know it. It goes well in falafel wraps. You’re probably thinking, oh kachumber is a cute name that kind of sounds like cucumber, I see why they chose it. No, it actually means beating someone up nicely. Okay monster man.
Bowl of greens to the left, all you greens to the box on the left or something like that I don’t know
Gunpowder potatoes
I’m pretty sure the most-ordered item at Dishoom is the gunpowder potatoes. I am not basing this on any research or you know even asking an employee, just going by what I believe in. Potatoes are good. These are super spicy potatoes, skins on, smoky and grilled till they crack apart and then tossed with seeds and herbs. They are normally tossed with butter as well, but the dairy-free menu assures you that they can be made without. Given the strength of the dry heat the potatoes give off (like Austin!), I bet butter helps calm the spiciness. If I’m right, that means the dairy-free potatoes are even hotter and more gunpowdery, so vegans are badasses. Nice.
My big bowl of beans, every time
So as you can see, the small plates at Dishoom are pretty great and numerous. Unfortunately, there’s really only one entree for vegans, but it’s really delicious: the Rajma-Chawal. It’s a little cast iron pot (but an enormous portion) of slow-cooked and deeply spiced red kidney beans in a thick, dark red sauce, served over basmati rice and topped with fresh herbs. It’s really good, considering it’s what you’re kind of forced to order. I’m still not upset about the lack of entree options at Dishoom because these damn beans are so delicious, and because by this point in the meal I’m stuffed to the gills anyway of fried littles and random tomato cereal. What I am upset about is that the basmati rice is the only rice or bread accompaniment that is vegan-friendly. No naan here. But that’s okay when there’s a decent offering of vegan dishes at a place where all your omnivore friends will be dying to go, and that’s the best part: Not only is Dishoom the place to see and be seen, maybe, at least regarding hipsters, but it’s the perfect place for a mixed group of eaters.
DISHOOM, SHOREDITCH, LONDON
Water speed: Oh London, please stop it with these little tumblers that are the length of my pinky.
Service: Decent and helpful, but they are hard to flag down because this place is always super heaving with a constantly moving crowd. Such crowd.
Bathrooms: There’s never a line (yay) because there are at least 5 stalls, but they have that weird England-basement-but-sort-of-also-the-camp-kitchen smell.
Food: Good, fun, spicy.
Bonus: It’s like being in an ad for Topshop with all those stockings and shorts combos and all those big floppy hats even at night and all those men with ironic beards and my god I’m surrounded by hipsters.
How NOT to Make an Ice Cream Cake
This was DELICIOUS.
However, don’t do what I did. Follow the instructions of someone who knows what they are doing.
Or…
If you don’t like being told how to do something, and you prefer being AWESOME, read on.
However, don’t do what I did. Follow the instructions of someone who knows what they are doing.
Or…
If you don’t like being told how to do something, and you prefer being AWESOME, read on.
Tip of the Day: Do not assemble an ice cream cake when the cake parts are still hot.
My birthday this year was quite uneventful, so I decided that my birthday cake would be special: Ice cream cake! I’ve never made one before, and haven’t had one since elementary school, when other kids had those Carvel cakes at their parties. So now it was my time. (THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY TIIIIME!) However, I didn’t think the process through enough. So, this post is more of a ‘What Not to Do’ version of ‘How to Make an Ice Cream Cake’. Some truly amazing cake wreck pictures wait ahead.
My birthday this year was quite uneventful, so I decided that my birthday cake would be special: Ice cream cake! I’ve never made one before, and haven’t had one since elementary school, when other kids had those Carvel cakes at their parties. So now it was my time. (THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY TIIIIME!) However, I didn’t think the process through enough. So, this post is more of a ‘What Not to Do’ version of ‘How to Make an Ice Cream Cake’. Some truly amazing cake wreck pictures wait ahead.
It looks nice, right?
What’s hard to tell, though, is that the frosting melted into the top, coloring the cake, and then all of it slid off into those soupy corners, mixing with the ice cream to make admittedly delicious, viscous plasma. The top looks iced, but it’s mostly just the cocoa that seeped into the pores.
Every time I bake something with my mom’s knowledge, it needs to be chocolate and peanut butter. This is her rule. It’s a good one, but it gets old. After so many chocolate peanut butter cakes throughout the years, I wanted my birthday cake to be different. First of all, instead of the chocolate cake base I always always make in some form, I went with vanilla. I chose my favorite vanilla cake recipe, a doubled variation on Isa Chandra’s Vanilla Bean Cupcakes, minus the vanilla bean (which I have never had/used and that makes me sad. Future birthday present? Actually if you want to get me a present, get me a Vitamix), converted into layer cakes. And then I proceeded to throw together the most ridiculously poor ice cream cake probably ever seen. (Poor looking, and poorly constructed. Obviously not poor tasting!)
It doesn’t look too bad when it’s sliced, does it? But it was, oh it was. Have faith.
First, make the cake.
BEST EVER VANILLA CAKE
Adapted from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Vanilla Bean cupcakes
- 2C unsweetened non-dairy milk (vanilla almond is my choice)
- 3t apple cider vinegar
- 2½ C all-purpose flour
- 2t baking powder
- 1t baking soda
- 1t salt
- 2/3C canola oil
- 1¼ C sugar
- 2t vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350°. Pour the milk and apple cider vinegar into a measuring cup; let it stand for at least five minutes until it curdles. I usually leave it for longer to ensure quality curdling action. Mix the dry ingredients (minus the sugar) in a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, then the oil, vanilla, and curdly milk and mix until just combined; do not overmix. Pour into two 8x8inch baking pans, or two round ones, or do what I did and do one square pan and one circular. (You should also wear 2 different shoes.) Bake for 45 minutes.
LET THE CAKES COOL. Like, for hours, not for 15 minutes like I did. Holy crap, I’m serious.
 See how it rose in the middle? Level that off the tops of the cakes. This is a great thing to do because you get to eat some of the cake before it’s ‘cake time’. Because this is just a sneaky way to eat warm cake without damaging the structure, I have no instructions for how to really do this. You should be able to tell when it’s flat enough, or when you are full enough. I guess it also makes the cakes more amenable to layering and topping with stuff. Really, just do it because it lets you eat the cake immediately. And it’s real good. |
 |
NEXT!
ONCE YOUR CAKES ARE COOL.
Take out your ice cream of choice. I used Trader Joe’s Cherry Chocolate Chip soy ice cream. It’s gooood. It reminds me of my childhood favorite, Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, but it’s better because it’s doesn’t hurt animals OR your stomach! By the by, is there a website yet that has veganized the Ben & Jerry’s flavors? Because I’d buy an ice cream maker for that purpose. K maybe I’ll do it. I’m on it!
Getting back to the task at hand…
Let your ice cream thaw for a good 30 minutes. If it’s really super crazy hot in your kitchen, you’ll probably only want to leave it out for 15-20. We don’t want milk here. Also, I’m sorry you’re so hot!
Action shot! So fun!
Next, while your ice cream is thawing and your cakes are cooling (or if you are like me, while the cakes are cooking because you didn’t allow them to cool), make your frosting!
I mixed a bag of Trader Joe’s confectioner’s sugar (a pound) with 1/4C cocoa powder and 1/3C Earth Balance, plus splashes of almond milk. And then, as you can see at right, I mixed it with a hand blender.
Tip: Put the bowl in the sink, because this will shoot powder, both the sugar and cocoa variety, all over the place.
I mixed a bag of Trader Joe’s confectioner’s sugar (a pound) with 1/4C cocoa powder and 1/3C Earth Balance, plus splashes of almond milk. And then, as you can see at right, I mixed it with a hand blender.
Tip: Put the bowl in the sink, because this will shoot powder, both the sugar and cocoa variety, all over the place.
Then, when the cakes are cool (FREAL), smear a thick layer of the ice cream on top of your bottom layer. I like to flatten out scoops of the ice cream with my hands, then throw it down on the cake, then lick my hands. No I’m kidding I don’t really do that. Anyway, so you have your ice cream layer. If you have enough frosting, drop a layer of that on top of the ice cream before placing the second cake layer on top. Then top the second layer (and, if like me you used a circle on top of a square, top the exposed corners as well) with the frosting. If you didn’t listen to me but instead followed my example and you assembled this while the cake was still really warm, then by now you realize that you have a HUGE PILE OF MELTING STUFF oozing out onto the counter in front of you and then in a minute ahhhh there it goes onto the floor below you! All down the side of the counter and now oh no! It’s oozing towards your feet! Oh my god you have to contain this delicious sugary mess but you have frosting-ice cream mash-up on your FEET! What is the proper triage order for this fiasco?? Feet or cake? FEET OR CAKE????? Breathe! Towel off your feet because you’re going to be walking soon! You’re going to toss the baking dish of mudsliding horror onto a huge baking sheet and RUN DO NOT WALK to the freezer, where hopefully you already made room*. (Hint: Go back in time and make room!) You are going to throw that sliming overflowing monster into the freezer, cover it with a loose sheet of aluminium or saran wrap, and pray to all that is holy that it stops oozing at some point before your birthday. The end.
*If you were a goody two shoes and you assembled it properly, you still need to put the whole thing in the freezer. You just don’t have to scream while doing it.
*If you were a goody two shoes and you assembled it properly, you still need to put the whole thing in the freezer. You just don’t have to scream while doing it.
 Ta daaa! My epic cock-up turned out to be delicious, naturally; It was just a problem of construction. Those corners though, once they froze? Incredible. It turned into a cross between frosting and ice cream, obviously, since those two things melted together. It was amazing. At right, see my beautiful birthday flowers and my ‘Friends’ birthday card. A-nice! |
 |
