How Martha got to be a Martha

How Martha got to be a Martha

2007

For two weeks I watched and listened as many Daring Bakers ranted, raved, pulled hair and waved whisks in the air. I was away from my kitchen in Seattle. I think it would be very safe to say my panic level rose to fairly screaming levels. You see, I’ve never made a crepe before and a crepe cake had never entered my consciousness ... until this month’s challenge was announced. I am only going to tell you how I made and interpreted the recipe which you can find HERE. The winning things I learned will be marked with Y. This month’s challenge was put out by our charming Daring Baker hostess Brilynn of Jumbo Empanada.

Chocolate crepes
This cake is a perfect example of why people scoff at Martha Stewart. This cake took at least 18 hours over three days of active hands on time and that’s if it works. That 18 hours does not include the disaster/throw away time, reading/study time or the shopping time. This cake defines what a “Martha” is for me. The cake while dramatic looking and even tasting good ... is silliness in a stack. Martha has always been known for fussiness and this is about the ultimate in fussy.

I loved this challenge.
The recipe for the crepes is awful. But I can now say I love crepes and I love making crepes. Since I’d not ever made a crepe in my life or my kitchen, I felt the place to start with the crepe cake recipe was a really good basic crepe recipe. Which I did. The recipe had the batter mixed and then refrigerated over night. Next morning, batter in skillet, tilting swirl to cover the bottom of the skillet and wham ... I had crepes. I made crepes for breakfast and lunch eight times last week. I made ‘em plain. I made ‘em buckwheat. I filled ‘em with smoked gruyere and smoked soy cheddar and blackberries with yogurt and caramelized onions and neutella and chocolate with peanut butter and even strawberries with hazelnut cream! Y. I can make a crepe now! And it’s safe to think I’ll be posting a basic favorite crepe recipe soon.

Hey this is easy... well, not the chocolate crepe recipe of Martha’s. The first time I made this batter, I followed it to the very carefully measured ingredient. Not my usual method of operation. When the directions said whip it, I whipped it in my KitchenAid. I refrigerated it. I had a batter that looked and felt like great mousse (tasted like flour). This batter was not going to “swirl” anywhere short of flinging my whisk above my head while I spun myself around like you see toddlers do. So, I did what any reasonable person/cook/chef would do, I added milk until I got what I thought was about the consistency of the regular crepe batter I’d done earlier. I got chocolate crepes, maybe a little thick but crepes - didn’t stick to the pan, didn’t tear to badly, and they flipped with charm. Phew ... I got 50 crepes. Yes, 50. But, because I was so panicky and timid and unsure of myself and the batter, I used a 7 inch skillet which does not a 10 inch crepe make. I just wasn’t being daring enough to use my 10 inch non stick All-Clad skillet. Using wax paper, I separated each crepe and stacked them in a covered casserole and refrigerated them. Additional notes on a second batter at the end of this post.

Hazelnut Filling
The directions call for whipping heavy cream and then refrigerating it for an hour. Easy.
In a metal bowl over simmering water, whisk 6 large egg whites and 1 2/3 cups sugar. Whisk until the sugar dissolves and the liquid registers 160° F. Takes 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and beat meringue into stiff (not dry) peaks, might take 5 minutes. Y. Folks this is the way I’ll be cooking and whipping my meringues from now on, this is genius. Think Spectacular Banana Pudding only with more luxurious peaks. The cooked meringue takes on a silky marshmallow quality that is divine!

One item listed for the hazelnut filling appeared innocently enough as “1/3 cup hazelnut cream (available from Whole Foods Market)”. Have you ever tried to find a product labeled “Hazelnut Cream” even at Whole Foods where the recipe suggested? Not to be found in Dallas Texas or Seattle Washington by me. Whole Foods told me they did carry something like that six months ago but no longer. One person told me to use almond paste if I couldn’t find hazelnut cream. Hazelnut coffee creamer just didn’t seem right to me, not enough flavor. My Sue Chef friend was visiting and googled “Hazelnut Cream recipe”. The most likely hit called for hazelnut syrup flavoring which I thought sounded very flavorful and possibly right for my purpose.

The other idea I had called for roasting, removing the brown skins and then blending hazelnuts smooth in some or all of the butter called for in the cake recipe. Y. Again, my trusty Sue Chef googled roasting the hazelnuts (10 minutes at 350°) allow to cool, place in a plastic fine mesh bag such as cherry tomatoes come in and rub over the sink to remove the brown skin. It works!

The next step in the filling is to drop room temperature soft pieces of 3 1/2 sticks butter into the meringue. The meringue will deflate slightly as the butter is added. Mix well after each addition. Then add in vanilla, hazelnut cream and salt mixing until it comes together taking about 3 to 5 minutes. The last step folds in the whipped cream. Use immediately. I didn’t have hazelnut cream. Why take two steps to add butter pieces and then the hazelnut cream? I blended the butter, vanilla, salt, 30 white hazelnuts and about 1/4 cup hazelnut flavoring syrup in my blender until smooth and added all the blended ingredients to the meringue, finally folding in the whip cream.
This filling is addictive! My tasters wanted more! More! MORE!

Stacking the cake
Always prepared, that’s my motto ... yeah, right. I needed a base to set the cake on and I was sure I had one. Ha!

And so we begin building the cake. This is where I started considering what others in the group had been worried about from the very beginning. Pisa. Yes, that one. I think sometimes this maybe one of my strengths - often times I don’t really think things through to their logical conclusions, BECAUSE YOU KNOW IF I DID I WOULD NEVER HAVE JOINED THE DARING BAKERS AND I SURE WOULD NEVER EVER HAVE TRIED THIS CARAPE CAKE. Oooops, excuse me. (Be nice now. Breath. Breath. Breath dammit. Panic will get you flat on your face ... BREATH).
Somebody in the group said that putting the filling in a pastry bag simplified everything ... OK, that’s what I did. This is really a fairly simple thing with four hands ...WHAT, you only have two hands. How terribly inadequate of you! Well, since Sue was here I let her unwrap and place the crepes on top of the stack while I squeezed the filling out and smoothed it with the spatula.
“OK, let’s stop at 20.”
“OK.”
Well, this gives new meaning to the term “stacked”. Yes, sir 32 high! Thirty-two crepes, thirty-two hazelnut fillings! Wahoo! What’s next?
Off with her head! No, no ... into the fridge with it.

Chocolate Glaze

You’re kidding. By now, we’re heavy into a great bottle of Bogel. No problem. I’ve never done this ganache thing but how hard can that be? It’s just cream, corn syrup, 1 salt (ahem what’s 1 salt? Things like that make me worry) and 10 oz semisweet chocolate.

Actually, this was pretty straightforward and came together with out a hitch.
The problem of course is how do you get this thick but still not super thick chocolate to stick to and cover the sides of this crazy cow patty, (drat, stop that) cake. The answer is very slowly dabbing it on with a full spoon. Well, you tell me what does it look like?

Yeah, we’re done! Well, no, we’re not done yet. I came so close to skipping this part. I mean I was way behind with my share of the wine!

Candied hazelnuts

This was maybe the most fun part of the entire cake! And yet another opportunity for Martha to be more Martha. A fancy cake must have decorations. Martha’s going simple here. Caramelize a cup of sugar with a quarter cup of water in a sauce pan. Skewer a bunch of hazelnuts, dip each one in the caramelized sugar and allow them to drip forming a string off the hazelnut.
Here’s the Martha: Place a cutting board along the edge of a countertop. This will provide the weight to hold the dripping skewered hazelnut. Place a baking sheet on the floor below the edge.
Now, here’s the Daring Baker Helene: Y. Where’s your dishwasher? Open the door. That’s the edge you let the nuts drip over. When you’re done, close the door for clean up! Duh Martha.

Now, we’re done!

I really wanted to make this cake look beautiful, I mean after hours of work, it should look beautiful. Into the fridge with it. In the day light surely I would get one of those arty gorgeous photos like I see on the glamor blogs.

Fool. Overnight in the fridge, the humidity dissolved the caramelized sugar strings which then dripped over and down the sides and as soon as it was 30 seconds into the warm mid-day it started to sweat like I had sweat working all those hours putting it together. Crying “Waaa my candy hair’s all melted!”

I chickened out here and divided the cake in half top to bottom; it just seemed like if I’d try to make a cut through all 32 layers it would have crashed. Even so it is rather dramatic when cut into, don’t you think? And it is very tasty!! Alright, it’s really super divine tasty but good gadfry, it took 18 hours over three days.

Based on how much trouble many of the rest of the group said they had with the batter when mixed by hand, I brazenly mixed up a second batch of batter. While I didn’t have a problem with sticking, I did have a problem with the fragility of the crepes when it came time to turn them. I tried about 15, lost half of those to collapse during flipping. Sheesh! I guess I had beginner’s luck.

The very best part of this cake, why it’s all those Daring Bakers, they know tricks and they know how to laugh! Check ‘em out on the left side bar.
Head up, shoulders back, breath, Breath dammit ... Yes I’m ready bring on the May Challenge.
Gulp, did I say that!

Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Now this is scary but then it’s good.

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