November's edition of the ROY G BIV* challenge fell on my daughter's birthday this year, so here are a few photos of what was happening in the kitchen yesterday... Lots of chocolate, as I went about preparing her cake, which fits perfect with this month's theme of "brown." After the success of the ice cream cake that my daughter concocted for my birthday last month (inspired by the sublime mint "After Eight" gelato at our favorite local gelateria), I knew I would have to create a gelato-based variation for her special day too.
While I never could bring myself to order a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks when we were in the US this past summer (the only "sweetening" I like in my coffee is milk), the concept is pretty fascinating to us——we are used to a very different coffee culture here. (In Italy, a "latte" means a glass of milk, and jargon that is normale in coffee shops across the US doesn't exist.) My daughter did enjoy the Caramel Macchiato she tried over the summer though——and she loves the caffè-flavored gelato from the gelateria of the "After Eight" fame, so I decided to use it as the starting point for what turned out to be the tallest cake ever made in our kitchen!
I made a sketch of the "anatomy" of the cake to make sure I had everything straight as I assembled it...
The cake was also drizzled with caramel sauce...
Between all of the birthday preparations & festivities yesterday, I didn't have much time for photos, but here are a few more of the 500 grams (!) of chocolate used for the ganache frosting...
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| admiring... |
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| melting... |
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| whisking... |
So, today is all about transforming the chaos of the studio (lots of studio-made gifts) into some kind of work-able order again...and eating leftover cake!! Wish I could share...
*
The ROY G BIV photo challenge was first begun by artists
Jennifer Coyne Qudeen & Julie Booth. Each month is devoted
to a different color of the rainbow, though at the moment we
are deviating from the actual ROY colors. All are welcome to
join in the search. To conclude this year's edition, next
month's color is blogger's choice! Please visit their blogs
for links to other participants. Guidelines are here.
Jennifer Coyne Qudeen & Julie Booth. Each month is devoted
to a different color of the rainbow, though at the moment we
are deviating from the actual ROY colors. All are welcome to
join in the search. To conclude this year's edition, next
month's color is blogger's choice! Please visit their blogs
for links to other participants. Guidelines are here.
