My Cake in a Box

I'm delivering my first custom cake order tomorrow afternoon and am beyond excited. I just finished packaging it all up and it looked so pretty that i had to share. The request was a bit different--the customer wanted a naked Italian rainbow cake. Yes, I said naked. Meaning three layers of cake plus filling, but sans ganache. I tried talking her into the chocolate as it really does make the cake, but she refused. I can only hope that she's planning to frost it herself.

It came out beautifully, though (for a naked cake). Round and with three beautiful layers in pastel pink, yellow, and green. Green on top for St. Paddy's of course. She said she didn't care about the colors or the shape so I took that as license to play around a bit. It smells incredible with a rich almond scent, and just looks moist and wonderful. I had to bat my parents away from the cakes when they came by for dinner tonight. I think my dad just wanted to curl up and take a nap in the almond goodness that is now my apartment.

I tucked it into a box wrapped with wax paper and nestled in a bed made out of my new gorgeous tissue paper. I am also including personal thank you or gift notes with my cake on this fantastic cream and chocolate brown Crane stationary I bought ages ago, but never quite got around to using.

Interested in getting your own cake in a box? Well, you know what to do!

(And yes, I apologize for using that tired old joke, but really. How could I possibly resist?!)

P.S. Why haven't you entered my contest to win your own box of little cakes yet? Get on it; only a few days left to get your entries in! And as a reminder, there are TWO ways to win. Either send in an entry or just post about the the contest on your blog and send me the link. It's easy and the prize is oh-so-worth it!

My First Week

My first week in business is officially complete and I could not be happier! I got eight orders in--five through the site plus three outside--and the results have all been wonderful. The first few orders were delivered yesterday and I'm shipping out a second batch on Monday. The Italian Rainbows have the been the crowd favorite, but I've also sold two orders of ginger financier madeleines and got my first local commission for a custom Italian Rainbow cake to be delivered on Monday afternoon.

Even more exciting (well, to me at least): my custom boxes and special tissue paper arrived this morning! They actually arrived at some point yesterday afternoon, but my super was holding them hostage while I was out spending way too much money at Club Monaco (latest store obsession). For the packaging, I picked out a beautiful, high-quality shoe box-style box covered in glossy white paper and two beautiful reams of waxed food-grade tissue in chocolate brown and hot pink.

The cookies will fit nicely nestled into the perfectly-sized box and it's sturdy enough to help keep them from getting crushed in transit. I'm toying with the idea of ribbons or some kind of bow situation. More about that later...

I also had a set of shop labels custom-made with my store name and website in pink, brown, and white lettering and damask from another fabulous Etsy seller. I am (impatiently) looking forward to receiving those on Monday so that I can include them with the next batch of orders. The designer sent me a proof last week and I'm delighted with the results. I think they'll look perfect with the boxes and tissue paper colors. See for yourself... Positively edible, right?!

Business cards courtesy of Moo.com are next on the agenda as are a few more marketing ideas. I've been telling everybody about the store and am looking forward to some promised orders for next week. Even my father, who (like me) is a Harry & David addict, decided to use my little shop to send some spring gifts to some of his bosses and colleagues over at 30 Rock. We're talking corporate bigwigs here, and if there is one thing that I've learned from growing up with a news anchor dad is that NY isn't Hollywood. TV people *love* to eat. So fingers crossed on that!

The treats are the most important part, of course. I'm still tweaking the menu selections, but have recently added my flourless tortes into the mix and am working out a Springtime version, just perfect for Easter, of my rainbow cookies made with lemon curd between the pastel-colored almond sponge layers and all topped off with rich white chocolate frosting. Yum! I'm offering special rush availability on these so that you can get them in time by Easter as long as you order by 6 PM on Tuesday so head on over to the store to get your order in now!

As a reminder, this is the LAST week to get your entries in to win a FREE batch of these incredible cookies, now available in my beautiful custom gift boxes. You can read the detailed rules here, but the short version is: send me your absolute favorite food scene from a novel, story, or poem, along with the reference and you'll be entered to win. Mention the contest on your blog, website, or MySpace/Facebook profile and you'll get extra chances. No purchase necessary; all I want is your yummy food scenes. E-mail me at alwaysorderdessert (at) gmail (dot) com with "Contest Submission" in the subject line.

As for what else I've been up to... Well, I've got some overdue recipes that I need to post. Look for them over the coming days. I'll be back-dating them to save room for new stuff, but will add the links here so you can find easily.

Rainbows for Sale (and a delightful little contest for you to enter!)

For about as long as I can remember, people have been telling me that I should stop giving my food away for free. By "people" I really mean my "father" who is perpetually trying to figure out ways for me to turn my various hobbies and projects into cash-generating enterprises (please see Exhibit A: "The Sexy Fiction Incident"). I usually would listen to his suggestions with a smile and a quickly forgotten promise to "think about it."

Now it's not that I have actual objections towards making money. Quite the contrary; I really like money--earned, found, gifted--it's really all quite lovely. The problem was that I never really approached any of these hobbies with quite the same mercenary eye as my dad. It may sound cliche, but I really do just love to write and cook and bake and blog and design websites and edit graduate school application essays. (OK, perhaps not so much the essays--will admissions season *ever* end?!) The thing is that these little hobbies actually start to add up after a while--software, drawing tablets, hosting fees, butter, cream, eggs, etc... Not to mention the time.

It all finally clicked a few weeks ago when I passed by a bakery not far from my office and saw in the window that they were selling rainbow cookies for $1.50 each. "What the heck!?" I thought to myself. They were rather generously portioned, but still I could not believe it. Just a month or so earlier I'd brought in a batch of 30 into my office for free. A batch that I'd made over the weekend and which my coworkers somehow managed to devour in minutes. I'd made them before and they're always a hit with coworkers, friends, and family. It's my most requested treat, and here I was giving it away when I could have been selling it for a buck and a half each.

So the wheels started turning and today I'm excited to announce that I'm going into the (virtual) bakery business. Come visit my brand new online bakeshop: http://alwaysorderdessert.etsy.com/.

I'm selling a small selection of cookies and cakes, all baked fresh to order and shipped priority across the contiguous United States (and parts of Canada). I'm starting small with Italian Rainbow cookies, Italian Rainbow cake, and my financier-madeleines, but hope to expand soon to include flourless tortes and a few other treats. I've already received my first orders and am giddy with excitement.

And because old habits die hard...

I'm giving away one final batch of Italian Rainbows to one lucky reader. (Shh...don't tell my dad!)

These moist little almond cakes are layered with organic raspberry and apricot preserves and topped with a yummy cap of bittersweet chocolate. I'm telling you, it's the perfect cookie and it could be yours.

Is your mouth watering yet? Here's the scoop. As you know, I love to read. I have an entire room in my apartment dedicated to my books ("the library"). How many New Yorkers do you know with a "library"? As a way of combining these two passions, I've been working on a little side project compiling a collections of wonderful food scenes in novels, stories, and creative nonfiction. There are the classics, of course (Proust and his Madeleines, the sexy rose petals in Like Water for Chocolate), but I want to find some new ones.

So, your mission, (should you choose to accept it): Send me a wonderful literary food scene that you've read and love. It can be as short as one great sentence describing the taste of tea or a ten-page soliloquy about ripe figs. The only requirements are that they are about food and that they come from a non-cookbook. Fiction is preferred, but great passages from food memoirs or other types of creative nonfiction are also OK. The classics are good, but those that are less obvious (perhaps even a bit obscure) will score slightly better (although it's really ultimately about how good it is).

I will select my five favorite passages (chosen both for originality and the quality of the passage) from all the entries and will post them on the blog for readers to vote. The entry that gets the most votes wins and I will send that person a beautifully packaged "Tea Party Box" of 24 decadent rainbow cookies.

But wait! There's more!

Since this is obviously meant to be a bit of self-promotion, I'm going to be awarding a SECOND batch of 24 to one randomly-selected entrant. You can double your chances to win in the random drawing by mentioning the contest (and my online shop) on your blog or website. Send me the link along with your entry and I will include your name twice in the final drawing.

So how does that sound? I can't even begin to explain how freaking excited I am about this!! (Yes. Freaking excited!)

The contest starts right now and I will be accepting submissions until midnight on Friday March 21st. The five finalists (as chosen by moi) will be posted on Monday the 24th and voting will continue until Sunday March 30th. The two winners will be announced on Monday the 31st and the prizes will ship out that week. Send your submissions to alwaysorderdessert (at) gmail (dot) com with the phrase "Contest Submission" in the subject line.

I can't wait to see your entries!

Oh! And if you can't wait to try my cookies (and how can you possibly wait? they're so damn good!) why not head on over to http://alwaysorderdessert.etsy.com/ and order yourself a batch.

All my blog readers get 10% off their entire first order just by mentioning one of my blog names in the buyer's notes section of your order. I take special custom order (birthdays, showers, parties, etc.) and for the New Yorkers in the bunch, save on shipping with my local delivery and pick-up options within Manhattan. Don't be limited by what you see on the site--I love getting creative! Just ask!

Rainbow Italiano

The sight of this cake rips my heart with joy. It's something I've been meaning to make for a while now. I based it on the Italian Rainbow cookie (sometimes also called the Venetian or the Tri-Color), which to me has always been the queen of the bakery store cookie assortment. Perched among the crumbly butter cookies like regal peacocks, these cookies put those pastel petit fours to shame with their bright colors and intense flavor.

It's an Italian American thing--a moist little cookie made from tiny dense layers of almond sponge sandwiched together with raspberry and apricot jams before being coated with a final layer of bittersweet chocolate. Growing up in North Jersey, these cookies were present at every single family or community function, from PTA meetings to birthday parties. I used to load up on them, grabbing them three and four at a time and tucking them into an open napkin when nobody was looking. Later, I'd find a quiet corner where I could devour them slowly and methodically, one sweet almond layer at a time.

There is something about the combination of bitter almonds and raspberry that has always delighted me. It's the taste of decadence: rich with intensity, and yet just a hint of something illicit. Bitter almonds are poisonous, after all... The flavor in this cake comes from a combination of almond extract (which in actuality is extracted not from almonds, but from that flavorful little nut hidden inside peach pits) and almond paste. Note that almond paste should not be confused with marzipan, which is different, but still makes an appearance in this cake (read on...).

This cake is a gigantic version of that childhood favorite. I was never satisfied with those tiny little cakes, and was always left wanting more. This cake is basically my way of saying, "you can have as much as you want!"

It was a fairly simple conversion to make. I only had to slightly modify the origianl recipe (which I've been making for a year now), by lightening and leavening the cake. I alternated these moist, fluffy layers, with jam and--for an extra bit of almond flavor--a thinned out layer of marzipan (I told you it would make an appearance). I knew the hard, bittersweet chocolate coating would be too harsh on a cake of this size, so I made a silky semi-sweet chocolate ganache using thick farmer's market cream and just a hint of almond extract. The colors come from food coloring, and are the traditional red and green layers of the original cookie (just one of the hundreds of edible Italian flag homages--Italians, it seems, like to eat their flag), with the marzipan serving as the "white."

I baked it in 9 inch rectangular pans and then cut and stacked to form an almost terrine-like brick. Over this carefully constructed structure, I poured the silky ganache (and how I wish I could have poured and photographed at the same time as there few things more beautiful than watching chocolate ooze over the sides of a pile of almond cakes). I left to cool on the countertop overnight, and then cut in half in the morning. I brought one half into work, where my coworkers devoured it with their morning coffee. I saved the second half for my dad, who stopped by after work tonight to pick it up. The station he work at is just over the bridge, about 10 minutes from my apartment, so when he finishes the evening newscast he regularly pops over to partake of that day's baking. (You didn't really think that I ate all of this stuff by myself, did you?)

I'll be posting the recipe for this shortly and would love to know what you think.

Oh! And if the pictures and description aren't enough to entice you to bake this, perhaps the knowledge that your apartment will smell like sweet almonds for the next several days will do the trick! I promise you...it's incredible!

UPDATE: This Italian Rainbow cake is now available for sale and delivery throughout the US at my Etsy shop!! I'm also selling (and shipping) traditional and seasonally colored Italian Rainbow Cookies. Click the icon for purchase details:

Italian Rainbow Cookie Cake

Ingredients
1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs, separated
8 oz almond paste. (1 can, please note that this is different than marzipan)
1 tube marzipan (Which is different than almond paste...)
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups of sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
red and green food coloring
1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam
1/4 cup apricot preserves
1 cup heavy cream
12 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped (or you can use chips in a pinch)

2 13×9x2 inch pans, buttered and floured

1. In electric mixer, blend almond paste, butter, sugar, yolks and extract until fluffy.

2. Sift together flour and baking powder, then slowly add to almond paste mix.

3. In another bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold meringue into paste mixture until fully combined (the mix will be a bit sticky).

4. Separate the mixture evenly into two bowls and dye each batch a different color.

5. Spread mixture evenly into the pans and bake each separately at 350 degrees for approximately 15 to 20 minutes. You’ll know they are ready once the edges start to brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.

6. While cooling, divide the marzipan in half and roll out two rectangle-shaped sheets on parchment or wax paper, approximately 8x6 inches each.

Assembling the cake:
1. Cut each sheet in half, so you have four evenly-sized cakes. (You can trim at the end so don’t worry if it’s not absolutely perfect.)

2. Start with a green cake and spread completely with raspberry jam. Feel free to spread as thinly or thickly as you like (I'm all in favor of thick!). Spread raspberry on green cake. Top with a layer of marzipan followed by a red cake. Top red cake with a layer of apricot followed by the second green cake. Top the green with another layer of raspberry and the second sheet of marzipan. Top with the final red cake.

3. Use a serrated knife to trim the edges of the entire cake and even out into a perfect rectangle. Brush off crumbs. (These extra bits are fantastic toasted with a bit of butter on a skillet or tossed into a bread pudding recipe. Or you can just eat them while watching television, like I did...)

4. Prepare the ganache by heating 1 cup of heavy cream in a small saucepan. Take care to not let it boil. Add the chocolate and stir continuously until melted completely. Remove from flame and mix in a dab of butter for a bit of extra shine. Continue stirring in concentric movements to cool. It will be ready when the chocolate is just slightly warmer than your lip. (Dab a bit on the inside of your lip—if it’s just slightly warmer then you’re good to go. If it burns, then I’m sorry... ;)

5.Pour this over the entire cake and let cool.