He ran off to look for the Macrina Bakery Cookbook, that he thoughtfully bought for me a few weeks ago. He didn't pick carrot cake, red velvet, or even coconut. He choose the most complicated specialty cake in the book, something called The White Chocolate Whisper Cake. Three pages of fine print directions; two columns of ingredients.
Just reading the recipe made me tired. The cake is an egg white batter (always tricky) and in this case, mixed with melted, tempered white chocolate. The cake (if it doesn't come out flat as a pancake) is sliced evenly (ha!) brushed with lemon syrup and layered with whipped cream, fresh raspberry filling, white chocolate cream cheese frosting (1 pound of cream cheese, please) and lemon curd (made completely from scratch.) Then topped with "a few perfect berries" and shaved white chocolate.
Some of the fussy steps involved the Bain marie, a kitchen tool I don't own, or care to ever own. And of course, professional cake decorating gadgets required, along with the skills to use them.
Really, I'd never seen a better recipe for an expensive flop in the home kitchen. Just thinking about shopping for the ingredients, the stressful day of kitchen work, the big mess afterwards-- only to wind up with something that looks like it came from high school Home Ec class! This is why the good Lord in his wisdom created professional pastry chefs.
There's a first time for everything, and now I can say I actually paid $48 for a single cake. I picked up the phone and placed an order at Macrina Bakery for their White Chocolate Whisper Cake, and it was waiting on Saturday morning, just like magic.
How was it? Incredibly rich, dense and fattening. Happy Father's Day, John.
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