aquafaba swans 🦢
Hello!
I'm still on a swan kick over here, and super happy about these aquafaba guys. These are with Decorated Living ’s template again — I was going to try their 3D swan decorations but got lazy. Still, I’m happy with the depth!
I used the aquafaba meringue in Lyndsay Sung’s Plantcakes — this book is a bible to me! The one change I make from Sung’s recipe is that I reduce a few cups of frozen aquafaba to closer to a third of the original volume instead of half. I just keep cooking it until it seems in danger of there not being enough left, or I get bored. At that point, I continue with the recipe, adding the sugar relative to the volume of reduced aquafaba (if making the batch as written, I'm looking for 1 cup reduced aquafaba) and letting it chill into a gel overnight before whipping. This method is pretty foolproof for me for getting a meringue that will whip to stiff peaks, which isn't always the case with egg meringue for me — I wasn't able to get the Decorated Living meringue to stiff peaks last time, but was still able to pipe it softly.
I'm also thrilled that the baked aquafaba meringue lasts awhile — I made these swans a week before using them. In my experience, non-baked aquafaba meringue starts losing its shape fairly quickly, and feels like a lot of work for something really ephemeral. (Stefani Pollack says it deflates after 20 minutes at room temp, and that sounds about right to me.) Although I'm reading now that Sonja Goeden solves this with xanthan gum — excited to try!
I was going to use these swans on Natasha Pickowicz’s black sesame, cream cheese and pineapple layer cake from More Than Cake, but that recipe was kind of a fail for me. I made a lot of modifications, and will have to try it again as written before saying much. My preliminary thought is that while I am crazy about black sesame and cream cheese separately, I’m not totally crazy about them combined. I love this toasted tahini swiss buttercream from Pickowicz, and plan on making it with black sesame paste next time (I've been enjoying the Dipasa one from Berkeley Bowl).
When that didn't work out, I looked for a pudding lake for my swans, and went with Hetty Lui McKinnon’s vegan pandan banana chocolate chip pudding. For the pudding. I substituted 1/2 teaspoon pandan powder and a bit of green food coloring for the pandan essence, and used vanilla wafers instead of chocolate chip cookies (the only vanilla wafers I could find at Berkeley Bowl were gluten-free and not vegan, so I used those). This was a really fun and easy recipe, and I love the custard. I used Cocojune vanilla unsweetened Greek-style for the yogurt, and I think the unsweetened yogurt pushed the assembled pudding into slightly less sweet than I like. Will definitely try it again with sweetened.
There will be more swan practice soon — on Friday, February 13th, I'm bringing a cake to the gothic-themed free wedding event at the Gilroy Public Library! I’m planning to do a grey-toned black sesame version of the Natasha Pickowicz toasted sesame and citrus wedding cake. This will be my third time using this recipe for a wedding — as you all know, I despise NYT Cooking and am also automatically suspicious of cool NYC pastry chefs, so when I say this is my current favorite cake recipe, I really mean it!
events
For those in the Bay, Astranda Bakery is having a cinnamon roll fundraiser for Immigrant Defense Network at Omnivore Books on 1/31. On 2/8, Bakes Not Bombs is holding a benefit for Modern Times Cafe, which is providing free meals in Minneapolis.
listening
thanks so much for reading!