You give the explanation, twofold! Twofold, you ask? Here you go:

(1) I don’t like fruity cakes. Period. Applecake? Urgh. Cherries in my cake? No way Jose! Pies? Not for me, thanks. I take the raw fruit and the shortcake, separate, please. The only exception I had in the last many years was the upside down plum cake, but I think that was mainly because the fruit was so good. I like citrus taste in my cakes, but that’s as much fruit as they’ll get.

(2) I had some orange / almond chocolate in the fridge that had been heated and was not really fit for straight-out-of-the-fridge consumption anymore. So I used that for about 1/3rd of the chocolate in the layers. It gave the layers a wonderful orange flavor, and the little bits of almond gave it just a smidge of a crunch, enough that I decided that my next featherbed will have a few roasted sliced almonds in it, just enough for texture.

I also used 70% chocolate, which probably means it’s less sweet and more chocolaty.

That being said perhaps I should try Le Success again, I didn’t like it the last time, but if I use the orange chocolate instead of the lemon tea perhaps that’ll be better.

LOL. I am imagining the Feather Bed with 70% chocolate and the ganache. I don’t think I’ll be able to eat it, it would be too rich! I do enjoy dark chocolate but I can only have a small piece or two, and then I’m done and I don’t crave it again for weeks.

For Le Success, how about trying it with coffee? That’s what I used and it was really good!

Oh, it was wonderful! That being said, I cut it in 20 pieces, and the pieces were very well sized. I’ve made it before where I didn’t read the recipe well and didn’t realize I needed the batter twice before I shopped, so I ended up with too few eggs. I just made a third of the recipe, and we had it with 8 people I believe?!? It was just the right amount after a big meal, just something to give you that nice chocolate shock….

I had some leftover raspberry ganache in the freezer, so I used it in my attempt to make macarons

They look perfect!  How do you like Rose’s raspberry ganache?

Beautiful macaroons! The picture is lovely as well.

Those look delectable and as light as a feather!!!  Really perfectly pillowy!!

Julie: I can only guess that it’s wonderful because I only had semisweet and white chocolate on hand when I made it.  So it was a little sweet for my taste.  I’ll definitely do a do-over!

Jenn: A friend who’s just taken up photography took the picture for me =)

Anne: Thanks!

aC3 - 23 September 2010 08:53 AM

I had some leftover raspberry ganache in the freezer, so I used it in my attempt to make macarons

So cute and perfect looking!

Here are a couple of chocolate entries:

The first is the bittersweet cocoa-almond genoise from the Cake Bible, topped with swirls of light whipped ganache.  As you can see, I’m still hooked on my medium deep tart pan.  I also baked, from RHC, the chocolate layer cake with caramel ganache in this presentation, except that I piped flower petals instead of swirls.  (sorry, no pic)

The caramel ganache cake was amazing- after reading some of the RHC bake along comments that it wasn’t caramel-y enough, I syruped the cake with a caramelized sugar syrup.  I would describe the taste as a deep chocolate with a mysterious caramel undertone, sort of like the chocolate fudge cake from the Cake Bible (only caramel instead of molasses).  And I loved, loved, loved the ganache, easy to pipe and delicious. I think I’m going to use it as the dark ganache on the outside of my buche de noel this year.  For me, it was a perfectly balanced, not too sweet ganache.

The second photo is Rose’s brioche loaf from the Bread Bible, with a swirl of her kuglehopf chocolate-almond filling.  I topped it with untoasted almonds (they toast while baking) and coarse turbinado sugar.  One of my favorite brioche recipes.

Everyone’s entries for the September bake-off look wonderful!  I hope I will be able to post my entry before tomorrow.  This stupid thing called work keeps getting in the way of my baking time.    It has been a very busy month for me at work…not to mention being sick for over a week didn’t help.  Oh well, I have till midnight. 

Great job on all these delectable treats!!

Liza, you can still post a little late, I’ve done it…

Or, you can also post seperately, either way is fine, we just want to see what you’re baking

Julie, those are beautiful, beautiful goodies.  I love the dark almonds—they look so prehistoric!  And the swirls look like fossils with those textured sides!  I just love it!!  That’s some beautiful chocolate work!!!  It’s almost like color that’s been sort of sepia-ed, but darker, you know?  Really nice.