L’Opera Cake, or pain in my butt cake

Hi. This was the Opera Cake we were supposed to for the Month of May’s Daring Baker’s Challenge. Good lord was this thing tedious. And I don’t even get to eat it! The point of the challenge is to step outside your comfort zone and be ‘daring,’ get it smarty?

So for this I bought a candy thermometer($15), almond meal($12), parchment paper($5), and used an entire dozen of eggs($3). This cake took me two days to make and one extra day to assemble. Oh, and warning- this cake is NOT vegan. I didn’t even try to veganize this, although you can go here to see a pretty damn good version of one. If you wanna know the history of Opera Cake, I’m going to have to refer you to Cakespy, she’s fabulous and did a whole thing about it’s origins and all that. I’m too lazy to do any actual investigating. Sorry.

I know it’s supposed to have a lot of almond and espresso flavors so I stuck with that. The cake part is ground almonds, or almond meal. I halved the recipe, otherwise it makes an enormous cake, so it only used a quarter cup of flour. I soaked it with the sugar syrup mixed with Starbuck’s coffee liqueur. I made the chocolate mousse with bittersweet chocolate. I made the buttercream also with Starbuck’s coffee liqueur. I did my layering as such- cake, sugar syrup, buttercream, mousse, etc. On the top I glazed it with white chocolate ganache, then drew some fun little musical notes and finished with “L’Opera.” See what I mean? Tedious with a capital T.

It sure looks pretty, doesn’t it? I’m donating it to my friend’s cousin’s bridal shower and I’m not even sure if I want to put my card with it, just in case. I mean, at one point, I’m supposed to use that thermometer mentioned earlier in some boiling sugar and water to help make the buttercream (??) and it got a little crunchy. Oh well. Either they’re going to love it, or hate it.

So, today was supposed to be grilled veggie day, but with the rain and all, it turned into muffaletta day. A muffaletta is a traditional Italian meats and cheeses sandwich, but since I eat neither of those, I’m turning it into a grilled veggie sammie. At least that’s what Giada and Rachel always make theirs with. Oh, and some gross looking olive salad that I’m not a fan of. I use giardinara instead. So….I guess It’s not muffaletta day after all. Oh well.

I used my tabletop grill to make it, panini-style. There were asparagus, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, portabella mushrooms, and red and green peppers. And why doesWordpress always red-underline my Italian food words? I think it’s about time they updated their lexicon.

These were the kale chips i made to go with the sandwiches. How yummy! I got the idea from the Melisser at The Urban Housewife. Thanks woman! They were fab-o!

Here is my daughter with her new zebra pants from angry, young, and poor. Ironically these pants were damn near $60. Isn’t she adorable? And the shirt says “this girl can work it.” From me for Christmas. That’s right, I rule.

Oh, and just a quick note- if you want me to add you to my blogroll, fine. But how about a little common courtesy and putting me in yours? I had some requests for listings and when I went to check out the blogs, no reciprocity. What’s up with that? The people who are in my blogroll now, either have me in theirs, or they just have a rockin’ ass blog that needs to be seen whether or not they give a hoot about mine or not. Needless to say, I did some deleting.

Rock on and do it with a vengeance!!