Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Craig-Oreo Cake



My roommates think I’m nuts.

I stay up way past my bedtime, on school nights, when I’m exhausted and irritable, dreaming or creating recipes.

My parent’s think I’m a visionary.

I stay up way past my bedtime, on school nights, when I’m exhausted and irritable, and most of the time hungry to carefully craft the anecdotes that go with my recipes.

The woman who read my palm thinks I should take care of myself.

I stay up way past my bedtime, on school nights, when I’m exhausted and irritable, hungry, and battling a migraine/allergies/chest pain because I like to bake for others and would rather stress myself out to bring someone a heavenly bite.

I am fully aware that all these statements are partially true, but not entirely.

I just think I’m a perfectionist. I may be creative, but my methods are type A. I like devising plans, using exact measurements; I even take the time to sift. (And lets face it; my patience is tested time and time again when it comes to sifting…)

My roommates also think that out of my staff of 15, they were all born two weeks apart because I seem to be making them birthday cakes every other week. You could be fooled to think this, but the dates and ages of my staff make that presumption highly unlikely and 100% impossible. There are a couple clusters around the same time, so there will be a month or two here and there of baking frenzy.

What I’ve learned while baking for my wonderful staff is that they’re all different. They want different things and have different ideas as to the perfect birthday dessert. Some of them have specific ideas; others let me use my imagination. And while I may be up past my bedtime, on a school night, exhausted, irritable, hungry, and in some sort of physical pain, I truly enjoy baking for them. They are happy to be the guinea pigs and try some of the crazy concoctions that come out of Pegleg Penny’s Test Kitchen. At the end of the day they deserve a special treat. They work hard, have fun, and the reality is, they make my life a lot easier. If I didn’t have such a strong team I would probably be in a zoned out state where bad elevator music plays on repeat. (Although, I’m sure they would be happy to send me to that state sometimes.)

They’re a good bunch and I’ve learned that the best motivator and the best way I can show my appreciation is through their stomachs.

And so we come to Craig...

This is what our pre-cake interview sounded like (in my head):
Me: Craig, what kind of cake do you want for your birthday?
Craig: That’s really tough. Let me think about it.
(Insert 2-day pause.)
Me: So Craig, did you think about your cake? What do you want or like or do you have any requirements?
Craig: Well, I want the cake to trump all birthday cakes. I want – ice cream, chocolate, Snickers, 3 Musketeers, coffee, bananas, ginger ale, peanut butter, applesauce, Oreos, something with mint. I want it to have all my favorite things. I also want it to look like the Coliseum.
Me: (Insert jaw drop, look of disbelief, and portray a rather sick, but challenged feeling. I felt I had met my match – that was it – my baking days were over.) There’s no way I can do that.
Craig: You can do anything. You’re Princess Amazing! (I'm not joking - sometimes he calls me Princess Amazing and it's like this animated, mocking, 1985 face he puts on and it's hilarious and awesome...)
Me: Craig – that’s too many things. First of all, we don’t have a freezer so ice cream is automatically out and it’s just too much. Pick one crazy topping or flavor and I’ll see what I can do.
Craig: Can I pick two?
Me: One.
(Insert an additional daylong pause.)
Me: Have you decided on my secret ingredient?
Craig: Oreos. I love Oreos. They’re my favorite cookies.

If you've ever met Craig you know that he likes facts. It's not as important if they're true or false, just so there's some sort of research/validation behind the statement. So I had to do some serious research on the Oreo cookie.



My "research" definition has changed drastically since my college years. For this I relied solely on Wikipedia (the most trusted “news source” on the internet):
• Oreos are the most popular cookie of the 20th century.
• It is also the best selling cookie in China, where they started a ‘dunk campaign’ to introduce the pairing of Oreos and milk.
• The Oreo Wafer Stick was created to bolster sales in China, making it easier to transport in the varying climates throughout the country.
• Weird Al Yankovic and Lonnie Mack have both created songs revolving around Oreos.
• The original Oreo recipe used pork fat to create the filling; now a mix of vegetable oils is used. (Bacon is everywhere!)

This information, while fascinating, did not help me figure out what to make for Craig’s cake. I looked up a ton of different recipes and they seemed a little too basic – crush up Oreos in your frosting, use Oreos as a piecrust with Cool Whip and Oreos. I also found these ideas to be kind of boring. After all, I had made Craig dumb down his list of cake desires! I couldn’t just show up with some chocolate pudding with Oreo crumbs. So I searched and searched. I wanted to find the perfect mixture of sweet, but not too sweet. I really wanted to make it taste like a real Oreo. I took a little bit of this idea and put it in that idea and melded and molded until I came out with the perfect Oreo-tastic idea.

So here you have it –

The Craig-Oreo Cake (Originally it was called Craig's Birthday Oreo Cake, but he dubbed the cake himself. If only he had been wearing a cape at the time, it would have been an amazing sight)

For the entire recipe you will need:
1 – bag of Regular Oreo Sandwich Cookies
1 – box of Oreo Stix
Chocolate Oreo Cake Layers (Adapted from Gourmet’s Double Chocolate Layer Cake, March 1999)
Ingredients:
2 oz – Semi Sweet Chocolate (I used Baker’s), chopped
1 cup – hot brewed coffee (I used the House blend from the Viennese coffee shop down the street)
2 cups – sugar
1 2/3 cups – all purpose flour
1 cup – unsweetened cocoa powder (I used mostly regular cocoa powder, but I ran out so I used about 2 TBSP of special dark cocoa powder)
1 + ¼ tsp – baking soda
½ tsp – baking powder
½ tsp – kosher salt
2 – eggs
½ cup – vegetable oil
1 cup – buttermilk
½ tsp – vanilla extract
22 – Oreos, twisted in half

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.









Use 2 – 9” round pans. Coat them with cooking spray, line the bottoms with parchment paper, and coat them with cooking spray again.
Place cookie halves, cream side up, in the bottom of the pan. I covered the entire bottom of the cake pan with the cookies, breaking them to fit into the crannies.
Combine the chopped chocolate with the cup of hot coffee. Let it stand until it cools. Stir it occasionally until smooth.
In a large bowl, sift the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.
In the bowl of your mixer beat the eggs until they’re slightly thick and lemon colored. Slowly add the oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and the chocolate/coffee mixture, until combined. Add the sugar/flour mixture and beat until combined.
Divide the batter into the two pans. Bake 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool the cakes, in the pans, completely before moving on to the filling and frosting.

Oreo Cream Middle Layer (Adapted from the Chocolate Oreo Cookie Cake Recipe on Kraft’s website)
Ingredients:
½ cup – sugar
8 oz – cream cheese
2 cups – Cool Whip (I caved, I know, I’m sorry) – 2 cups is about an 8 oz tub
12 – Oreos, crushed

Directions:
Beat the sugar and cream cheese until smooth. Fold in the cool whip and crushed Oreos.









Dark Chocolate Frosting (Adapted from marthastewart.com)
Ingredients:
¼ cup + ½ TBSP – dark cocoa powder
¼ cup + ½ TBSP – boiling water
2 ¼ sticks – unsalted butter, room temperature
1/8 cup – powdered sugar
1/8 tsp – kosher salt
¾ lbs – semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled (I used chocolate chips)

Directions:
Mix the cocoa with the boiling water. Stir until smooth and the cocoa is dissolved.
Using a mixer beat the butter, sugar, and salt until pale and soft peaks have formed. Add the melted semisweet chocolate and beat until combined. Beat in the cocoa/water mixture until combined. (The frosting is very shiny.)



Assembly:












Once the cake layers have cooled completely. Use a knife around the edges to remove them from the pan. Place one cake layer face down on the serving platter. Scoop, spread and distribute the entire Oreo Cream layer over the top of the bottom layer of cake. Carefully place the second layer of cake on top of the cream layer. Apply a little pressure to the top layer to make sure the cakes are sandwiched together evenly. Frost the entire cake, even the sides, with the dark chocolate frosting. Use the remaining Oreo cookies and Oreo Stixs to decorate the exterior of the cake.

Wrap Up:
Unfortunately, this posting does not end in tears of joy. However, Craig LOVED his cake. The addition of the Oreo Stix kind of gave the idea of the Coliseum, so even the craziest of requests were satisfied. I’m not a huge Oreo fan, but I enjoyed this cake. I thought the dark chocolate frosting was a little too dark and would have preferred a milk chocolate frosting. However, Craig really liked the dark chocolate frosting and thought it was perfect.
The cake had a little crunch to it, the filling was a good consistency, and the frosting tied it all together. The one true flaw was that I didn’t bring a gallon of milk as a side dish to the cake. The Craig-Oreo Coliseum Cake took one day to build and two days to be completely devoured, but the lesson Craig learned in editing and how much I value him as an employee will live on for at least a couple of weeks.
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