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An Embarassment of Riches?

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Chevette Girl said:
Yeah, no kidding... We had very good mostly local food for our wedding, we never could have afforded something like your proposed spread! :) (of course, not being coastal, seafood really doesn't fall under "local"). At least our cake was cool (a gingerbread castle, complete with landscaping, our D&D miniatures, a dragon, a catapult loaded with allspice berries, and a cauldron for boiling oil, and if we'd remembered to pack some corn syrup, it even would have worked).
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You've GOT to post a photo of that. :)
 
wildoates said:
You've GOT to post a photo of that. :)
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LOL, they're on facebook but not in a public folder, I'll move one over to the public folder now...

Edit: good grief, Facebook is slow tonight!


Aah, there we go. Doesn't have to be in a public folder after all I guess.
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Thanks, the lady who made it has one of her latest creations featured on a couple of blogs and I think the food network... She's going big-time now! :)

I tried making my own castle prototype cake one year for my birthday (yes I make my own cakes, it's the only way to be sure I don't end up with a crappy grocery-store cake made up entirely of hydrogenated fats and sugar), I made two square ones, used one for the base, cut a square out of the middle, put the remaining ring on top of the base, and cut the square I'd removed into 4 pieces and stacked them on as towers... put black food colouring in the chocolate icing, decorated it with chocolate pebbles... Had to use bamboo skewers to keep it together (I camoflaged them by putting flags on them) because I didn't square off the tops of any of the cakes so there was a bit of gravity involved, but hey, it was still tasty and it looked pretty nifty.
 
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Sounds great. My wife makes her cakes herself two. From scratch. She loves using my home made vanilla extract and wont use anything store bought again. Do you make your own extract? I highly recomend it.

Recently a friend made chocolate fondue while campling. Putting a touch of ameretto into it. It tasted good but I think that I am going to convince her to use my orange extract next time. It was a good quality semi-sweet chocolate. Sigh, I really wish that I had the patients and energy and tools to make my own chocolate too but alas too much investment. I found a great process off of Chocolatealchemy.com and wow I didn't know that making chocolate was so involved.

But I have a friend that has a birthday coming up that is a bit of a science geek. I wanted to make a cake into the shape of a pi symbol. For some Cake Pi or would that be Pi cake. Ok, I like puns.

Brewing has lead me to some interesting directions in cooking and in helping out my wife's baking. She once brought just a plain yellow cake made with my vanilla to work and had to hide it to get the cake to make it to the start of the potluck. The vanilla scent was so strong and good. And she doesn't use much in her recpie. It really made a differnece.

Matrix
 
I found a brand of extract I like that's not too horribly expensive, and vanilla beans are generally too frigging expensive up here to do it myself, although I do always have some sitting in a mickey of white rum (which is also not cheap here).
 
Chevette Girl said:
I found a brand of extract I like that's not too horribly expensive, and vanilla beans are generally too frigging expensive up here to do it myself, although I do always have some sitting in a mickey of white rum (which is also not cheap here).
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Hmm, odd. I didn't know that rum was not cheap there. I can usually find very inexpensive rum for inexpensive here. As far as the beans, I ordered them on Amazon.com in bulk for inexpensive. Like $25 for 1/2 pound of burbon. Which is about 54 beans. Ofcourse, I am not sure what the shipping and the like is to Canada.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...s&rh=i:aps,k:bulk+grade+b+vanilla+beans&ajr=0

And the recipie I use, is 1 cup to 6 beans, where you can use the beans twice. Rum, vodka, or any other alcohol over 30% and under 45% would work but for neutrality of flavor, I prefer rum.

Is it illegal to home distil in Canada like it is in the US? perhapse that could be a solution.

But if you are happy with the vanilla you use, eh, maybe it is best not to change it.

Matrix
 
Chevette Girl said:
LOL, they're on facebook but not in a public folder, I'll move one over to the public folder now...

Edit: good grief, Facebook is slow tonight!


Aah, there we go. Doesn't have to be in a public folder after all I guess.
22577_104888182868958_6960592_n.jpg
.
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I know this is an old thread, but I just have to say. Epic castle cake!!!!! Bravo!
 
Matrix4b said:
Hmm, odd. I didn't know that rum was not cheap there. I can usually find very inexpensive rum for inexpensive here. As far as the beans, I ordered them on Amazon.com in bulk for inexpensive. Like $25 for 1/2 pound of burbon. Which is about 54 beans. Ofcourse, I am not sure what the shipping and the like is to Canada.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_n...s&rh=i:aps,k:bulk+grade+b+vanilla+beans&ajr=0

And the recipie I use, is 1 cup to 6 beans, where you can use the beans twice. Rum, vodka, or any other alcohol over 30% and under 45% would work but for neutrality of flavor, I prefer rum.

Is it illegal to home distil in Canada like it is in the US? perhapse that could be a solution.

But if you are happy with the vanilla you use, eh, maybe it is best not to change it.
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Just realized I never answered this, in my province, alcohol's controlled by the province and far as I know they set the prices and tax it to their heart's content and you can't just get beer at the corner store, you have to go to licensed establishments like The Beer Store, the LCBO or there are a few small wine stores. And about the cheapest mickey of anything that I can get is about $13 these days. I like vodka for making fruit liqueurs but I'm good with rum for my vanilla, but the stuff I buy is better than the stuff I've made so far, vanilla beans are also cost-prohibitive unless I buy online.

And though freeze-concentration at home is not illegal, I think operating a still is, although apparently the rules are pretty ambiguous and it could be argued for personal use... but I'm not getting into that... apparently the only place it's truly legal to do your own distilling is in New Zealand :)

And about the cake, my friend who made it can be found on facebook, I'll post a link when I find it (I hate facebook, I really do)...
 
Chevette Girl said:
And though freeze-concentration at home is not illegal, I think operating a still is, although apparently the rules are pretty ambiguous and it could be argued for personal use... but I'm not getting into that... apparently the only place it's truly legal to do your own distilling is in New Zealand :)

And about the cake, my friend who made it can be found on facebook, I'll post a link when I find it (I hate facebook, I really do)...
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Hmm, wow. Alcohol is even MORE regulated than in US. I thought that we in the US were just being silly on it. I wonder why distilling is so harshly regulated. From what I read it's even a very simple process that given the equipment can be done safely. But alas, I can't do it here in the USA.

I haven't done any freeze concentration either. I'll admit that I am curious a bit. I have some foul watermellon mead that I was thinking may be improved by distiling of some sort. My friend that enjoys my mead wants me to make him bourbon. So Not Happening, mostly due to the law. Also, I am not that much of a drinker. I like brewing mead and drinking some but overall, I usually only have 2-3 12oz bottles at a party and never on my own.

Matrix
 
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