Fake Lady Hatt's Cake

I truly hate Thomas the Tank Engine and all his little friends.  Thomas is a moron who fails to listen, does something stupid, gets yelled at, listens, and forgets the lesson by the next installment.  Henry is whiny, Percy has an attitude, James is a snotty jerk, and Sir Topham Hatt is abusive at best.  Plus what the heck does it mean to be cross?  The three year old, however, loves Thomas and all the accouterments. I've stepped on every damn train Rev. Awdry could have ever dreamed of, and compliment ChaseKBH by calling him a Really Useful Engine. So of course for his third birthday, the Thomas obsessed child wanted Lady Hatt's Cake.  I search and searched to try and find a recipe or something that would give me a hint as to what constituted Lady Hatt's Cake.  The internet failed me, however, and I could not find a definitive recipe.   Moreover, ChaseKBH was not particularly able to articulate what on earth Lady Hatt Cake consisted of, but did babble a bit about strawberries and cream and butter and flour and Thomas getting it all wet.  It turns out that he was actually talking about the cake made for Alicia Boddy's tea, but whatever.       I told him it was Lady Hatt's Cake and he believed me.  Its one of the many things he will be in therapy for later.

We served the cake, along with chocolate cupcakes with blue icing, at Chase's third birthday party.  I'm not sure if every where is like this, but here you invite the entire preschool class and their parents.  It actually is nice to have the relationships with the other parents, but I'm far too lazy to throw a party at a party place.  Instead, I used my parents' backyard, served steak, chicken, corn, hot dogs, and Trader Joe's frozen naan, booze, and made the cakes.  Trust me, I love my kids and his friends, but the booze was necessary to deal with their screeching.  

 The adults loved the Lady Hatt Cake, and ChaseKBH was just happy he got what he (thought he) wanted.  It's a simple genoise layered with cream and strawberries. The genoise recipe is adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum, and really does require a stand mixer.  The below recipe makes about 24 parfaits.

Lady Hatt Cake for ChaseKBH

Ingredients:

3 lbs of strawberries, hulled and sliced

1/4 cup sugar

Juice of one lemon

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons of European-style butter (I used Kerrygold)

8 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup sugar

2 cups sifted cake flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 pints heavy (whipping) cream

1/4 cup sugar (increase to 1/2 cup if you like it sweet)

Method:

Prepare

- Preheat oven to 350F.

- Macerate strawberries in 1/4 cup sugar, lemon juice, and a little salt.  Let sit at least 45 minutes.

- Line 2 jelly roll pans with parchment paper, with substantial overhang.

Make the genoise

- Brown butter over low heat.  Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

- Whisk together eggs, vanilla, and sugar in the bowl of the stand mixer.

- Place the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.  Whisk, whisk, and whisk some more until the mixture has warmed and is increasing nicely in volume.  About 5-8 minutes.

-  Place bowl in stand mixer fitted with whipping whisk.  Whip the heck out of the egg mixture, until it is extremely voluminous, shiny, and just about to burst the bowl.

- Pour in butter and fold in gently.

- Sift together salt and flour.

- GENTLY fold in the flour/salt mixture.

- Pour the batter into prepared pans.

- Bake 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

- Remove from pans and let cool.

Prepare the filling

- Whip cream and 1/4 (or 1/2) cup sugar.

- Drain strawberries, reserve liquid.

- Boil 1 cup water.  Mix in 1 cup sugar and reserved strawberry liquid.  Cool.

Assemble the parfaits

- Prepare 24 little cups.  I used the simple clear cups you can buy at any grocery or party store.

- Cut one pan of genoise into pieces about the size of the bottom of the cup with a biscuit cutter.  Do the same with a biscuit cutter the size of the top of the cup.  Split rounds in half.

- Layer cake in the cup, use a pastry brush to brush on the syrup, then layer strawberries and cream, alternating, and topping with whipped cream.

- Smooth tops with a spatula.

- Keep refrigerated until serving.

Strawberry sorbet

How to make strawberry sorbet.

Ingredients:
A whole lotta strawberries.
Lemon juice to taste.
Sugar to taste.




Okay, really, it's that simple, but here's what I did this time.

Ingredients:

4 cups of strawberries, cleaned and hulled.
1 cup of sugar.
1/4 cup of lemon juice (the strawberries were very sweet).


Method:

Toss together ingredients.
Puree ingredients or toss into a blender and buzz until smooth. I use a stick blender to puree. Some may try and run the mixture through a food mill or sieve, but I don't get that.
Chill the mixture well, about 6 hours.
Freeze according to your ice cream maker's directions.

Eat!

Strawberry Ice Cream

Strawberry Ice Cream - with nods to the many recipes I've read over the years. This is darker than the usual pink strawberry ice cream.

Ingredients:
4 cups strawberries, measured then hulled and halved / quartered
1/4 cup white sugar
pinch of kosher salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
4 cups half-and-half (or 2 cups whole milk and 2 cups heavy cream!)
6 egg yolks
3/4 to 1 cup white sugar (to taste)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

Method:


Wash the strawberries, then hull.
Cut the strawberries into halves or quarters, depending on size.
Note, if you are using Maryland strawberries in season, you will likely need only halve the fruit.
Macerate strawberries in sugar, pinch of salt, and lemon juice.




Scald half and half
Whisk egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl, until they are well mixed, the mixture is light in color, and has increased in volume. Temper into hot half and half



Cook custard over medium to medium low until it coats back of spoon.








Meanwhile, reduce balsamic over medium heat about half (depends on your vinegar!) in big skillet
Increase heat of skillet to high, toss in strawberries, and let them bubble away!
Try not to swoon.
Now, here's the question - do you like chunks? I really prefer smooth ice creams to chunks, however, I have a strawberry loving human at home who adores chunks. So chunks it is. If you like it smooth, just puree the strawberry balsamic goodness and add to the custard base.

Strain the balsamic strawberry goodness into the custard. Push a bit. Set aside (and chill) the chunks of strawberry left.






Mix the custard base and the balsamic goodness together well.
Strain into another vessel. Unless you're a grand master, you will have some scrambled egg in there. If you never get scrambled egg, well, you're a better woman than I am.
Chill both parts 8 hours +
Prepare according to your ice cream maker's instructions.
Let harden in freezer. Don't let anyone lick the ice cream maker bowl - tongues will stick.

Strawberries!!

I love strawberries. Real strawberries. Tasty, yummy, wonderful strawberries. Not those red watery things that taste like nothing. Luckily, we went strawberry picking at Larriland Farm, and picked about 20 lbs. Of course, this was while my toe was still dislocated, so it wasn't exactly pleasant. However, strawberry season is too short to worry about things like pain.

We ate a bunch of strawberries out of hand, both plain and with sweetened whipped cream (I always add a bit of salt to it, something about the salt makes the sweet even better). I made an ordinary and not very good strawberry pie that was gelatined. But I made some extremely tasty (if I do say so myself) strawberry sorbet and strawberry ice cream. Posts to follow.