Servet came over and I cooked the picanha via sous vide, then torched the outside fat side to perfection with my NEW toy, S.A.F.E flamethrower. I have been trolling Kickstarter, and have found many interesting projects to invest in, the ROTOQ, this torch, etc. The torch acronym stands for Sears All Foods Equally. It is a beauty, and does a much better job than the other torch I have been using.
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| Perfectly rare |
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| Beautifully torched exterior |
We rounded out the meal with grilled asparagus, baked potatoes, and this lovely layer cake that I made.
I bought this little layer pan kit from Michael's and decided I had to try it out last night. I am not an accomplished baker, so every time I make something, I learn where I made my mistakes! I have always thought that bakers were too fussy, trimming edges, brushing crumbs, evening layers, etc.....well, I learned the hard way that these "idiosyncrasies" a valuable tools of the trade. The layers I baked had domed a bit, so with a serrated knife, I trimmed the tops down, but did not trim the edges. One choice for the filling between the layers was a poor one. I had 2 jars of toppings, one salted caramel, the other a chocolate salted caramel. The plain salted caramel was a poor choice. It tended to spill over the edge, and threatened to allow the layers to slide. The other sauce, was like concrete, it held the layers together like glue. The next learning bit was in icing the cake. Because I did not trim enough of the dome off, there were large gaps between layer edges which had to be filled with frosting, chocolate buttercream from Nigella Lawson. Here is where the second issue with the salted caramel came into play, because it was running down the side of the cake, the frosting was not adhering to it. So I had to constantly back fill the holes and hope that I had enough frosting to cover the top and sides! Live and learn! The cake was a little 6 inches in diameter and 5 layers tall. A cute cake, and I hope I can master it going forward.
