Fondant Covered Cheesecake??!

The next time a friend asks you to make her a wedding cheesecake, covered with rolled fondant, don't fret.  It can be done, and I'm going to tell you how I did it.  You have probably performed countless internet searches (I assume that's how you ended up here); received contradicting information (yes, you can cover a cheesecake in fondant; no you can't; don't refrigerate or freeze fondant; yes you can).  Well, in my experience, YES you can not only cover a cheesecake in fondant, you can also freeze it.

The problem with freezing or refrigerating fondant is once you remove it from the cold, water vapor in the air starts to condense on the surface (think of an ice cold beverage and the condensation that forms on the glass).  Since fondant is mostly sugar and other water-soluble ingredients, the condensation that forms starts to dissolve the fondant and creates that sticky surface you've read about.  Eventually, it will just start to disintegrate like this:

The picture above is of a cheesecake I froze, then thawed at room temperature for several hours.  The fondant did not begin disintegration until 1.5 to 2 hours later, but you can see what a mess it becomes.  The left side of the picture is where we cut into it to taste.

After this disaster (expected), I decided to test whether using a fan would help.  I covered a ramekin with fondant then put it in the refrigerator for 3 hours.  I removed the "cake" and just fanned it by hand.  This worked surprisingly well to keep the fondant dry.  I then put the "cake" into the freezer overnight, defrosted in the refrigerator for 4 hours, then put at room temperature in a brown paper shopping bag.  I aimed an electric fan at the "cake" (I put it in the bag so it would get air circulation on all sides) and let it warm to room temp over the course of 2 hours or so.  Voila!  The fondant was nice and dry; no disintegration.

My next debate was: am I really going to try this on my friend's wedding cake?  I wasn't that crazy, but almost.  Here's what I did.  Baked the 3 cheesecake layers.  Let them cool to room temp.  Spread a layer of swiss meringue buttercream to smooth out the rough spots and level the top and sides.  Note: occassionally put in the refrigerator to harden the buttercream; this will help you get a really smooth surface.  Roll out the fondant and cover the cakes.  Immediately put them in boxes and put in the freezer.  I kept them frozen for one week.  The reason I froze them is the drive to the wedding site was four hours long and involved curvy mountain roads.  I packed the cakes in a cooler with dry ice (~2-3 pounds?) and transported them to the wedding site the morning of the ceremony.  Once at the site, I removed half of the dry ice and we left to check-in to our hotel.  Just before the ceremony, I removed the remaining dry ice to allow the cakes to slowly warm up (as if in a refrigerator).  About 2.5 to 3 hours later, my fiance and I went in to assemble the final cake.  We removed the cakes, one at a time, from the cooler, and immediately placed them between two box fans running on high speed (you can just see the fans in the pictures below).  I could see the fondant glistening, but no actual droplets formed.  To my surprise, the fondant was actually drying out, enough to touch without feeling sticky.  We were able to bring it out to the reception tent and display it for an hour without problem.  The top layer was cut-able, and the middle layer was just barely still frozen inside (I did not get a chance to try the bottom layer).  I suspect the cake would have survived several hours following this procedure. 

 Assembled tiers.  Cake stand is on a turntable to make decoration easier.

 Cake topper on and adding flowers.

 Final product.

 Me and the final cake.

Safely delivered to the reception area.

Top Chef prices increased

Just noticed that iTunes is now charging $23.99 for the season. I wonder how high it will go. Seems like in most cases, the older a product is, the cheaper it gets. Not so with iTunes. I guess in the tv subscription case, it is like the drug model. Give a free sample to get them hooked, then charge exorbitant prices later.

Censored by Apple!

Since I still don't subscribe to cable, and I had a $15 iTunes gift certificate, I decided to finally try out the iTunes "Season Pass" subscription model for the latest season of Top Chef (Season 7). To my disappointment (and maybe I should have done more upfront research before buying), I found out that even as a paid subscriber, I do not gain same-day access to episodes. I, like everyone else, have to wait until the next day. Maybe it's not Apple's fault. Maybe it is entirely Bravo's fault. But either way, I'm upset. If I'm paying, shouldn't I get added benefits, relative to non-paying customers? I mean, that's how it works when you subscribe to cable. You pay (indirectly to Bravo) and you get it live, or DVR it and watch whenever you want. One might argue that I'm more valuable than a cable subscriber, since Apple has more personalized data on me than the cable company would.

I could subscribe to Comcast for $29.99/mth on a promotion (though when I look now, it is $39.99/mth) and get way more content. If I work the numbers on the Top Chef Season Pass, it is ~$20 for 16 episodes (based on Season 6). Assuming that is one episode a week, it'd be 4 months worth of programming, so $5 per month. I guess the question becomes, would I get 6X-8X more programming or value from a cable subscription? In my case, probably not, as I don't watch that much tv anymore.

So, why the title of my post? I tried to leave a review on the Top Chef Season 7 iTunes page, basically saying what I did above (but more emotional and more of a rant). So far, my review has not appeared. Granted, my review was more a critique of iTunes than of the show. And there is a disclaimer that the review is subject to editorial review by Apple. But hey, it's not like I was using profanity or saying anything inappropriate. In hindsight, after cooling down for 5 days and now writing this blog post, I realize that for my particular case, it is probably better to do the season pass. It's just hard to justify early in the season because I can watch for free (legally) on Hulu right now. I know later on, Bravo will stop offering free episodes and then I'd have to either resort to illegal downloads, paying (either cable subscription or iTunes), or waiting until the season comes out on DVD.

Just planted (and removed) my first tree

I finally got my free fruit tree from the Albany City Share; a bare root nectarine. They also had bing and ranier cherries as well as some peaches, but I didn't want to get greedy. So, I just grabbed a nectarine tree. I thought it might be harder to chop down the existing tree (both physically and emotionally), but with the time pressure of limited light, I just got to it and it was quite easy to do the entire process. Now I wait until Sept. Guess I should go test my soil soon, if I'm gonna.

Find more photos like this on Hyperlocavore - A free yard sharing community

Ant Control

Now that the weather has turned wet, the ants decided to invade the house. I thought I could try and live in peace with them, but soon they began their slow spread throughout the kitchen, sometimes congregating in seemingly bizarre places, only for me to discover a crumb. After hosting a dinner party, they invaded the living room, which finally prompted me to take action. For years, I've heard of using boric acid and sugar; I even tried it once when I lived in Oakland, but wasn't patient/consistent enough to perform adequate treatment. This time, I searched Google and found a site at the University of Rhode Island which says to use a 1% Boric Acid, 20% sugar solution. Working in a lab, I interpreted that as 1g of Boric Acid per 100mL of water, and 20g of sugar (sucrose) per 100 mL of water. If you want to do this at home, just follow the recipe given by the website. They say to soak cotton balls in the solution, cover slightly to prevent drying, and replenish the solution when needed. At work, the pest control company uses soda caps (like you find from 2-liter plastic bottles). I decided to try both; soda cap in the kitchen, cotton in the living room. I found the soda cap much easier; not only can you leave it uncovered, but you don't have to refill it as often. The cotton required more attention.

The treatment takes several days, during which you will have to endure a constant stream of ants, but

1. It's actually fascinating to watch them
2. They tend to figure out where the easy source of food is, so they leave the other areas and concentrate on the soda cap. So, if you are strategic, you can put the cap in an area that is out of sight if you don't find 1) above to be true.

I think within 3 days, the ants were gone from the kitchen. It's been like 5 days since I put the cotton in the living room, but there are still ants. I decided to replace the cotton with the soda cap and am already seeing progress. One thing that amazes me is that there are very few visible dead ants. Growing up, I'd noticed ants carrying dead ants, so I think they must carry the dead back to the nest; they are like the US military these days, not leaving the dead behind.

I've joined the Jeremy Lin bandwagon

Rich does a much better job, so go read his post:
http://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2009/12/15/1201646/bow-to-the-jeremy-lin-movement-b-o

Locker Room Report: O'Neil: Immigrant's dream plays

Locker Room Report: O'Neil: Immigrant's dream plays

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