The past few days have been a little hectic around these parts. New York hosted its first Super Bowl. And Hallmark Channel hosted its first annual KITTEN BOWL, which was done in association with our nearby North Shore Animal League, the world's largest no-kill animal rescue and adoption organization.
If you missed the Kitten Bowl, click here
to see some fun highlights.
Sunday was also
Groundhog Day...
to see some fun highlights.
Sunday was also
Groundhog Day...
Of course, Monday sure did look like winter.
We had a heck of a snowstorm...
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Yes, that's a GREEN cab you see in my photo above. No worries. New York still has its traditional Yellow Cabs. But recently the city approved these green cabs. They're called "Boro Cabs" and are licensed to pick up fares in New York's surrounding boroughs, including Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. |
On Sunday, I also celebrated my birthday. Don't ask which one—suffice it to
say there were lots of candles!
As for my recipe today, I am taking a day off from contributing one myself and focusing instead on telling you about the delicious birthday cake that was baked for me by Red Ribbon Bake Shop, a Filipino bakery here in Woodside, Queens.
There are not many Red Ribbon shops in the USA, but if you’re lucky enough to live near one, I highly recommend their cakes, which are wonderfully light and never overly sweet. The cakes themselves are chiffon (this is traditional in their cuisine) and the frosting is usually whipped cream based.
This is the approach they took with their Black Forest Cake. If you'd like to reproduce it, here are the basics...
Red Ribbon's
Black Forest (Style) Cake
Black Forest (Style) Cake
The Red Ribbon cake is made up of 3 chocolate chiffon layers. The chiffon cake is a hybrid of the sponge and the genoise. This cake is very light and quite common in Filipino and South-East Asian cuisine. Learn more about chiffon cakes here.
Brush the layers liberally with liqueur. To pump up the volume, you can even soak the layers in a shallow bath of liqueur. Traditionally, one would use Kirsch (cherry brandy) but light rum can be used instead (or other liqueurs).
Use a whipped cream frosting and after you layer it on, scatter sliced up maraschino cherries between the layers. Decorate the middle of the top with a pile of bittersweet chocolate curls and place more maraschino cherries around the edges. Lightly press more chocolate curls around the outsides.
I hope to create my own version of this cake in the future. Until then, as I've often said, the eyes eat first, and I am happy to share a piece of my birthday cake with you that way…
Eat (and read) with joy!
~ Cleo Coyle
New York Times bestselling author of
The Coffeehouse Mysteries
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Yes, this is me, Cleo (aka Alice).
Friend me on facebook here.
Follow me on twitter here.
Visit my online coffeehouse here.
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The Coffeehouse Mysteries are bestselling
works of amateur sleuth fiction set in a landmark
Greenwich Village coffeehouse, and each of the
13 titles includes the added bonus of recipes.
* * *
Haunted Bookshop
Free Title Checklist,
Free Title Checklist,
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