My favorite dish to get at a restaurant is seared tuna, especially served with a ponzu sauce or some sort of Asian inspired sauce. In college, I loved this one seared tuna dish at the Lost Dog Café. It was a sandwich called the Voodoo Ahi Tuna. Instead of a ponzu sauce, it was seared tuna with garlic mayo. Add some sweet potato fries and you got an amazing dish. Looking for something a tad healthier, I decided to make a grilled seared tuna steak for dinner for myself and my favorite sous chef. The verdict – We will definitely keep this dish in our dinner rotation. Also, it is a fast meal to make for a weeknight meal. This comes in especially handy as work has started up again.
Grilled Seared Tuna Steak
A Polka Dot Chef Original
2 Tuna Steaks
1 cup Marinade – I used Teriyaki with Garlic Sauce
3 cloves of garlic sliced
2 cups Sesame Seeds
Place marinade in gallon sized freezer bag along with the 3 cloves of garlic. Put tuna steaks in bag and place in refrigerator for 20 minutes. Place sesame seeds on a plate. Coat tuna steaks in sesame seeds. Heat grill pan. When hot, place tuna on grill pan, cooking about 4-5 minutes per side to be seared rare. Sidebar – I like my tuna rare. Cook your tuna steak longer if you would like it more done. Served in this picture with sautéed spinach and zucchini.
After taking the first course in July, I couldn’t wait to sign up for the next course. This course focused on royal icing and how to make various flowers such as the Wilton Rose, Apple Blossom, Primrose, Rosebud, Daffodil, and Violet. In addition, we learned various borders such as the reverse shell. I looked most forward to learning the Basketweave in the last class. As each week passed, we learned more and more. Preparation for this class was a tad easier, as we did not have to make a cake each week, only the last week. Here is my final cake.
While it may seem plain, look inside for the surprise.
Wait for it…
….
SURPRISE! It’s a Tye Dye Cake!! For those of you that know me in real life, I love polka dots and tye dye. So without further ado, here is the recipe.
Tye Dye Cake with Vanilla Buttercream
Cake adapted from Omnomicion
Makes two 9 inch cakes.
White cake mix or your favorite white cake recipe
Food Gels
Butter and flour the cake pans. Using a white box mix, prepare the batter. Before you fill the cake, divide the cake into five equal portions. Color each portion a different color using color gels. I used the following colors: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.
Obviously, I used a carvel container. For those you, who don’t know what carvel is. It is an ice cream place within the New York area. A couple months ago they were in the news as Dina Lohan, Lindsay Lohan’s mother tried to use her unlimited card. Instead it got taken away. But I digress …back to the cake.
When you pour a color into the pan, drop the batter into the middle of the pan. Do this to each color until you used all the colors. This process will be done twice, one for each pan. The final result will look like this.
Bake as per the directions on the box. After it has cooled, level the cakes to make layers. Fill and frost with vanilla buttercream.
Vanilla Buttercream
Slightly adapted from Megan’s Perfect Buttercream
2 sticks butter, softened
5 cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons milk
1.5 tablespoons vanilla extract
Dump everything into a large bowl. Beat slowly at first until everything starts to come together. If you go too fast you will get powdered sugar all over your counter. After all of the loose powder is mixed, place the mixer up to 10. Let whip for approximately 5 minutes, until frosting is light and fluffy.
This cake tasted yummy. Just as a precaution, the buttercream may be too sweet for some. Add sugar by the cup starting with 2-3 cups. Taste in-between until you have found the proper consistency.
YUM!
As far the cake decorating classes, there is one more class, Fondant and Gum Paste, however, I have to wait until next summer as the school year started up again.
This summer I decided that it was time to learn how to decorate a cake, especially if I keep on making them. I figured that it would give me a new ways to make a cake interesting. This four week course taught me how to make zig zags, write, and the ribbon rose in buttercream. The first week we decorated sugar cookies with the star tip.
The next week we had to bring in our first layer cake. We learned how to transfer designs and decorate it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that much time to make a cake from scratch, so I made a two layer chocolate cake from mix, with cookies and cream pudding in the middle. My frosting was the Wilton Buttercream. Personally, I’m not a fan of it. To me, it just leaves a coating in your mouth as most Crisco-based frostings do. As you can see, I chose to put a cupcake on my cake. Here’s a picture – be nice, it was my first cake.
The next week was cupcakes. I made vanilla cupcakes from the book Hello Cupcake! As Zach Morris says, “Time Out,” this book gives you amazing ideas on how to decorate cupcakes. “Time In” - This vanilla cupcake recipe, however, I felt was too dense to eat. My favorite sous chef decided that it was much better when cold. In the class, we learned how to make various flowers to decorate our cupcakes. My favorite flower was the yellow shaggy mums.
The last week we made the final cake. We learned how to make the ribbon rose. This was my favorite flower for the week. This cake was my favorite cake to make (and all from scratch). It was chocolate cake with a vanilla filling along with a chocolate frosting.
This cake went by the pool in my backyard very quick. My sister’s friends came over for sun and sangria. Let’s just say this cake was devoured by the end of the day. Now onto this amazing recipe.
This recipe for chocolate cake is definitely my go-to chocolate cake. Believe it or not, it is actually from the back of the Hershey’s Unsweetened Cocoa powder box.
Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
Directions:
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely.
After the cake cools, cut off tops to form layers. Insert the Vanilla filling.
Vanilla Cream Filling
From Group Recipies
3 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 scraped vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
Whisk together the flour and milk and cook in a small saucepan over medium heat until thick. This will only take a few minutes. Sir continuously to prevent the mixture from clumping and do not bring all the way to a boil. When thickened (consistency will be that of a thin pudding or custard), strain with a mesh strainer into a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool completely to room temperature. When the milk mixture is cool, cream the butter (or shortening) and sugar together in a medium bowl until light. Add in the milk/flour mixture and the scraped vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla extract) and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 7 minutes, until light and fluffy
Lastly, frost the cake with the Chocolate Buttercream. This recipe is also from Group Recipes.
Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat, with an electric mixer, until frosting is creamy, 3-5 minutes. Add additional powdered sugar as needed to achieve a thick, but not stiff, frosting that is easy to spread. Add additional milk, if necessary, to thin the frosting if it gets too thick.
Overall, I think this class is a great class to learn how to decorate cakes. I learned a lot of skills, even if they still need work. Personally, I loved this class so much in July that I signed up for the Flowers and Cake Design Wilton Method Course for August. Review coming soon.
.JPG)
.JPG)
Posts
