We Americans have always been wasteful. We throw away what we consider to be superfluous items, such as food, cardboard, paper, water, I could keep going. We care so little we even throw it when and where ever we are, when we tire of it. It is this wastefulness that has sparked this new green movement. The green movement has slowly but surely changed everything in our everyday lives. But I find that in the food industry, it is taking longer and no more so than in baking.
As a pastry chef and a cake decorator, I put together layers of cakes with the help of cardboard circles. The circles are used to store the cakes, then these are thrown away and the cake is placed on another cake round. It then is decorated and then sometime put on another cake circle. How many are used are usually determined by how skillful and experienced the decorator is.
I watch in horror as myself and my co-workers throw these cardboard circles away. In my head, I see big giant barrels of money being thrown into a deep dark pit.
It is the same for the people who take the cakes home. What are they supposed to do with cardboard? So it gets thrown away, why would they save it?
I have been coming up with my own at home experiments on creating…now brace yourself; edible cake circles. While I am still at the early stages of my experiments, I feel I am onto something big.
For those of use who can not wait and must start going green; here is a viable substitute:
Make flavored Japonaise. Japonaise is a hazelnut meringue and is of French origin and it usually used in layers to make a cake of its own. The recipe is as follows:
Japonaise:
1 cup egg whites
2 cups sugar
1 cup ground hazelnuts
1 tsp (any flavor extract) opt.
Whip egg whites and flavoring to soft peaks. Fold in sugar and hazelnuts. Pipe the mixture onto parchment paper to form 2 10-inch disks and bake in a preheated 250°F oven for 30 minutes or until dry.
Yields: 2- 10” circles
The beauty is now all the cake is edible and the cake boards are any size YOU want them to be.
Experiment and enjoy!