Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The "From Scratch" Fiasco...

Okay, maybe not a "fiasco" exactly, but it sounded better that way.


I have a plan this year to make the "grownup" cakes from different recipes instead of my usual out-of-the-box routine. So I figured I ought to lose my From Scratch cherry sometime before the outcome was really important.

My mom got me the Cake Bible this winter, which is a great place to start. All the recipes are sorted and well described and include conversions in all the recipes. I picked the Chocolate Fudge Cake for two reasons- 1, it's chocolate fudge!, and 2, I had all the ingredients on hand.

The beginning went smoothly enough, at least until I turned on the mixer :( Adding the cocoa mixture and butter to the dry ingredients instantly turned into this dry, gummy mess. Not discouraged though, I soldiered on and began adding the egg mixture a little at a time and it seemed to smarten up and start acting like batter.

Then after I got it in the carefully prepared pans- the recipe says it should take 20-30 minutes...HA! more like 40-50! I was getting nervous as the tops puffed up an started to split and yet the insides were still goo... Finally the toothpick came out clean and I yarded those puppies out. After that, they took AGES to cool.

I got impatient and decided to "level" one. It was still a little warm and the bit I sawed off the top was moist and delicious at that moment. But I didn't have enough stuff to make frosting, and I'd be damned if I sullied my first "real" cake with canned frosting! So I wrapped my babies up for the next day, and then something happened...


Sometime in the night, all of the flavor and moisture got up and abandoned my poor cake. 


Yes, it pains me to say, that this cake is right on the verge of... YUCKY. There. I said it. Yucky. It is dry, it is bland, it's flavor is... meh. Just meh. Now don't get  me wrong, I don't blame the recipe at all- I must have done something wrong! Maybe next time I will try to measure by weight instead of volume, and use cake flour instead of regular flour, and better cocoa... I don't know, but this won't be the last of my From Scratch adventures I'm sure!

2 comments:

Turtlegirl said...

Do you what the best part about a dry crumbling cake is? You get to try chocolate sauce with icecream with it. Both add the moisture back and it gets delightfully gooey and back to YUM! Spoken by a true kitchen disaster expert! Note the burn on right hand from the last one...lol

Anna said...

thats too bad, it looks really tasty though!