TheBanyanTree: Another Story From My Kitchen

[Pam Lawley]

I like to bake.  I like to bake new and different - sort of difficult -
recipes.  Big, juicy cakes with lots of ingredients... not really
"complicated", but not super-easy.  Okay, sometimes those
'throw-all-the-dry-ingredients-in-and-add-the-wet-stuff-and-mix' recipes are
kind of effective too!  But I like surfing the net and looking for new
recipes.  I've built myself a binder of those recipes I've printed out, and
sometimes I flip through and see one and think, 'oh, that was GOOD!  I
should make it again!' - and then I go find a new one!

A couple of weeks ago I made a big cake for a co-workers wedding rehearsal
dinner, and I put a mousse filling in between the layers.  I hear the cake
was tasty, but I wondered about that mousse sitting out for a couple of
days.  So when I was making another big cake for a
non-co-worker-but-my-son's-girlfriend's-father-who-also-works-for-the-government
(who'd requested it for his 'Employee Appreciation Luncheon), I went surfing
for another filling recipe.  And I found this:
http://www.oprah.com/food/Three-Layer-Chocolate-Cake-with-Blackout-Filling

I thought the filling sounded perfect, so I printed out the whole recipe!

The filling had to be cooked and then allowed to cool, and then
refrigerated.  But I found that when I went to actually spread it that it
was pretty darned hardened.  Hmmm...  not a problem - I just nuked it for a
few seconds and it softened up just enough to work great!  Because I was
spreading it between two 14" layers, I'd doubled the recipe and I had just
enough!  (And I hear that cake was pretty tasty too!)

Meanwhile, a wonderful friend had sent me a cookbook by this chick:
http://www.bakerella.com  and I'd tried my hand at making her cake balls.
 Bakerella suggested just making a boxed cake and using canned frosting.  I
really, really detest canned frosting!!  While I HAVE been known to use a
boxed cake mix occasionally when I was going to spend time decorating a
cake, the frosting from a can just does not deserve to be called frosting in
my very humble opinion.  But I bought a can to make the balls.

They turned out pretty good, though my decorating artisticness is NOTHING
close to hers!  But they were fun, and it was a first try, and I got to play
with colored candy melts and sprinkles!

And then I had a brainstorm!  I could try the balls again, but instead of
the cake I'd make up a batch of that chocolate filling that hardened so
well, roll that into balls, and then do the decorating, etc...  They'd
actually be more like candy - and I'd even use real chocolate instead of the
colored melts!!  Or, I could use some of the leftover-from-the-first-time
melts to decorate with!  I had big plans!!  So I made a QUADRUPLE batch of
the filling so I'd have plenty!!

Not surprisingly, with so many great plans, when I made it the second time
it didn't harden up quite so nicely!!  Obviously something with the heat in
cooking.  Or something.

Okay, not a problem!  I'd make up a chocolate boxed mix real quick, and then
I'd use the filling in place of the canned frosting!  Which I did, and it
worked out okay though I really don't think that it tasted all that
different from the first batch with (e-gads!!) canned frosting!  I probably
could have added more filling, but I didn't want it to be too mushy, which
is something Bakerella's book warned about.  And I surfed the web to find
out how best to make chocolate candy coating.  Actually Hershey's website
told me how - but I think I shouldn't have listened.  As it turned out, and
I figured this out talking to another co-worker (hey!  the government hires
a LOT of people!), I should have added just a bit of paraffin to keep it
hardened so it wouldn't melt when I touched it!  Because I was trying to be
all creative and artsy - but as soon as I went near the coating it melted!
 Bummer.

But again, not a problem.  I figured to just treat them like a 'truffle',
and that I should run to Michael's to get some of those cute little paper
'cups' to hold each piece.  And then it dawned on me (I LOVE it when that
happens!) - probably I could save myself the trip and just use the some of
the STACKS of mini-cupcake papers I have!!  Viola!  (I always think of sash
when I type that word though that has nothing to do with my story!)  I have
developed something of a cupcake baking cups fetish and I have HUNDREDS in
my cabinet - for 'regular' cupcakes, and for minis!  Purple paisley ones,
purple shiny ones, purple polka-dotted ones...  Turns out they worked just
perfectly, and my Tupperware container looked like a very pretty box of
candies!!

As it turns out though, I hardly used any of the quadrupled batch of
filling!  What to do, what to do... I finally figured it out - I'd make the
whole cake from the recipe!!  yeah!  It did look pretty darned tasty and
all...  Since I already had the filling ready to go, yesterday I made the
frosting so it could refrigerate overnight, and this afternoon I planned to
come home from work and make the cake.  It's become a habit with me - Monday
nights I'm usually baking something.

I had to run by the grocery store first though.  I'd perused the recipe and
I knew it called for brown sugar and sour cream, and I didn't have either.
 I usually have about a bag's worth of brown sugar in the cabinet, but I
remembered that it was running precariously low so I bought two more bags.
 It wasn't until I was measuring it out that I realized it called for DARK
brown sugar!  Ack!!  Three cups of it, and all I had was light.  So, I
googled the difference, and everything pretty much said it didn't make a
difference in the outcome, that it might just taste a little different.
 Then, when I realized that I didn't have any 'regular' cocoa, just dark
chocolate, I decided that it would work out even on the flavor!

I was trying to be organized and neat, so I was laying everything out and
measuring and sifting before I started.  I'd greased and papered the pans so
they were ready.  The recipe called for a cup and half of hot water, so I'd
measured it in a glass cup and set it in the microwave to be ready to heat
when I needed it.  Most all recipes call for eggs to be added one at a time,
but this called for first mixing the eggs with the vanilla and then adding
it in two parts.  That was ready to go.  I had cocoa and cake flour sifted
and sitting on pieces of waxed paper.  When everything was in its place, I
preheated the oven and got started.

The recipe had printed out in two pages - one listed all the ingredients,
the other had the directions.  And I had to go back and forth with each part
of the directions.  I was being VERY careful and conscientious and
re-reading everything to ensure I didn't screw anything up.  (HA!)  That's
how I found out that it was NOT calling for a teaspoon of baking soda but a
TABLESPOON!  I was pretty darned proud of myself for catching that!!   Even
though I had my "old lady glasses" on, I was still basically only working
with one eye so I was being really careful!!

The batter mixed up thick and fluffy and dark!  Yum!  I evenly spooned it
into the prepared pans and put them into the oven!  This is the first time
I've actually used three layer pans in my new oven and all three fit!  Yay!!
 I set the timer and cleaned up the kitchen.  The recipe said 30-33 minutes,
until the cake pulled away from the sides of the pan.  At 30 minutes I used
a toothpick to check - just in case.  I thought three more minutes would be
fine.  While it looked like the cakes were indeed pulling away from the
pans, it didn't really look like the layers had risen very much.  All three
looked a little flat in fact.  And, after I'd removed them to cool, well
those babies looked downright sunken!!  With my husband and son's girlfriend
(her name is Katie) looking on, I told them both that I had followed the
directions EXACTLY and that they must have been supposed to look like that
because *I* had done everything right!!!

When I'd put the cakes into the oven, I'd removed the frosting and filling
from the fridge so they could soften up a bit to room temperature.  By the
time the cakes had cooled, the filling was perfect and I slathered it on
rather thickly - trying to fill in the sunken parts!  But when I went to
frost the whole thing, the frosting was still a bit hard.  No worries!  I
knew what to do about that - just a few seconds in the microwave would be
perfect!

Please try and imagine my chagrin when I opened the microwave to do just
that, and found THE MEASURING CUP WITH A CUP AND HALF OF WATER sitting
there!!!!!  I'd already put the recipe in my binder, but I dug it back out
to read it again!!  Sure enough... right there at the end... "slowly add the
hot water"....  WAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had ruined my cake.  It's ruined!!  It's bad!!  This is huge!!!  There was
no adjusting anything at that point!!!  The cake was done and cooled and
sunken and filled.  Without that water it was probably going to be pretty
darned dry!!!!!!!!!!  Should I toss it?!?!  I had a LOT of money tied up in
chocolate and the rest of the ingredients in the dumb thing!!!
 WAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!  (Sorry, I keep going back and forth on my tenses
here...)

I tried to think of something worse than ruining this cake.  Okay, so
actually that was pretty easy.  Probably this Bell's Palsy causing me to be
one-eyed was worse than a ruined cake.  And I'd been telling myself that
even that wasn't so bad - it could have been a stroke!  And hell, if we're
going there, that probably wouldn't have been as bad as some of those
tornadoes that killed hundreds!  Or even the one ten miles down that road
that flattened houses!  What's a sunken cake in comparison?!?!?!?!?!??!

Well, it's probably not much in comparison, but, in the quiet of my kitchen,
it was pretty darned sad.  I really didn't know what to do with that cup of
water in my hand.   I have had occasion to take batter back OUT of the pans
and put it back into the mixer to add something I'd forgotten, but I was
long past that now.

Finally, with no better ideas, I covered the whole mess in frosting.  It's
sitting in the fridge as we speak.  It LOOKS delicious and juicy!!!!!  Maybe
I can just use it as a decoration..... Or a big hockey puck.


Pam