Dec 11 2008
Well that was an adventure
So I needed to make a dessert for a group function tomorrow night. A while ago, I had decided on making a white cake with a cranberry filling and a white chocolate buttercream frosting with some sugared cranberries for decoration. Great easy peasy.
I’m not really in the mood to bake but I need to get it done so I get my cranberry filling made and chilling in the fridge while I make dinner and afterwards I break everything out for the cake. Now this is a basic sponge cake recipe that I have made many times. I noticed that the batter looked a bit thick when I poured it into the pans but didn’t really think anything of it.
Little did I know. The cake was an absolute mess! It didn’t turn out at all. It was overflowing the pans, not set in the middle but burning on the sides and bottom. What the Hell?? The temp on the oven is correct. I double checked the recipe and I didn’t miss any steps or ingredients. I have no absolute clue to what went wrong.
But now what do I do? It’s almost 10 pm now. I could do another cake except my unsalted butter is frozen. And I would really like to get to bed sometime soon. So I decide to take stock of what I got. Well I have a cranberry sauce (which was going to be my cake filling), I have chocolates and pecans (but those are for Yule basket projects), I have whipping cream and various other baking basics and I have one deep dish pie shell unbaked. Hmmm…….
I get the pie shell and prepare it for baking. I add a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg and a dash more sugar to the cranberries. In my trusty kitchenaid I place a cup of heavy whipping cream with a tsp of vanilla and 2 tblsp of sugar and whip on high until it’s nice and stiff. I fold the whipped cream with the cranberries and set it in the fridge to thicken while the pie shell bakes and cools down.
After about an hour the pie shell has cooled down enough. I put the cranberry cream mixture into the pie shell and decorate the top with some of those sugared cranberries. And presto dessert!
The filling tastes pretty damn good if I say so myself. My only concern is that it may not set thick enough. But if it’s that way in the morning I’ll stick it in the freezer while I’m at work and it should be fine.
But only me…I’m glad I was able to figure something yummy out for dessert but I really want to know what happened with cake. Maybe I didn’t whip the egg whites enough or that the baking soda had lost it’s zip. Maybe it was just one of those days.
