At my party in January, I received as a gift, a cookbook Luscious Creamy Desserts by Lori Longbotham http://www.lorilongbotham.com/creamy.html I love cookbooks with pretty pictures that explore techniques I find mysterious. This one shows how to make caramels...something I have been wanting to try.
I was so happy to receive this lovely book that I jokingly mentioned..."Looks like I can do dessert next time." And now, it's me. I get to make a picture perfect dessert by tomorrow.
I don't really like cake. I like chewy. I like chocolaty. I like wet and creamy. I really don't like the over sweetness of buttercream frosting either...so I have never really tried to do cakes well. A box mix is good enough for something I don't really care for.
Sunday night I decided to treat the kids to a practice cake. As much as I hate it...I read and reread the instructions, the tutorials, had my ingredients ready and got going.
Here's a picture of what it should look like.
The recipe resembles an angel food cake. 6 eggs beaten for 10 or so minutes, only 1/4 c and 2 tbs. of sugar, and 1 1/4c. of super sifted flour....yes, I sifted.
The flour and a stick of butter are just folded into the fluffy egg mixture.
I mixed the flour in too much and killed the bubbles in my batter, so the cake was dense and crumbly, Sundays cake was a dismal failure.
I overmixed the whipped cream frosting, so it was buttery...and, I thought cream would be a good addition to the caramel sauce, but the mixture was so hot that the cream scalded when I added it to the uber hot syrup mixture.
My son was a good sport and had a piece, but most of it went to the compost pile...where some fox or raccoon will surely be happy to find it.
Happily I did learn something here I made Caramel Sauce. I ran my supposed mistake through a strainer and strained out most of the cream (It just kind'a globbed together) The syrup is actually syrupy....and tastes like caramel!
Last night I tried again.
I was careful to mix as little as possible to save my cake bubbles. The batter filled the pans better and made a nicer looking cake, but still not good as i want it. The finished cakes still crumbly, and the ones in the pictured in the book aren't, so I must be doing something wrong. The recipe for the caramel sauce made enough for a year of cake drizzle, so it was nice to use that again, and I minded my Kitchen Aid better this time and whipped the cream topping to (almost) perfection.
My cake, 2nd try.
I will make one again for the party. Hopefully it won't come out crumbly. If it comes out well, I will let you know.
