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Saturday, July 16, 2011

How To A Salvage A Recipe Gone Wrong

Husband's birthday is today and I made him his favorite cake for his birthday yesterday.
I haven't put a recipe up on the blog in a while, so I thought I would share this one.

The cake is not really complicated, but has a number of steps.
During the course of making the cake, someone came to the door and when I returned to the cake after about 25 min.  I guess I got confused, because I ended up leaving out a major ingredient to this cake.

If you want to see how son2 and I recovered this major mistake read on.....

Decadent Chocolate Cake from The Silver Palate Cookbook

1 cup boiling water
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 stick sweet butter
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups less 2 tablespoons unbleached, all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
chocolate frosting (see recipe below)


 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a spring form pan
 Pour boiling water over chocolate & butter; let stand until melted. 

 Stir in vanilla and sugar, then whisk in egg yolks one at a time, blending well after each addition


 Mix baking soda and sour cream and whisk into chocolate mixture

Sift flour and baking powder together and add to batter, mixing thoroughly.

Critical error here!!!
  Never added the flour and baking powder

 Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.  Stir a quarter of the egg whites thoroughly into the batter.  Scoop remaining egg whites on top of the batter and gently fold together

 Pour batter into a prepared pan.
  Set on middle rack and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the edges have pulled away from sides.

Cool in pan for 10 minutes: unmold and cool completely before frosting

This is what is looked like when I took it out of oven.
I just couldn't figure out why it was so pudding like.
Then it totally hit me!!!
I never put in the flour.

Keep reading to find out how we salvaged this mess.

Icing
 2 tablespoons sweet butter
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
6 Tablespoons heavy cream
1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon Frangelica

 Place all ingredients in a heavy saucepan over low heat and whisk until smooth.  Cool slightly and spread while still warm.

I took the "cake" out of the oven and let it cool. 
 Then we tasted it and it was delicious. 
 No way we were going to throw this out!! 
 I released it from spring form pan and dumped into a big glass bowl. 
 Then I threw some ice cream on top of that and spread the icing over top of  that.

Viola!!!  A new and exciting dessert.
  A birthday cake that husband will never forget!!
Have you ever turned a recipe into a complete mess and been able to salvage it?
What was it and how did you save it from disaster?

2 comments:

Jenn said...

send that cake over here anytime!!!!! 

Ginger said...

I'm getting a sugar buzz just looking at that cake!

A clever solution.