Tonight, I hit a baking milestone.
Tonight, I took it to a whole new level.
For the first time ever (with ten hungry guests looking on), I served a cake that completely and utterly flopped. It was edible but unrecognizable.
As I flipped the “cake” on to the serving platter, it made this ghastly slurping, jello-like sound and landed with a splat in 3 pieces on the plate. Stunned, I did what any quick thinking hostess would do, I started to pat the thing together (in mud pie fashion) and slapped whip cream on it. “Full-speed ahead, this is not a drill, I will not be defeated”, I thought….and I wasn’t.
As my Easter cake sat in the fridge waiting for its debut, I started to worry. The cake was sinking, almost melting and I didn’t want it to spill over the edge of the platter. At least the “cake” looked festive. So what if we had to scoop and serve it with a spoon
The whole thing was ridiculous. I followed the recipe exactly. Just because I started baking at 10:00pm the night before (while dead tired) was no reason for this mishap. What was the problem?
Well folks, it looks like the problem was gelatin. Specifically, my lack of experience using clear gelatin. I also found out that my Mom doesn’t follow the recipe exactly when she makes this fabulous dessert. Sigh…now she tells me.
The moral of this story is, “it is better to have baked and flopped then to not have baked at all”.
Note: I’m happy to report that:
- Everyone ate the cake and called it “pudding”
- I will be getting the revised recipe from my Mom tomorrow (and will post)
- I will be making the cake again shortly and will post my results
- I laughed my way through this whole incident; without the aid of beer or wine (hurray for me!)
Happy Easter Everyone, check out the bunny carnage below….yikes!
