(no subject)
I can, on occasion, be a teeny bit cynical and sarcastic. This cynicism and sarcasm is largely dedicated to stupid rules and mindless procedure at work and other such silliness, but (always the egalitarian) I make sure that I myself don't miss out on the love. I fear that too much of this makes me the 'boy who cried wolf' (or 'the girl who cried "I'm a retard"'). This very fact was pointed out to me by a coworker last week. And it's a fair statement. But seriously, I cooked a disaster. I know you won't believe me, so I have photos to prove it.
Okay, so it's not a disaster. It tastes all right -- albeit a bit bland. But the difference between the concept and the execution is stunning.
Food is supposed to look as good as it tastes. This . . . does not.
So I had this image in my mind:
They were going to be these little mini-cakes, no more than 2 or 3 inches diameter. Obvs I would need a strong cake to withstand the circular cookie cutter thingy, so I chose a pound cake recipe. I've never made a pound cake before. Mistake 1.
Pound cake has cream cheese in it. Yummo!* Cream cheese in cakes tends to form a crunchy, though delicious, crust. Mistake 2.
I came up with this idea myself. Mistake 3, 4 and 5.
This is what I ended up with:
(Yes, that's a VCR in the background.)
So what went wrong? Where do I begin!?!?
1. The stupid pound cake rose in the middle, despite what the recipe told me. I don't know why I ignore my own intuition and experience for some listing of made up shit, but I guess I get what I deserve. I'm still annoyed, but.
2. I should've waited for longer for the cake to cool before chopping. That said, pound cake dries out amazingly quickly, as I have discovered. I'm not confident that it wouldn't have turned into crumble had I waited for it to cool.
3. Although I ended up with crumble anyway. The edges weren't at all clean like I wanted. Right side up and the cake crust was far too delicate so it just broke off in chunks. The bottom of the cake was a bit too cooked for my liking and wouldn't have complimented the strawberries very well (i.e. would've looked even more shit than it does already, if you can entertain such a possibility).
4. Speaking of which, those damn instructions again. Something about needing to cook at 325F for 1 1/4 hours. It was in there for about 50 minutes and was cooked through. Well cooked through. That's at least 30 fucking minutes less! WTF? Who are you people who are writing these recipes, and WTH is wrong with your damn ovens?
5. Wastage. Oh the wastage. One fucking 8-inch circular pan got me this many little mini cakes (plus the one above):
(You can see the two upside-down cakes and understand why I couldn't use that side.)
And left me with this useless crap:
WTF do I do with this shit? It's not even formed like the shell of a cake (which would've been totally awesome to fill with icing and strawberries), since the stupid cake eagerly fell apart.
6. I thought I had another wire rack (the black thing seen in two of the above pictures). I don't. This made the entire process even more miserable.
7. As a follow up to issue 1, the little circles were wonky as a result of the 'rising in the middle' bullshit.
8. The damn icing wasn't thick enough to compensate for this wonkyness.
9. Thickening up the icing will take away from the mascarpone goodness (seriously, it's a very fine balance between cheese --> icing --> gaaaaahwheresmydentist!?)
10. 5 minutes out of the pan, the cake begins to harden around the edges. So no making these in advance unless I want to douse them in syrup.
11. The simple syrup I made was . . . well, simple. Bleugh actually. I was going to make it a strawberry syrup but am glad I didn't, since it just soaks riiiiiiiight into the cakes instead of dribbling attractively around and down the edges of the cakes.
12. Cleanup. I used almost every bowl trying to work out an icing alternative for the other pound cake that I had (which I was at least smart enough not to begin to dig into). I actually still have it. Not sure what I am going to do with it (fob it off to the unfortunate coworkers?), but arson sounds appealing.
Actually, I lied -- I haven't cleaned up yet. I'm usually quite happy to clean up afterwards, but a) I'm bitter about my failure here
b) my roommates aren't very good at emptying out the dish rack, and I'm tired of doing it. So the dishes are sitting in the sink until they put their shit away.
So what was it that just went so bloody wrong?
- The cake. No pound cake next time. Normal cake next time. Pound cake too thick, Heather too clumsy to make good mini-cake.
- My impatience. I now know that once the cake cools, cutting is much more successful. I can't believe I didn't understand this until now. I feel like I need to be amongst brightly-coloured plastic kitchen appliances, with a giant 'Susie's First Kitchen' sign above my head.
- Ignore the recipe, ignore the recipe, ignore the recipe. I was definitely not 100% last evening, which led to me following the recipe to the letter rather than actually sitting down and thinking about it. I'm no Jamie Oliver, but I'm not so bad at cooking when I use my own noggin. I need to trust myself more.
- Buy another wire rack.
- Strawberry coulis next time!
- Fuck the chopped strawberries. They were so damn good I'm just going to eat them.
Simultaneously, I was cooking up the raw vegan breakfast bars I mixed a day ago. I cooked them in the oven at the lowest heat possible since my dehydrator doesn't have the flat sheets and I haven't gotten around to ordering them. So I'll cook them briefly in the oven to harden them, and then stick them in the dehydrator. Strawberry 'icing' will be made tonight and put in the top of the bars. I haven't tried them yet, what with them being in the dehydrator and all, but I think (hope?) they'll be pretty good. The wonderful Sarahfae (for those of you reading this via Facebook, this is LJ stuff) hasn't provided a bad recipe yet, and if the raw undehydrated mix is anything to go by, it will be yummy! Topped with the raw vegan Strawberry icing (made with strawberries and coconut butter and agave!), I'm SO looking forward to something that will work out.
God, PLEASE work out.
* No, I hate Rachael Ray too. But she doesn't own the word (yet).