Friday, March 23, 2007

a forgiving cake

I made the chocolate-banana cake the other night. Or, I meant to. I started making it, and then realized I didn't have enough sour cream. Ah, well, no worries--I had buttermilk. So about 1/3 of a cup of each seemed to do the trick.

Then I was out of cream before I got the icing made. So I stretched that too, with some milk. I ran out of vanilla (didn't I just buy vanilla?), but I had almost enough, so I just let that one go.

Then I was somehow just, well, stupid, and I had the oven 100 degrees higher than I was supposed to. 425 instead of 325. I figured that one out when I smelled burning instead of bananas after about 25 minutes.

Guess what? The cake was fine. A little crispy on top, but perfectly fine, and done 20 minutes earlier than expected.

Gotta love a forgiving cake recipe. But, hmm, why am I not baking all my cakes this fast? There must be a catch...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So here's my recent foray into the baking scene: I attempted the Irish Soda Bread mentioned a while ago. I had no buttermilk - not to worry: some lemon juice into some milk - but maybe there wasn't enough lemon juice, since I only had half a lemon. I probably scanted the baking soda measurement, since I don't like the taste of it. Not a good idea. I definitely put in the caraway seeds, since to me, they define Irish Soda bread's unique flavor. The resulting dough was almost soupy, and hard to knead, or form into balls. They were more like generous pancakes. But they baked up nicely, and we've been enjoying slices of Soda Bread Toast! (Maybe I should have made the comment on the ISB Blog, but here it is.)

Libby said...

So, Mom, I think what you're telling me is that I got my somewhat casual attitude towards recipes from you! Glad the ISB toast is working...

Anonymous said...

Apples don't fall far from their trees!

Anonymous said...

If you cook it fast you double the calories!