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I really regret the fact that I don’t have pictures – I totally forgot to take them.
I’m a notoriously bad baker but I think I’ve overcome that this month during the scratch challenge. My problem, most likely, is my refusal inability to follow directions. (Instant Daisy reaction: Hey, don’t tell me what to do!!!) However, I’ve quelled that urge for the most part this month and successfully made bread, dinner rolls, muffins and other yumminess.
Rosie and I decided to really branch out. We decided to make cupcakes from scratch. I’m rather embarrassed to announce that I have never made a cake from scratch in my life.
We selected a recipe called “crazy cake” partly because I really liked the name and partly because it was eggless (Rosie is highly allergic to eggs) and I had all of the ingredients.
Soon my kitchen looked as though a box of chocolates had exploded. But that was okay because the entire recipe was going as planned. (Out of curiousity, why has no one ever explained to me the perils of using a mixer with powdered sugar? *cough, sneeze*)
We ladled our batter into our cupcake tins and I think, somehow the batter in the bowl managed to reproduce ala the loaves and fishes story because there was still a metric ton of it left in the bowl. So I decided to make a small cake with the remainder.
And there, as I went off the cupcake reservation, is where things began to go dreadfully awry….
We greased our cake pan and filled it with the remaining batter.
All the pans were placed into the oven. Rosie set the “chicken” and we retired to the next room after filling the sink with chocolate splattered kitchen items and soapy water.
The first sign that all was not well was a slight “burning” smell from the kitchen. I leapt up like an Olympic hurdler to save the baked goods, flying over Rosie and the dog in order to reach the oven.
The timer had not clucked so I was baffled as to why might be burning. Then I remembered that the recipe was for a cake, not cupcakes. Dang it. I always have to paddle my own canoe.
I pulled the cupcakes and the cake out of the oven. Everything had risen quite nicely and the burning smell appeared to have been coming from a bit of batter that had dripped on the edge of the pan – so far, so good.
I inserted a toothpick, as directed, into the cupcakes and the cake. All good there too. It was done!!!!! I figured that the cake had finished so quickly because it was much smaller than the one in the recipe, as a good deal of the batter had been used for cupcakes. I left the items to cool, sternly warning the dog away from the kitchen.
After 30 minutes of cooling time, we removed the cupcakes to a platter to cool further. I went to dump the cake out of the pan onto a plate, but instead of the “thud” of a sturdy loaf of cake, I heard a big wet “plop”.
On the plate was Cake Soup. It was black, wet, and runny with a few solid chunks. Rosie began laughing hysterically, pointing and gasping out “Poop cake!!!” (Rather heartless of her, I thought.) I have to admit, it did look rather akin to bear poop.
Apparently I didn’t stick that toothpick in quite deeply enough, as we ended up with Cake Soup. I tried to convince Rosie that it was supposed to be a lava cake but she wasn’t buying it. (She’s getting too smart for me!)
The edges, however, were absolutely delicious, as were the cupcakes. We iced them with homemade chocolate icing and sprinkled half of them with crumbled candy canes and the other half with coconut flakes. Rosie took the decorated FROM SCRATCH cupcakes to a party today.
