If you follow me on the socials (@mindascooking), you may have seen that last Saturday I took on a recipe that had been in my mom’s recipe box for 50 years: Mudge’s Favorite White Cake. As I explained in the post, it’s not clear who Mudge was so her judgement of cakes can’t be known for sure. I was riding high from having made these DELICIOUS Mini Banana Pudding Cheesecakes and I was up for a baking experiment.
I’m not going to share the entire Mudge recipe today because I do plan a rematch and have my fingers crossed for a positive post in the future. However, I can tell you that instead of using baking soda for the rise, it used egg whites. (Were it not for my late to the party discovery of Great British Bake Off, I would not have know that the egg whites were for the rise).
It all seemed very promising…the batter was yummy. The notes on the cake recipe said “This is a very moist cake and it is very good with chocolate frosting”. The recipe said to bake it for one hour.
One hour.
Now, gentle readers, I DID think that seemed excessive for a simple 13×9 cake. And I did CONSIDER that ovens were probably quite different whenever this recipe was created. But I followed along anyway…for a bit. After about 45 minutes, I decided to test the cake. It was definitely done. Too done. Not burnt but definitely overbaked. The outer crust was too firm.
I let it cool on a rack and made some chocolate buttercream for it. I frosted it up and tried a piece. It did have a delicious taste but it was way too dry. I think if Paul Hollywood had tried it, he would have said “The flavor’s good, you just overbaked it.”
So, I will try again and hopefully have a better report for you!
It reminded me of what I always call my worst baking disaster. You might remember my story about working at a lumber company in my younger days. One of the few other females there, Lois, loved Southern Living magazine and always bought their annual cookbook which contained all of the recipes from the year. She ended up with two copies of the 1995 edition and she gave it to me. The cover had a beautiful white coconut cake and I decided I would make this for my family Christmas dinner.
It’s an ambitious recipe but not an impossible one. You make the cake from scratch then make a lemon custard to put between the layers and a meringue frosting for the top. Then cover the whole thing in coconut. I set out to make this one afternoon while my parents were at work. Somewhere along the way, I realized I’d messed up. The custard called for only egg yolks and I’d put whole eggs. I also think I messed up on the batter somehow. Maybe I put the whites in it. I can’t recall but I do remember that I wasted a LOT of eggs and that I dumped it all out in the creek behind our house and started over. (An advantage of southern living if there ever was one.)
I never told my mom though I’m sure she had to notice that her egg supply was drastically depleted when she got home. I did tell my grandmother who said “Oh honey, why didn’t you just use a cake mix?” My grandmother had baked everything from scratch most of her life. She thought any convenience food was brilliant at that stage of her life.
I did get that cake right on my second try and it was delicious. And now after digging out the cookbook, I kind of want to make it again. My point is that baking doesn’t always work out the way we expect but you have to keep trying.
What’s your worst kitchen disaster?