Ariz turned 5 on Valentine’s Day. A big, huge 5 years old. I’ll write more on his birthday and the birthday boy more later when I have his pictures uploaded. I can’t believe he’s 5 yesterday. Feels like yesterday when the doctor told me the baby was a boy 2 weeks pre-delievery when through it all, she said “he” was a girl, doubtlessly. Anyways. More. Later. Fun.

In the meantime, let me share the disastrous cake-y weekend I had.

First, my Indonesian helper caused us a bit of a ruckus and we finally let her off to her hometown for a week off. Just received a txt from her unilaterally extending the 7 days holiday to 10 days, not a care of what she has promised me earlier. *about to blow off top*

Anyways.

Then it was Ariz’s birthday and my mom has already planned a day at her place for the special occasion and I just needed to bring a cake. Just a cake, she said. Make it your best, ever!

PRESSURE!

I just don’t do well under pressure, I kid you not.

Anyhows. I read through the recipe many times and figured that it’s one of those Marie-show-me-some-mercy cakes.

So, Saturday night, I started on the cake. Easy enough. Until 15 minutes into baking time, I smelled something burnt, cake-ish. I peeked into the oven and the cake had domed at least 4 times its height. Gosh! And the top really did look burnt. What went wrong, I shivered.

Until I looked at the temperature dial and it’s a blinking 250C instead of the 175C. Dang! What???

Was it me or Ariz or Adani who played with the dial ? Seemed unlikely. Unless, I accidentally turned it to max when I leaned over to get the clingwrap for the ganache. Well. Damage was done.

10 minutes before baking time, I took it out. It looked like Mount Kinabalu (the highest peak here in Malaysia) and very black. I decided to just continue and poked the mountain top and its valleys then brushed the ganache. 10 minutes later, I turned it over and while I was brushing the ganache, a crack appeared, then 2 deep ones and before long, the cake had disintegrated beyond repair. I guess the dome was too much and it just split the cake.

I thought I could salvage it and cleverly tucked it all back into the pan, ganache and all. Lousy idea! Because, it stuck to the bottom of the pan and refused to budge.

I had to use a spatula to scrape it all off onto a plate and brushed more ganache in the hope that it could cover the gazillion cracks. Wished I had raspberries.

Brought the whole mangled cake to my mom’s together with a cake I made later, TCB’s Orange Glow Chiffon Cake with Orange Curd Whipped Cream. Thank God for a back up cake. That cake was a winner. As always. It has never failed me. But then again I’ve never baked it at 250C. Yikes!

Anyways, my burnt cake was very dry but the ganache was good. Not many takers.

*head hung low*

p/s I guess this is the curse of a full height genoise aye?

Share The Cookie :
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • LinkedIn
  • Propeller
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter