Cookery and Delusions

22NOV06 -- 11h15  to 14h30

Experiment: CAKE

Purpose: To make a FREAKIN' AWESOME chocolate cake

Hypothesis: Making a chocolate cake is really as easy as it looks on Food Network.  Knowledge of cake building is absorbed visually and need not be practiced: it will come out naturally beautiful on first try.

Materials: 

1. Homemade chocolate cake
2. Homemade ganache
3. Morello Cherries in rum-enhanced syrup
4. Spreaders, spatulas and other frosting equipment
5. Large ego
6. 11-month old clinging to legs every 25 seconds
7. Washington Post front page, to randomly spill ganache on, for no reason whatsoever

Procedure:

1. Add copious amounts of rum and sugar to Trader Joe's jar of cherries.  Let sit for 2 days.
2. Make cake and ganache.
3. Congratulate yourself entirely too much when ingredients seem to be coming along nicely.
4. Try to carve cake into pleasing shape.
5. Maul cake.
6. Spread ganache all over cake.  Watch it fall everywhere but on cake.
7. Make kitchen look like scene from "Psycho" with help from cherry syrup and baby.
8. Tell baby to stop.  Stop.  Please stop.  Stop grabbing mommy's legs.  Stop.  Please stop. NO!!
9. Step back and admire cake.
10. Realize cake looks like El Capitan.
11. Get camera

Results:

   

Conclusion/ Debriefing:  Making a pretty cake is HARD, although it is incredibly fun.  Sandra Lee can eat my shorts though-- my cake tastes GOOD and it's way more than semi-homemade!  So, HA.

If I were to do this experiment differently-- I would actually try to achieve a round shape for my cake.  Possibly I'd ask Monsieur Meow to carve it since he's better at those kinds of things.

Also, Herr Meow just has to go in his pack and play for these occasions.

HAPPY COOKING , EVERYONE!!!!!!

Comments

[Lisa]

I do stuff like this...
'Making a cheese cake can't be THAT hard, they do it on TV all the time'
'I'm SURE I can make my own icing! I have all the tools!'
'Quilting? Bring it on. Forget the fact I've never used a sewing machine in my life and can't stitch a straight seam for anything'
Apparently, my parents lied to me, I can't do anything I put my mind to.