It was the fiance's mom's birthday and I wanted to make a
not-your-average cake for the dinner we were having at a restaurant. At first,
I wanted to make a pavlova, but as I started making it, things were not working
out and I had to figure out a way to salvage it. I didn't have time or
ingredients to start over! I decided to make a single layer cake on the bottom,
top it with the pavlova (or whatever came out of the oven) and add whipped
cream to hold it together. I'll tell you right now that it didn't turn out as
I'd hoped, but at least I learned a few things along the way:
Lessons learned while making this cake:
Do not wrap cake with a slice of bread. I read that to keep
a cake moist overnight, a trick is to leave it out with a slice of bread on
top. Well, I thought, Wouldn't it be better to wrap the cake in plastic wrap
with a slice of bread on top? The answer is NO. The cake layer was waay too
moist - like a pudding cake as someone described it. Ick. I should've just
wrapped it in plastic wrap with out the bread as usual.
Making meringue in humidity is dangerous. OK, maybe not
dangerous but inconsistent. The pavlova was supposed to be big and fluffy. It
didn't get big, and it didn't get fluffy. The egg white and sugar mixture never
formed stiff peaks on this humid Vancouver
day.
Two tablespoons of egg whites out of the carton does not
equal a large egg white from a shell. This is an eyeball comparison, but
although the carton said they are equivalent, next time I'd use 3 tablespoons
of egg whites to replace one large egg white.
If you want to have a go at this cake, take your favourite
pavlova recipe (here's the one I used),
half of a vanilla cake recipe (I used this one),
and make some stabilized whipped cream, like this.
Second time around, I would use a sponge cake for the
bottom, like from here.
Good luck!
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| Here's a peek at the inside. |
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