Alternate Title: Happy Birthday to my Father-In-Law, Dennis!
I chose this cake (a strawberry curd, chocolate ganache cake with white chocolate buttercream icing. WHEW!) which if you read through the comments (and I did) you can clearly see is beyond my newbie baking skills and supplies. But I decided I could go ahead and do it anyway! Well, the measurements are all in ounces, and I do not have a food scale. So I used my measuring cup, which measures ounces in volume (duh) and not weight, but I figured hey, close enough! I also guesstimated on the baking powder and baking soda conversions…. (don’t grumble at me about obvious recipe for disaster!)
Oh, and even though Kelly specifically told me I should use 3″ tall cake pans, I only had 2″ tall ones….but again…I mustered on! Long story short, I ended up with very thin, DENSE cakes:
According to Kelly’s directions, I should have been able to cut each cake into 3 layers. Yeeeeah. I ended up doubling the recipe and used each cake as a layer – so instead of six layers, I had four. Four very dense layers.
Instead of making a raspberry curd, I made strawberry and it was soooooooo yummy!! I’d never had a “curd” before, but I can now tell you that even though the word is kinda gross, the food is fabulous! Here, let Wikipedia explain it to you: Fruit Curd.
I now present you with an understatement: my FIL is crazy about hunting and fishing. Which I hope explains this:
Even though the cake didn’t turn out light, airy and springy like it should have – it still tasted pretty darn good. Everybody enjoyed it, and I think Dennis had a pretty great birthday! Though honestly, I could have “forgotten” to make a cake at all, and he still would have been thrilled as long as I brought his grandbabies over. It’s good to be Granddad, I guess!
Baking against the grain,
Becki
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
You should get a food scale. They really aren’t that expensive. We bought one about a year ago at Bed Bath & Beyond. It is nothing fancy, we just got the cheapest one they had. I think we paid less than $10 for it after that 20% off coupon they seem to always have circulating around. We use our scale All.the.time. It really comes in handy when we buy stuff in bulk and we need to separate it once we get home. As far as I know it seems to be pretty accurate despite its cheapiness. I even use it to figure out postage (so I can buy it/print it online instead of standing in line at the post office-saves time and is cheaper, too!). I haven’t had anything come back to me or received by someone else with postage due.
The cake was very good and the design fit Dennis to a tee. But your right, nothing beat the hugs from his little girls.
I think grandbabies are the perfect dessert so who cares if the cake wasn’t great. It still sounds like a delicious cake though!