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The futile efforts of saving a cake.



It all started when I decided that I too can bake a cake of patisserie standard. My darlings somehow planted this idea inside my head that without much of baking experience or training, I can also bake like an expert and that too in my first attempt. What high expectations? But then who can you blame? All little ones think their mothers have magical powers and are capable of doing everything.

I was prepping for the bake day since a couple of days. Groceries check. Apron check. Oven check. Recipe check. Attitude check. Almost everything was checked and so I thought I was all set. What can possibly go wrong?

Both my daughters were my sous chefs and were giving me instructions about how exactly they wanted my cake to be.
First lesson- if you are baking and that too for the first time start with a basic cake, nothing fancy. Also dont forget-There is something called as pre heating of the oven. Better be aware of it.

We started with the dry ingredients first. Sieving and mixing everything as mentioned in the recipe. Then came the wet ingredients. My elder one was reading the recipe. I guess she was getting a bit impatient. She decided to miss some steps which she thought weren't needed. Like she told me to mix everything together at once and not one at a time. She probably thought mixing slowly and gradually will take ages. She decided she didnt have that much time or patience.

Lesson two- please take charge of the recipe, unless you are okay with a flat, sunken cake. Another sabotage which normally happens when you have got kids is opening of the oven door too many times. How is the freaking cake not going to sink?

The aroma of the cake was beautiful and so I would not have been too wrong to think the same about the look and feel of the cake. After letting the cake cool for approximately 3 minutes, that's the patience level of my daughters. You can keep it for some more time if your kids patience is more, not a problem. So after three minutes we got to the next level. I thought the cake was a bit dry. Maybe because of frequent door checks or mixing the ingredients in the wrong order. Also I had not put the correct amount of sugar( wrong measuring cup) so it was less sweet.

To save the cake, my elder one had another brilliant idea. Lesson three - say no to more brilliant ideas. After much deliberation we decided that the cake needed a fluidy kind of substance just so it doesn't dry more and also adjust the sweetness level of the unsweet cake. So we made a sugar syrup and poured it all over the cake. We thought we had saved the cake. Now it was the turn of my creative juices to flow. And so we made a chocolate ganache and poured it over the cake.

The cake looked weird. But it tasted okay for my first attempt. Whoever said we eat with our eyes first. Not so true huh? Though the cake was not the softest or the best, it tasted yummy to both my sweeties. What can I say, but - well done !




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