My Baking Stories (birth story of a different nature)

Clarissa

Mon, Jun 23 2008, 12:12 pm

Okay, people have really been getting into birth stories, but I'm a much bigger fan of baking stories, so here are two:

1) My First Cheesecake:

I was really excited. I was home for vacation from college, and we bought ingredients for a cheesecake. I carefully measured out ingredients, set things aside to bring to room temp, but made one major error. I didn't close the springform correctly. When I was bringing the cheesecake from the counter to the fridge to cool for 8 hours, the bottom fell out and PLOP! the whole mess fell on the floor, a big pile of cheesecake. I sat down next to it on the floor and started crying. My father came in and started laughing and taking pictures of me, sitting and crying next to the floor next to the mess. I started laughing. My mother came in and yelled at me for wasting ingredients, and I started crying again. My father took a spatula and carefully lifted the stuff off the floor and into a bowl, leaving a thin layer on the floor that had touched the floor. The rest went into the fridge. We ate it later, with spoons, and it was delicious. Somewhere is a photo of me sitting on the floor, laughing through tears, next to a pile of cheesecake.

2) My Chocolate Mousse Blackout Cake:

The cake is made by baking a chocolate cake, slicing it into thin layers, and brushing the layers with this liquor-sugar syrup. Then you put chocolate mousse or pudding between the layers, stacked up, and cover with another layer of the mousse or pudding. Then the outside is covered with crumbs from another layer that has been crushed into crumbs. I did the whole thing and realized I'd forgotten to brush on the liquor thing. My friend John, who worked in the ER, rushed over with some syringes to save the day. I filled one with the liquor and injected the cake all over. It was amazing. Sometimes you'd bite into a bite of cake, sometimes mousse, sometimes something that was shot full of booze. It was like Russian Roulette, but in a good way.

So those are two of my baking stories. No epidurals, no blood, no painful pushing and, best of all, no pooping on the table in front of other people.

Rutabaga

Mon, Jun 23 2008, 1:01 pm

My family had a cheesecake contest for Shavuos a couple of years ago. Each person was responsible for making his/her own cheesecake, although some of us paired up. My mother invited a family of good friends over for lunch to judge which was the best (2 categories - taste and presentation). Dh and I made a cheesecake with white and dark chocolate layers covered with a chocolate ganache. It was supposed to have a brownie layer on top of the cheese layers. When we put it on, it was too heavy, and the cake started to get smooshed. So we quickly flipped the cheesecake so that the brownie was on the bottom and the crust was on top. It looked rather funny, but once the ganache went on, no one could tell that it was upside down. One of my brothers cheated. He bought a cheesecake from a bakery and then messed it up a little so that it looked homemade. His deceit was discovered because he didn't bury the bakery box deep enough in the garbage. LOL

yo'ma

Mon, Jun 23 2008, 1:04 pm

Rutabaga wrote:

did you win?

Clarissa

Mon, Jun 23 2008, 1:14 pm

On that cheesecake contest, I'd have to rate you almost tied for ingenuity. It's very clever to flip the cheesecake when the brownie layer didn't work. It's almost as clever to buy from a bakery and hide the box. You still win, by a layer.

I admire the save-the-day cheesecake flip. I once had a problem with a lemon cheesecake I was making. I over-mixed, to the point that it was too fluffy. When I baked it, it totally sunk in the middle and rose on the sides. It looked terrible. I was about to toss it when my mother suggested I scoop out the middle and fill the hole with fresh berries, so it would look deliberate. It looked great, nobody knew, and I got to eat the little part in the middle, so it was a win-win.

atlastamom

Tue, Jun 24 2008, 4:15 pm

I attempted my first cake when I was 12. My mother was on bed rest, and it was my parents anniversary (I think) and I wanted to make a cake. So I put all the ingredients in the mixer and turned it on HIGH. Well, the mess was pretty unbelievable. My mother heard all the noise and came running - she was not so happy to see the flour and egg mess which was on every surface in the kitchen including the ceiling.
Oh well...