Baking tragedy

Posted: June 5, 2010 | Author: Alyssa | Filed under: Alyssa | 3 Comments »

Have you ever done something eight thousand times without thinking about it, and then the one time you really put all your effort into it, you can’t get it to work for the life of you?  This is pretty much the course of my life, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when it happened over memorial day weekend.  I was going to a cookout at boy’s friend’s house, and he requested that I make flour-less chocolate cake to bring.  I have been making this recipe for a while, and it always comes out really well.  Its velvety with a melt in your mouth texture, and super chocolaty.  I made it the day before because it has to chill overnight to set, and everything seemed to be perfect.

On Sunday, I decided to make some pinwheel munchies in addition to the cake.  I decided on spinach and cheese, and then remembering the guys I was cooking for, decided to do HALF spinach and cheese, and the other half chicken, bacon and ranch.  Pinwheels are absurdly easy, and everyone really seemed to like them.

Pinwheels:

Thaw two sheets of frozen puff pastry and unfold them onto a floured surface.  Some people will tell you to roll it out a little bit to thin it, but I just flour my hands and thin it out with my fingers because its easier.

Spinach filling:

1pkg frozen spinach

grated gruyere

diced garlic

sour cream.

Cook the spinach and drain it completely, then add the garlic, and cheese.  I wanted something to hold it all together and the only thing I had was sour cream, but you could use anything really.  Add just enough until it is all bound together but don’t add so much that it becomes a base.

Chicken filling:

1 chk breast, roasted and diced

3 pieces bacon cooked and diced

cheddar cheese grated

ranch dressing

Mix together the chicken, bacon, and cheese, then add the ranch until it all sticks together and tastes like you want it to.

Spread the filling on the pastry and roll up like a jelly roll

Wrap the roll in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer for about 30-45 minutes to make it easier to slice.  Slice it into about 1/4 inch slices and bake at 400 for about 15 min until golden brown.

The pinwheels are really quick and easy to make, so I was thinking this was going to be just another day.

FALSE

While the first set of pinwheels were baking, I pulled the cake out of the fridge, soak the bottom of the pan in hot water for 10 seconds and flip it onto a plate, just like I have done 100 times in the past.  Normally, the pan slides off nicely leaving a beautiful chocolate cake behind.  Not today…I COULD NOT get that damn cake out of the pan.  I soaked it, I hit it I banged it on the counter, I tried to gently loosen the sides with a plastic knife, nothing.  Finally, I was pissed off enough to just jam a knife down the sides and run it all around, ruining the edges of the cake and still not releasing it from its nonstick prison.  After more pounding, prying and cursing to the point of making a sailor blush, I finally got it out of the pan and on to a plate…where it promtly sagged in the middle because it was not fully cooked despite the fact that I had done EXACTLY the same thing I had done in the past.  Pissed off to the point of no return I decide to leave the cake for a minute, and finish up the second batch of pinwheels that have one minute left on the timer.

I open the oven to check them, and they are barely cooked.  Turns out, when I turned off the timer from the first batch of pinwheels, I also inadvertently turned off the oven.    So as I’m supposed to be walking out the door, I am kicking things, cursing, turning the over back on hoping that they will cook in the next 15 minutes, and trying to deal with the great cake debacle.  After a quick text to let the most patient man on the planet know that I will be late, I try to figure out what the hell has happened to my life in the past 45 min and how to fix it, which at this point is just me trying to put lipstick on a pig and call it America’s next top model.

I have the cake back in the fridge trying to keep it chilled for as long as possible, realizing that once it starts to warm up, there is a solid possibility that it will melt all over the place.  I finally get an idea and (at this point its more about presentation than salvation) pull out one of my springform pans.  I take out the bottom and flip the cake onto it, and then put the form back on to keep the sides in place.  It actually looked like a normal cake, and that was the best I could do, so I covered it in tinfoil and hoped for the best.  The pinwheels were finally done, so I threw those into the container and ran out the door, almost 40 minutes late at this point.

The pinwheels were good, but the cake was a melted disaster (think moldable pudding), but luckily it tasted good, so everyone seemed pretty happy about it.

It was probably one of the worst cooking days I’ve ever had, but after a couple of beers and game of cornhole, that I sucked at by the way, it was actually a pretty good memorial day.