Sunday, January 31, 2010

Cake Take Two

To be completely honest Cake #2 was unnecessary and probably overkill.


The frosting? Stellar. Spectacular.
I did frost Cake #2, but I did not eat any.

I only ate the frosting.

Here is the skinny:
I attempted to make the Lime Coconut Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting that looked so good and turned out perfectly over at CuisineNie and failed miserably.

The cake never rose and ended up flat as a pancake. It tasted great but it just wasn't cake. A little research revealed that it was probably my love of Key Lime Juice that ruined the cake effect. Citric acid neutralizes baking powder.

Cake #2 was a box mix yellow cake. I replaced the water with coconut milk. The taste testers reported that it was very rich and loved it.
Score one for me.

I made the White Chocolate Frosting with a few variations; no vanilla because I finished the bottle on The Bad Cake, and extra sour cream.

Key Lime White Chocolate Frosting
5 squares Bakers white chocolate, chopped and melted
1/2 C (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 1/2 C powdered sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tbsp Key Lime juice
1/2 cup sour cream

Cream butter and sugar. 
Add salt and lime juice and mix on high until smooth. 
Fold in sour cream until thoroughly combined.

This frosting is so fabulous that I would use it for anything I wanted to make special. I will warn you that you do have to enjoy a sweet/sour effect though. I just love Key Limes.

The taste testers are now eating it for breakfast.     
Next up: Homemade pizza on a snowed in Sunday!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Dress Rehearsal


In the theatre we say that a bad dress rehearsal means a good opening night. We are a superstitious lot...

So here is the failure of the day. It was to be the opening post for my food blog.

Key Lime Coconut Cake...It is literally pancake like.

Could be that the Baking Soda was dated 2008, but more likely it is that the acidic key lime juice neutralized the leavening power of the soda. Hence flat. As a pancake.

Obviously it did not stop anyone from eating it.