Adventures in baking

[boyofbadgers]

Note to self: in future, if cake mixture looks too runny to be put into loose bottomed tin, go with first instinct and line tin first. Do not blithely pour mixture into tin, place into oven and then panic five mins later when smell of semi-burnt cake alerts you to leaking cake hitting oven bottom.

I *think* I've manage to rescue it via addition of ad-hoc extra foil base to the bottom of the tin; there was only mild leakage and the foil should be capable of catching the drips until the cake seals itself. My only major worry is that in my panic I removed the cake from the oven for at least three or four minutes before I had the presence of mind to improvise the fix.

Edit: I've just turned the cake and it appears to be progressing well. It's risen a fair bit and the foil seems to have done the trick wrt stopping the drips.

Edit 2: 'Tis done! It may have taken almost an hour and twenty minutes since I first put it in the oven (exactly twice the time on the recipe), but I now have a respectable looking cake cooling in my kitchen, cooked right through and everything. There don't even seem to be any over-dry bits. Hurrah!

Comments

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

You can do almost anything to a cake fairly early on in the baking process- before now I've retrieved cake mix in order to add secret hidden forgotten ingredients like, y'know, eggs and other totally unimportant (hem hem) things like that with no bad effects, so your 3-4 minutes shouldn't be a problem unless it's a souffle or something.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

It would appear so!

Despite being an ok cook, I can still get anxious when doing fairly routine things in the kitchen, as katstevens and atommickbrane can testify. Baking is very much not a routine thing and so I'm liable to fuss about it far more than is strictly necessary or helpful.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

baking is science not cookery ;)

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Saying things like that only adds to the anxiety! I may be good at sciencey stuff generally, but I was always rub at chemistry practicals.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

no i'm saying that's why baking is hard, because it is science ;)

[cis.livejournal.com]

baking = alchemy!

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

hurrah!

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

Marna's guide to baking: when in doubt, add more booze! (Actually, this is not true most of the time.)

I am always a bit afeared of the loose-bottom tins.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I think that would have been absolutely the worst thing to do in the circs! If it had been a fruitcake, OTOH...

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

If the cake isn't a sensible place to put the booze, you should put it in the Rick instead!

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

An excellent plan.

Oh, and many happy returns of the day!