The way to the heart is through the stomach. Apparently that is so, even if that path is cast in the form of a messed-up cake.
As noted in the past, I cook. I don’t bake. I’ve said before that, if you tried my efforts, you’d see why it is I don’t bake. I’ve made some doozies in cooking, too—someday I’ll write about the Creole Boiled Fail Rice, and the Rose Rib-Sticking Gravy. But for now, I’m going to tell you about the dessert that confirmed I had the heart of a man—because he agreed it was a disaster and ate a piece anyway.
I don’t know if it’s love or insanity. Could be both.
Fly over the Kos Croissant to see what happened.
I moved to Washington from Phoenix in July 2011, and accepted an invitation to move in with friends who live in the suburb of Covington. I couldn’t pay rent at the time, but I helped keep the place clean, helped out with odd chores, fed the cats, and occasionally cooked. When Friend One’s birthday came up, I decided to make her a cake.
The thing about K—Friend One—is that she’s not big on sweets. I could have made her a heaping pot of chicken tikka masala, or mussaman curry, and she’d have been much, much happier. In retrospect, it’s what I should have done. But I found a recipe for a cake that combined her favorite “treat” tastes, and knew I just had to make it for K.
The cake was a Chai Cake with Honey Ginger Cream.
It was simple: you steep one cup of strong chai tea. Put it aside. Mix up cake batter with the chai tea; bake 2 layers. Mix up cream cheese frosting with fresh ginger; set THAT aside. Cool the cake; frost with the cream cheese frosting; slice and eat. Yum.
. . . right?
Okay, here’s the reason why I’ve had disasters in baking before. When I see that I don’t have a particular ingredient in the house and don’t want to go out for it, I substitute for it. This is what is commonly known as laziness and stupidity, especially when it’s for a birthday cake. You see, the ingredients I didn’t want to go out for were baking soda and baking powder.
Instead, I added a dollop of sour cream and two extra eggs to the batter. Oh, yes, and cream of tartar.
Yes, I know I’m an idiot. Thank you for noticing.
Now while I made the cake, I was talking to a man my friends had known for far longer than they had known me. Stefan (should have been Steven, but he got confused with his older cousin so often that his parents changed his name while he was still very small) had made it clear he enjoyed my company, and by that time, I’d made it known I also enjoyed his. We’d been dating for perhaps two weeks, and I was growing comfortable enough to let someone I’d just met watch me cook.
So in went all the ingredients. We talked, with K joining in the conversation, and I rejoiced in the smell coming from the oven. You know the smell of perfect snickerdoodles or spice cake? Multiply that times 10. It was heavenly. I kept thinking how good and moist it was going to be when it was done.
And then K peeked in the oven and said, “Uh . . . hon, do you want to take a look at this?” in a tone that suggested it was probably the last fucking thing on Earth I wanted to see. But I’m brave. I looked. I felt my stomach drop to my feet. The cakes hadn’t risen. Worse; they were practically flat.
“Well,” I said, trying to goose my spirits, “maybe it was the eggs. Too many eggs.”
Yeah, right.
We pulled the pans out and dumped the cakes onto a rack to cool. I wanted to sob. They were like perfect, golden-brown Frisbees. For a cake, that ain’t good.
“Looks perfectly fine to me,” said Stefan.
“Yeah, they’ll probably taste okay,” K added.
Well, an hour later, I frosted the layers. It was one pathetic-looking cake that I assembled, barely half the height of a Duncan Hines mix cake. And then I tried to cut it. Ye gads, I felt like I was sawing through vinyl. What was the matter?!
We all assembled at the table—K and her husband L, Stefan and I. We each had cake on our plates. We all took a bite.
And I almost choked. I had frosted two layers of Flubber. The texture was so elastic that I decided at once against throwing it out the window—the damn thing would have bounced back up and clobbered me in the face.
K and L assured me it wasn’t bad. “Texture’s off, but it’s okay.” I could barely look over at Stefan. I felt like an idiot, having boasted about making K her birthday cake, and instead coming up with Ginger-Frosted Hacky Sack. But he chewed, swallowed, looked thoughtfully at me and said, “There’s nothing wrong with how it tastes. The texture’s rubbery, though . . .”
“Yeah,” I cracked, “you could bounce it off the wall,” and that broke the dam. We all started laughing and joking about the cake.
“If you cut a hole in it,” K said, “you could use it for an inner tube!” And Stefan added, “And you wouldn’t have to worry about it falling apart, because I’m pretty sure it can’t absorb water!”
L finally said, “It’s not bad. Really, it’s not. But it’s definitely not a cake. You should try making a pudding out of it, or something—just find some way to break it down.”
I was in a much better mood on hearing that, in part because, while I was still giggling over the cake jokes, Stefan glanced back at me, smiled, and said, “You’re turning such a pretty color.” So I took the cake, cut it into chunks, and made a delicious bread pudding out of it for Thanksgiving, which was that Wednesday. And on the Friday after that, Stefan and I had our first kiss. I’d like to thank the cake . . . but I know better. I’d not only found someone who liked me, I’d found someone who shared my own snarky sense of humor.
However, I’ve gotten better at baking. That disaster finally woke me up to the fact that baking and cooking both rely heavily on chemistry—but where you can experiment to your heart’s content with cooking, with baking you need to be precise and follow directions. I’ve recently had two great successes—a Death By Chocolate Cake, and an Irish Car Bomb Cake—and if I’d tried skipping around following the recipes, I’d have had utter disasters on my hands.
(And yes, Stefan and I are still together. I’m not only the girlfriend who makes tasty food, I’m also the girlfriend who will, on occasion, make a cake. And y’know what? I no longer say, “I don’t bake.” I DO bake, and I’m getting better every time I do.)
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Without further ado, here’s the recipe for the Chai Tea Cake with Ginger Cream Frosting—as well as the instructions for how to turn it into a bread pudding if you like.
Chai Tea Cake with Honey Ginger Cream Frosting
(Note: I got the recipe from this site: http://tendercrumb.blogspot.com/....)
From Sky High:Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne
Makes an 8-inch triple layer cake; serves 12-16
1 and 1/3 cups of milk
6 chai tea bags, without added sweetner, such as Tazo
4 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 and 3/4 cups of cake flour
2 cups of sugar
4 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
3/4 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon of salt
8 ounces of unsalted butter at room temp.
Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees F. Grease the bottom and sides of the pans and line with parchment paper. Grease the paper as well.
In a small saucepan bring the milk to a simmer over low med-low heat. Add the tea bags, careful not to let the paper tag fall into the milk. Remove from heat and allow the tea to steep for 5 minutes. Remove the teabags and squeeze out the milk. Let the chai milk cool completely.
In a medium bowl mix the eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, and 1/3 cup of the chai milk. Whisk together.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt in the bowl of a mixer. Beat on low for 30 seconds. Add the butter and the remaining chai milk, on med-low speed.
Raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg mixture in three additions scraping the between additions. Divide the batter evenly among the pans.
Bake the cakes for 26-28 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and peel off parchment paper. Cool completely.
To assemble the cake place one layer flat side down a serving plate and top with 2/3 cup of icing. Spread to the edge and repeat with second layer. Place third layer on top and spread the remaining ginger cream on top allowing it to drizzle down the sides of the cake like icicles.
Honey-Ginger Cream
2 and 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar {decreased to 1 1/2 cups}
6 ounces of cream cheese at room temp. {increased to 9 oz}
6 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temp.
1/2 cup of honey (any kind as long as liquid)
1/2 teaspoon of fresh grated ginger {substituted w. 1 1/2 tbsp finely minced crystalized ginger}
Place all the ingredients in a food processor. Pulse to blend together, then scrape the sides of the bowl and pulse until smooth.
How To Turn This Cake Into Bread Pudding:
Cut the cake into 2-inch cubes, frosting and all. Place in a deep baking dish--make sure it's only half full. Add at least one cup of heavy cream, with extra cinnamon and ginger. Toss in a shot of brandy if you like. Also, mix up a little more ginger-honey cream frosting; add half right away to the mix, and save half back. Bake at 350 degrees, or until the pudding is nice and moist. Spoon the remaining frosting over the bread pudding while it's still hot. Serve.