This was originally posted on my other blog, What If. I’m moving it – and all of my baking posts – here in the next few weeks.
Experiments in Baking, it may seem obvious to say, springs from my love of baking. My love of baking, in turn, comes from my love of science, and my love for the incredibly basic yet transformational processes that turn a mixture of individual liquids and solids into a completely different, edible form.
the collapse, side view
My chemistry was a little off tonight. My egg whites wouldn’t peak at all and I, frustrated, simply mixed them in anyway. Which produced a chocolate cake, still edible, but completely collapsed in the center.
It’s still delicious, of course.
Here’s is the recipe, for those of you intrepid enough to take it on:
Chocolate Cake
- 1 cup of regular flour
- 1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3/4 tspn of baking soda
- 1/2 tspn of salt
- 1/4 tspn of baking powder
- 1/2 cup of regular sugar
- firmly packed 1/2 cup of brown sugar
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 2 tblspns of vegetable oil
- 2 tblspns of unsweetened applesauce
- 1 tspn of vanilla extract
- the whites of 2 eggs
- 1/4 tspn of cream of tartar
Preheat oven to 350F.
Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and baking powder together in a medium-sized bowl. In a large bowl, combine the regular and brown sugar with the milk, oil, and applesauce, beating with a whisk to make it smooth. Slowly add the first bowl to the second, mixing as you go. Add in the vanilla. In another bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer until you get a decent meringue; this is the part that I utterly failed at so don’t ask me how to make it successful!
Fold the meringue in. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool completely before icing.
recipe from the American Heart Association Low-Fat & Luscious Desserts cookbook.
My Easy Icing
- powdered sugar
- vanilla extract
- water
The trick to this icing is adding only small amounts (about 1 tspn of the liquids or a tblspn of the powdered sugar) of what you need. I strongly advise having the water in a small cup that is easy to pour from, rather than getting it straight from the tap, since this makes it easier to control the amount you are pouring in. First, put a small amount of vanilla extract in a bowl; about a second of slow pouring should be plenty. Add a similar amount of the water. If you want the icing to be another color, you should include two or three drops of food coloring now, too. Add a small mound of powdered sugar and mix all of the ingredients thoroughly. If it is still too runny, add more powdered sugar; if it is stiff, but there is not enough, add more water. (I do not suggest adding more vanilla extract after this unless you are making a very large amount of icing or it will have too much of the liquor bitterness of the extract.)
Keep adding small amounts and mixing completely until you have the desired amount and consistency of icing. To check the consistency, dip your mixing instrument in and pull it out, making sure to catch some of the icing. Then hold it up so that the icing falls back into the bowl. If you’re impatient like ManPants and I, you won’t mind icing that lets gravity do some of the spreading work.
Lesson Learned: Peaking egg whites really is as hard as they say it is. Leave the work to the French and the experienced, and make a simpler chocolate cake instead.
