Baking by Flavor
Oct. 6th, 2021 12:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitYou know, I don't think I am a cake person. Cookies, sure. Brownies are great. Pies are magnificent. But I think there's a reason that I gravitate away from cakes when baking on my own. They're among the easiest thing to bake; as often as I'm exhausted when baking, you'd think I'd make them more often. But no; when I want to not put much effort in, I go for a very simple and unadorned brownie recipe.
What instigated a cake, then? I wanted to try out Baking by Flavor, and Mathfriend absolutely loves chocolate cake and lives with people who aren't super into it. (And he expresses preferences so rarely that I try to go along with it whenever he does.) Thus we made Heirloom Chocolate Cake, chosen from the many recipes in the "chocolate" section purely on the basis of requiring me to go hunt down the fewest ingredients.
The recipe is well-written. The instructions are clear and straightforward, although we did halve it because it was for a two-layer cake and I have only one cake pan. It's... fine? It's cake. We didn't leave it in quite long enough and so it collapsed a little in the center, but it's perfectly serviceable cake.
However, I think this does confirm once and for all that I am Not A Cake Person (though I do still want to try one of the ones like Mud Cake that has cream in it and see what that does to the texture). Therefore we should try one of the brownie or pie or sticky bun recipes; there are a lot of tasty-looking recipes in there. Some of them are on the complicated side, but it's because they're complicated things, not because the cookbook is making them more complicated than they need to be.
I got what was allegedly precooked chunks of ham but it didn't look cooked and it didn't have the "ready to eat" label the hot dogs come with, so absent other ideas I just baked those in the oven. Next time-- assuming there is a next time; I think these might be a seasonal special-- I'm going to try to come up with a pie recipe before defrosting them.
It's too bad I can't have eggs and have yet to find a way to make custard I can eat, or I'd be really interested in For the Love of Pie's "Hay Custard Pie in a Chocolate Crust" for the sheer unusualness of the thing.
What instigated a cake, then? I wanted to try out Baking by Flavor, and Mathfriend absolutely loves chocolate cake and lives with people who aren't super into it. (And he expresses preferences so rarely that I try to go along with it whenever he does.) Thus we made Heirloom Chocolate Cake, chosen from the many recipes in the "chocolate" section purely on the basis of requiring me to go hunt down the fewest ingredients.
The recipe is well-written. The instructions are clear and straightforward, although we did halve it because it was for a two-layer cake and I have only one cake pan. It's... fine? It's cake. We didn't leave it in quite long enough and so it collapsed a little in the center, but it's perfectly serviceable cake.
However, I think this does confirm once and for all that I am Not A Cake Person (though I do still want to try one of the ones like Mud Cake that has cream in it and see what that does to the texture). Therefore we should try one of the brownie or pie or sticky bun recipes; there are a lot of tasty-looking recipes in there. Some of them are on the complicated side, but it's because they're complicated things, not because the cookbook is making them more complicated than they need to be.
I got what was allegedly precooked chunks of ham but it didn't look cooked and it didn't have the "ready to eat" label the hot dogs come with, so absent other ideas I just baked those in the oven. Next time-- assuming there is a next time; I think these might be a seasonal special-- I'm going to try to come up with a pie recipe before defrosting them.
It's too bad I can't have eggs and have yet to find a way to make custard I can eat, or I'd be really interested in For the Love of Pie's "Hay Custard Pie in a Chocolate Crust" for the sheer unusualness of the thing.
