The best laid plans . . . (long)

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

I thought I would report back on how my tea went. It's a prime example of why, after all these years, I still need to come here for advice, AND, why I am not, overall, in the grand scheme of things, a good cook, and particularly not a good baker. Do I have my moments of sublime greatness, yes. And other than a few exceptions, I am a soup savant. But when it comes to the big picture, I am too impatient, too adventurous without knowing when to quit, and my my creativity, while responsible for some great victories, more often than not leads me terribly astray!

So I decided to make something with ingredients I already had on hand, to use them up since some of the things I have I will never use up unless I get around to entertaining more. I had some ginger brandy soaked pears that had been languishing around for about four years, and I wanted to use up the brandy, so I decided to use the pears. MAJOR MISTAKE! I should have tasted the pears, but I did not. I should have not used canned pears in a recipe for pear cake. I had done it once before without a problem, but I couldn't use that old recipe so used a new recipe. I know, don't try out new recipes at a time like this, but I forged on ahead. And wanting to kill several birds with one stone, I tried out mom's old springform pan, which was 1 inch smaller than the recipe called for. I knew that the cake might take longer to bake, so I compensated. Oh, and I didn't realize I had no brown sugar in the house until after I just got back from the grocery and was ready to make the cake. No turning back!

So I figured without brown sugar, I could throw a little molasses into the recipe and use white sugar for all the sugar. Which I did. So far, so good. Then I realized that the plastic container of yogurt I had brought from home to use in mom's kitchen, was really some leftover cooked white beans. I was already taking a walk on the wild side by planning on using yogurt instead of the buttermilk the recipe called for. But no problem, I had some sour cream! The cake is almost ready to go in the pan, I just needed to chop and add the pears, which I did. But before I stirred them into the batter, I tasted one. Yes, I know, not good timing. WHOA!! No pear or ginger taste whatsoever, but tasting of the most acrid cheap brandy and cheap vodka which I used to make the liqueur. So I threw in a lot more sugar to counteract that taste. Put it in the oven and hoped for the best.

An hour later, it came out mostly like pear pudding, without much taste. I carved out the mushy center, passed it off as a bundt cake, and served it. It didn't have good texture AT ALL, and was barely passable as far as taste. I had a slice for breakfast and I think the rest is going in the trash. The tea went OK though, the rest of the stuff was OK, and the big hit of the day was spinach dip dolloped into those pre-prepared phyllo cups and topped with a water chestnut slice. The point of the tea was not to show off my culinary skills so it didn't bother anyone and I'm not losing sleep over it either, I enjoyed the tea. But it is a bit of a shame. I could have bought a bundt cake at the bakery at the grocery store and saved myself a lot of hassle and it would have been better! Below are photos from the tea. It all LOOKED good! (I don't know why the photos show up sideways when I insert them, since I edited them and they are not like that when I open them in the photo editing program.)

On the plus side, it also reminded me of how much I am just like my mom. She was no baker either, did mostly boxed mixes or store bought stuff. She could afford to buy the good stuff, so she did.

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Comments (11)

mustangs81
8 years ago
It does look good! Yes, we are harder on ourselves but I'm sure your guests were very pleased and impressed with your efforts in putting together this event for them.
tamraallen68
8 years ago
Looks like a great time to me. Lots of yummy goodies.
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dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
8 years ago
What is going on here?

It is all over the news the last couple of days that they have just discovered gravity waves, and your food is not right side up!! :-)

Lovely, very lovely!

dcarch
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
8 years ago
Everything looks lovely indeed!

& FWIW, I believe the sideways pix are from holding your camera phone vertically, rather than horizontally...?
annie1992
8 years ago
LOL, dcarch, it's a wrinkle in the space-time continuum......yeah, that's it!

L, it looks good to me, I'm sorry your cake didn't come out well but with all those unusual components and substitutions, I'm not surprised. I'm sure the ladies loved it anyway.

Oh, and that cream colored picture in the front is lovely. Your whole table is lovely, but that really caught my eye.

Annie
l pinkmountain
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Yes but I edited the photo in "Paint" and rotated it, (and resized it) and saved the changes. It doesn't show up skewed when I open it in any software, just when I post it here. Didn't want to fiddle more, but this happens to me sometimes when I try to post edited photos on Facebook too. But only sometimes. Weird.

Yeah, mom left me some great pottery pieces. But the old ladies didn't like them, too heavy and they were worried about dropping them and breaking them. I had to pour the hot water and ice water from the teapot and pitcher. And these were not frail old ladies either, all go getters!

As for the cake, I was overly optimistic . . .
Islay Corbel
8 years ago
I bet your friends were thrilled with their lovely tea.It's such a treat!
agmss15
8 years ago
It looks lovely!

I try to limit my experimental elements in a new recipe to one or two ingredients - well maybe three... Sometimes I get lead far astray. But I am also my own worst critic.
party_music50
8 years ago
It does look beautiful! Too bad about the cake, but it sounds like you tried! lol!

So what recipe did you use for the 'spinach dip' filled cups that were a hit? I'd like to try them!
sushipup1
8 years ago
Looks lovely! About baking and your cake, you are a scientist! Baking is chemistry, a recipe is a formula. Try again with the required ingredients and no changes, and see what you get. I think you could use a success for your baking confidence! Never give up!

You should be quite pleased with your lovely results for the tea!
l pinkmountain
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
I have some tried-and-true recipes for cakes that I could/should have made. I had made a good coffee cake once before with canned pears using a Penzey's recipe, but it called for chopped candied ginger which I didn't have and can't get locally. Since I knew the candied ginger was a big part of the cake's appeal, I tried googling a recipe that didn't rely on that ingredient. Hence the one I found, which had a great streusel top and I guess might even be a great cake made with fresh pears, but who knows if I will try that again. If I make a whole cake in a 10 inch springform pan for just myself and dad, it will mold before I can get it all used up. I know this because I have had umpteen cakes mold on me and even go bad in the freezer since I just can't eat them up fast enough. I have tried to find a definitive recipe for ginger pear muffins without a smashing success so far.

As for the yogurt container being filled with cooked white beans, and not knowing I was out of brown sugar, that I can rack up to my crazy life where I am running around between my folks old house where my mom's stuff is, my dad's new condo where he is living, my apt. in another town, and the two storage places where the rest of my personal belongings are. I had just gotten brown sugar, but it was at my dad's condo, not my mom's old kitchen where I made the cake but the kitchens look somewhat alike and I got mixed up. I had two containers in my apt. fridge that were for yogurt. One was an old one I put the white beans in and didn't take time to label with masking tape, and the other was the real yogurt. I forgot about the beans and grabbed the wrong one.

The rest was trying to kill too many birds with one stone, which I am guilty of lately since I have so many birds in the air around me! I was overly optimistic about how a little sugar and spice might counteract the lousy tasting pears. I am not just a scientist but an adventurer. It could have been an epic good tasting Rube Goldberg cake, but instead it was (thankfully) a marginal but not awful cake.

The spinach dip was just the recipe from the back of the Knorr vegetable dip packet. Mom had it left over in the cupboard and I had the ingredients on hand to use it up, along with a bag of bagel chips. I don't normally use the Knorr veg. dip for spinach dip since it has MSG in it which I am mildly sensitive too, and WAY too much salt for my taste. The best part of the tea for me was the Edam cheese, which I almost never buy, it is too expensive!

The best laid plans . . . (long)

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The best laid plans . . . (long)

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