Some of you will recall I started a Great Cake Baking Project a while back, intending to bake one of each of the cakes in my 80 year old cookbook. The very first cake, an angel food cake, turned out somethig more of an angel food doughnut: it tasted fine right out of the oven, but I’d overwhipped it and it was flat.
Well, having all these leftover egg whites from making custard for ice cream, I figured I should try it again. Except having just moved, I have no idea where my tube pan is. So I ended up making cupcakes.
I didn’t take pictures, but they turned out perfectly. They also verified what my mother has always said to be true, which is that angel food cake is pretty useless cake. It’s only good the day you bake it, and even then the only thing you really want to do with it is pour strawberries and cream over it and make strawberry shortcake. In this regard, it was magnificent. By the next day, it was just sort of nasty. So it’s a good thing they turned out, because now I don’t have to ever make another angel food cake. :)
Then there was the chocolate ice cream I tried making. Now, I screwed up the custard–the double-boiler water wasn’t hot enough when I started, so it cooked too long and got lumpy (causing me to run to the internet to see if lumpy custard could be saved. The answer: yes, with a wire whisk and an arm-numbing amount of whisking.)–so I can’t be sure if it was me or the recipe, but the final result was a frozen chocolate mousse. Now, if you wanted a frozen chocolate mousse, it was very nice, but I didn’t, so it was disappointing. Now I can’t decide if I should try that recipe again in case it was me, or just move on…
My mother thought angel food cake was the perfect birthday cake with chocolate frosting. All 3 of us kids got one every birthday. I was well into adulthood before I finally told her just how much I disliked angel food cake, hahaha.
*laughs* I can see how she would think that! They’re very *pretty* with their texture and color, and they’re kind of a pain to make, so the effort is important (at least to the person making it!), but…yeah. :)