Monday, September 29, 2008

I did it again

Once again I have managed to throw a bunch of stuff in the KitchenAid mixer, pour into a pan, pop into the oven and, 25 minutes later, pull out a really yummy cake -- all without following a recipe!

Yay me!

Downside: yet another kitchen triumph that may be emulated but never duplicated because not only did I not write down what I did as I went along, I didn't even measure anything. Slap-dash baking at its best!

Which wasn't what I set out to do. Late morning-ish I took 4 eggs from the fridge and a stick of unsalted butter from the freezer and set them out on the counter to warm up to room temp. I thought I was going to make a small genoise with a nice butter-creamcheese-tangerine frosting around, oh, mid-afternoon or so.

Then I got caught up in sewing projects, and laundry, and baking more whole grain bread (a higher priority, to my husband, than cake, though not to me), and the day got away from me and suddenly it was 6 pm and I was wiped and I still hadn't made a cake (Sunday is CAKE NIGHT! in our house, so disappointing when I drop the ball and don't come through with the goodies, even if they're just for the two of us).

By that point the eggs were warmer than room temp (they'd been hit with an hour of late afternoon sun on a warm, sticky day here in Hilo, oops) and the butter was droopy and leaking. And I just didn't have the zip left to do the genoise thing, which isn't all that hard but is a bit of a production.

So instead I dumped the butter in the KitchenAid mixer bowl, poured in some raw sugar and set it whipping up. 4 eggs to one stick butter is a little off as a general cake ratio, though, so I added about 2 TBSP of cream cheese. And the 1/2 cup of grated tangerine rind and sugar I'd had in the freezer, and had thawed with the genoise in mind. In that went. All four eggs, one at a time. A generous glug of vanilla extract. Threw some toasted almond pieces in the mini-chop and ground them up, in they went, too. Then a couple of generous scoops of (fluffed with a fork) whole wheat pastry flour, a bit of salt, a couple teaspoons of baking powder, and a few large spoonfuls of yogurt.

Looked like batter, tasted like batter, so into my 7x11 pyrex baking dish it went, and into the oven at 350 until browned and yummy smelling and done. Total prep time, oh, maybe 3 minutes?

So, some kind of an almond-tangerine butter cake. A little frosting would be good, or a drizzle/soak with orange syrup, but I haven't bothered with any of that. I did, however, have a nice piece for breakfast this morning with my coffee, and the flavor is even better than yesterday.

Now, the dilemma: do I wrap up a few pieces and put them in the freezer for future Cake Nights, or just keep the pan in the fridge till it's gone?

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