Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The disaster that nearly was

After indulging over the Christmas break I’ve developed a bit of an afternoon sweet tooth. (I swear I didn’t have it before, those mid-afternoon chocolate bars were more a compulsion to spend than eat, promise.)

To satisfy this craving and to cook something nice for S-bo, instead of taunting him with yummy creations, only to take them to work morning teas, I decided to make a Mango and Coconut Cake (pictured) last week. Would you believe I still have a folder full of uncooked recipe clippings, after all that effort in 2007. This clipping is so old that I can’t even remember where it came from, all I know is it’s on the back of my faithful and popular Caramel Mudcake recipe.

So has it made the cut and gone into my permanent recipe collection? You betcha. I chose the cake because, apart from begging to be cooked for a very long time, it seemed appropriate for this time of year, with the summery flavours of mango and coconut. The cream cheese icing takes on the personality of yoghurt, and could even do with a little more mango nectar, while the coconut gives the cake a great crunchy texture.

So where is the disaster? You might be asking this question due to this posts title, but if you’re familiar with my baking style you’d probably be asking it anyway. The cake is missing an egg! I realised this about 2 minutes after the cake went into the oven. If I used particularly large, good quality eggs then I might not have panicked so much. However the eggs had been floating around the fridge since before Christmas and appeared to come from a 7-eleven or similar, not well known for free range, quality produce I’m sure. No offence to 7-eleven if I’m incorrect as this is my preferred place of purchase when I’m in a blind panic, half way through baking late on a Sunday evening, only to find no eggs in the fridge. Back to the present disaster though…

Two minutes into the oven (the cake, not me) and I’m wandering whether I can pull the cake out and stir in a beaten egg. I opted for no. Instead I wrung my hands for the entire 85 minutes, expecting to be rewarded with a strangely textured cake. Fortunately my 3 piddly eggs must have been sufficient, as the cake turned out fine.

Phew, I’ve made it through my 2nd post AND survived a baking disaster. This is definitely rebirth by fire. Email me if you would like the recipe.

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