Sympathy for bad cake?

[lantana]

Dear fellow cooks,

I hate it when this happens!

It was a long day, and it was DH's birthday. I wanted to make him a nice birthday cake from scratch. I followed a recipe from Smitten Kitchen, which was billed at the best birthday cake. Her other cakes have worked for me, and this one got great reviews. I was enthusiastic!

I measured carefully and followed the recipe exactly. The batter was fluffy and delicious. It baked into a beautiful, aromatic yellow cake. I used a chocolate sour cream icing recipe we both like. When we finally got to the cake last night, it was FAIR, OK, A CAKE, YES, but not at all worth repeating or even finishing the slice we started. It will likely end up in the composter, feeding a variety of insects and toads.

I HATE THIS! I really wanted it to be great.

Any sympathy would be appreciated. I don't really need to do the recipe again, as once was enough, with all the costly ingredients.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

Alice

[Trishinomaha]

I HATE it when that happens! I think we've all tried recipes for various things that have gotten rave reviews from other people but just didn't hit the mark for us. For example, I did a roast chicken last night that had a five star rating from recipezaar. Our verdict after tasting?? meh...nothing special. I'll try a different recipe next time. Anyway, I feel your pain - so discouraging to put a lot of effort and ingredients into something and not have it turn out.

[bbenedict]

If this was the cake you made, I had the exact same experience. Didn't care for it. It definitely did not live up to my expectations. My sympathies....

Bonnie

[Shugness]

I looked at the link in Bonnie's post, it's probably just the picture and me knowing in advance two people didn't enjoy it, but the cake looks kind of dry and crumbling, not fluffy and moist. Just curious - were you able to pinpoint whether it was the cake, the frosting or both? Personally - I've never been a big fan of yellow cake with chocolate icing anyways, it's a bit on the boring side - I don't think for me even the best of the best recipe would help. Could that have been the case for you or is it a cake you have had before and enjoy?

[kcmo727]

Hi lantana,

Thanks for posting this -- and yes, we have all been there! I remember that post on SK (the picture is amazing) and I was planning on making it someday. Now I won't bother, esp. since Bonnie was also underwhelmed. I wonder if it was the cake flour? Cake flour recipes never seem as good to me as AP flour ones. No scientific reasoning to back that up, just personal feeling.

I am in general a from scratch baker but I have to tell you that after many years I still LOVE the Cake Mix Doctor's yellow cake recipe. I make it for my own bday every year and never get sick of it. You can tell it has cake mix in it but to me it tastes like a delicious bakery cake. Aso, the layers are very sturdy and hold up the frosting really well. Give it a try sometime.



Mom's Layer Cake

INGREDIENTS
Solid vegetable shortening for greasing the pans
Flour for dusting the pans
1 18.25-oz. pkg. plain white cake mix
1 cup whole milk
8 tbsp. (1 stick) butter, melted
3 large eggs
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pans aside.
2. Place the cake mix, milk, melted butter, eggs and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look well blended. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it out with the rubber spatula. Place the pans in the oven side by side.
3. Bake the cakes until they are golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed with your finger, 27 to 29 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 10 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edge of each layer and invert each onto a rack, then invert them again onto another rack so that the cakes are right side up. Allow them to cool completely, 30 minutes more.

[lantana]

Thanks to all of your for the sweet replies. I know this happens occasionally. You can't really have new recipe failure unless you try new recipes, of course. Not for a birthday, next time.

Bonnie: That is the correct link. Isn't the photo so cute?

Shug: I don't usually choose yellow cake, either, but the description was so good, I wanted to give it a try. The cake was fluffy but not moist. I checked it carefully for doneness, and I don't think it was overbaked. I used a slightly different chocolate sour cream icing recipe that we already like. I didn't want the corn syrup part of the original one.

I will check out the Cake Mix Doctor recipe for another occasion. I am not averse to giving it a try. It has to be easier and cheaper than what I just produced.

Alice

[bbenedict]

I didn't find the cake moist either. I have been on the hunt for the perfect yellow cake recipe because a dear friend's favorite birthday cake is a yellow cake with chocolate icing. Every one I've tried (including several recipes I've found on the boards) has been disappointing.

The only yellow cake I've found that has been good so far was a CL Yellow Sheet Cake with Chocolate Frosting. I haven't made it in a while, but remember the cake being very moist and with good color.

Bonnie

[Beth]

I haven't made that cake, but I do know the feeling. For birthdays around here, the cake is usually chocolate and I have spent a lot of money on what should be spectacular -- some are and some are not. It's really disappointing, especially when you get your birthday or special occasion expectations up.

[zwieback]

I've made the Smitten Kitten cake, too. I found it to be dry and just kind of "eh" as well. I haven't found a white or yellow cake recipe yet that I've found to be exceptional. I can make a chocolate cake that is moist and delicious. For some reason, the white or yellow cakes just disappoint me every single time.

[drewberry4]

There was an Italian Cream Cake in an old issue of CL that I made for my (half-Italian) DH for his birthday in March and I was SO excited to have it because it was so highly reviewed.

We were so disappointed when, after buying all these different extracts and ingredients, it was only alright. It was good enough to smash into tupperware to take for lunches following his birthday, but it wasn't the extraordinary cake I'd heard it would be

[Middydd]

Originally Posted by drewberry4

There was an Italian Cream Cake in an old issue of CL that I made for my (half-Italian) DH for his birthday in March and I was SO excited to have it because it was so highly reviewed.

I made that cake, too. It was ok but nothing so special.

[LakeMartinGal]

Sorry this happened for you. It should have worked, since you've had luck with her other cakes. Bummer!

My DM was famous for trying recipes on company... I don't dare!

[haley17]

I tried that cake too. I don't remember where I got the link, but I recall the photos and the recipe. I thought that it was okay, but nothing special. Mine was kind of dry and crumbly. However, I blamed the cook rather than the recipe, as I am not a great cake baker.

[Linda in MO]

Maybe I'm the weird one, but I've made that cake twice (as cupcakes and using a different frosting) and we loved it. Different strokes, I guess.

[tholbrook]

We liked it too - although I wouldn't necessarily consider it "THE" yellow cake as smitten kitchen does. I made it as a sheet cake, and I was very careful not to overbake it. It had a nice moist crumb - at least for the first day or two. It did dry out quickly after that. I made the chocolate sour cream icing from the same blog post, and it is not a repeater for me.

[helios7]

I like this cake from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book. I've made it several times, and find it to be moist and delicious each time. I won't go so far as to say it's the best one out there, but it's my go to recipe for a yellow cake (which I love).

Basic Golden Cake Layers

A warm golden color with a tender crumb, this cake works well with a variety of frostings, from a rich buttercream to a whipped ganache and everything in between.

Makes 2 9 inch cake layers

3 1/22 cups (11.5oz/325g) sifted cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks/8 oz/227g) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups (10.6 oz/300g) sugar
3 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 (320 ml) whole milk

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit. Grease the bottom and sides of the 2 9-inch round cake pans. Dust the pans with flour.

2. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, and set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer using the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium-high speed until creamy, about 30 seconds. Gradually add the sugar and beat at high speed until light, 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to low, and add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract. If you have a splatter shield for your mixer, attach now as milk tends to splash as you add it. Add the flour mixture at low speed in three additions, alternating it with the milk in two additions and mixing just until the flour is incorporated. Scrape the batter into the prepared pans, dividing it evenly, and smooth the tops.

4. Bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. Cool the cakes in the pans on wire racks for 15 minutes.

5 Invert the layers onto the racks and cool completely.

Store at room temperature, covered in foil, for up to 5 days

[Gail]

I know that I tend to swim upstream against the masses, but unless I really have a good sense of the person who's advising me, I've long since stopped putting too much stock on the opinions of others when it comes to things like films and recipes. More often than not, I find myself disappointed. In terms of recipe selections, I tend to go by ingredients-- and while I do read reviews I pay more attention to negatives (did everyone find something tasteless, did they share a common bond with regard to certain failings...) and even then, that method isn't completely foolproof-- as a lot of us come from the "if-you-can't-say-anything-nice" school, feeling that constructive comments are still criticisms so we only share positive reviews.

But I'm not giving you sympathy am I? (instead am rambling on and on about stuff you probably don't care about. Sorry. I do that.) I can't imagine there is a person here who hasn't cooked/baked something with high hopes, watched it slowly turning golden through the window of the oven, inhaled heavenly aromas, pulled the thing out of the oven claiming total perfection, only to settle in with a taste and react with a shrug.
It's enormously ungratifying-- yet I guess you have to take some pride in the knowledge that YOU did it all right and it was the recipe that failed you.

Sorry.

[Gecko]

Sorry that the recipe did not work out for you. I hate it when this happens too. I am sure that your DH loved it anyway because it was something you made especially for him. Just keep experimenting because that perfect recipe is out there somewhere just waiting to be found.

[vabelle35]

Ugh! I feel for you. I've tossed a number of things this year starting in February with a shower cake that turned into a disaster, fondant and all. As the cake was going down hill fast, I called Wegmans bakery to find out my drop dead time before I had to pronounce my cake dead and order in. It was the darkest day in all of my years of baking.

At Easter I wanted to make choc chip and oatmeal raisin cookies and they, too, were a disaster.

I have narrowed it down to the fact that I changed from Gold Medal flour to King Arthur. I switched back to Gold Medal for my county fair baking in August and everything came out the way it usually does.

re Cake Mix Doctor

I use these a lot with great success. I have 5 nieces and nephews and bake for work a lot. I find that people/kids are used to the flavor of boxed cake and when you try to make a chocolate or yellow cake from scratch it doesn't taste the same to them. My nephew said my chocolate cake tasted like a$$ one Thanksgiving. That was the last time I made a non-box cake for the family birthday cake.

[Canice]

Originally Posted by vabelle35

. My nephew said my chocolate cake tasted like a$$ one Thanksgiving. That was the last time I made a non-box cake for the family birthday cake.

Hell, that'd be the last time I made ANYTHING for him.

[vabelle35]

He was 7. I had to cut him some slack. They're so honest at that age.

[Canice]

Fair enough.
Never too young to learn that honesty is NOT, in fact, always the best policy!

[Beth]

But that expression would leave you wondering at any age.

Vabelle35, I find it interesting that you and problems when you switched flour brands. I use those two brands and haven't noticed a difference, but I bake breads and cookies more than cakes. Do you use the unbleached or bleached all-purpose?

I read a few years ago that GM has at least 2 - maybe 3 -- different places where they mill flour and the flour can vary based on the location where it was milled and the hardness of the wheat grown in that area. It wasn't a huge difference, but you might notice it in cakes or breads. I wonder if KA is all milled in the same place. Seems more likely. You got my curiosity, but I guess what matters is to find what works best for you, stick with it and hope they don't change it.

[Valerie226]

It's always a risk you take when you have very high expectations, that you may be disappointed. you see it every day on the BB when someone reviews a recipe as wonderful, and the next person says it was bland and tasteless. you find something spit-out bad and others report their families wolfed it down and couldn't get enough. different strokes..

I personally don't like yellow cake/ chocolate frosting....seems like a total mismatch of flavors to me. Better luck next time.

[Middydd]

Can I have sympathy for my bad pie?

I got a fancy gizmo (on sale 99 cents) that cuts a pattern of apples in pie crust. Used it on my Thanksgiving apple pie and the apples stayed crunchy instead of softening. Guess the big holes let the heat out and didn't get the apples hot enough or steamed enough.

So much for fancy pie crusts, back to tried and true.

[vabelle35]

Do you use the unbleached or bleached all-purpose?

I think it's the GM Unbleached, but I have to check when I get home.

Someone told me that there is also a moisture content factor with flour that varies by brand.

I will paste here what she said to me from the other message board. It's blocked from work so I can't access it right now.

[vabelle35]

I am home.

I use GM Unbleached flour.

Here is the info I was given on the differences in flour:

King Arthur is made from winter wheat, so it is higher in gluten than some other flours. I don't know about Gold Medal, but White Lily (which you cannot find north of DC and probably not west of TX) is summer wheat, which is low gluten. If you are making dough of any kind, higher gluten is better. For cakes (and prob. cookies), lower gluten is better.