Books and cakes - 55

    A baking failure!

    I think this is the first time in 55 pairings of books with cakes (or rather 54, if you take into account the liquid refreshment for My Cousin Rachel), that the results have been disappointing.

    Simon Mawer's The Glass Room - which we're talking about here - involves the consumption of the famous Sacher-Torte, a cake I've made many times, but it also mentions bábovka cake, something I hadn't come across before. Searching for a recipe I discovered many variations, some for a yeasted dough, others with a poppy seed filling. The simplest version was a sponge made with oil instead of butter, flavoured with cinnamon, and divided into two parts so that cocoa powder could be added to half and the light and dark mixtures marbled together in the tin before baking.

    Not having the appropriate tin I decided to make individual cakes, one of which you see here. For starters they all broke as I removed them from their moulds so in shape they are far from perfect, but the texture isn't good either being rather on the claggy side. However, it's the taste which is the biggest let-down as they are far from sweet enough and neither the cinnamon nor the cocoa comes through sufficiently to make their presence felt.

    It's near the end of the book, when the Landauers (or Landors as they are known by then) are in America, that the bábovka cake appears when Veselý is served it by Ottilie's son. I hope it was a bit more appetising than my effort.

Comments

[Anji]

Oh that's too bad ! Would it have helped to have covered it with some custard ?

[Cornflower]

Custard would hide a multitude of sins and improve them greatly! Meanwhile, I've just spread one with some Nutella, and that made a big difference.

[Barbara MacLeod]

It looks like it has been one of those weeks! I burned the soup in the pressure cooker today - a thing I haven't done for years!

[Anji]

My baking failure was to replace the sugar in the crumble with salt. I was making a plum crumble, my husband's favourite. If I remember rightly the custand I made to go with the crumble turned out perfect, there wasn't a single lump. We couldn't think initally why it tasted 'funny' Kevin dutifully ate it not wanting to say anything particularly as I had made an effort to bake something. I told him he was daft to eat more than one spoonful. My custard has never been as nice as it was on that ocassion!

[Claire]

I once made the meringue for Quuen of Puddings without putting in the sugar. Spread it over the pudding and put it in the oven. Whilst cooking the "meringue" completely disappeared! Took me some time to work out where it had gone!

[Cornflower]

Burnt soup, salt in the crumble, sugarless meringue - we're all human!