Monday, May 31, 2010

Chai spiced buttermilk cake


Posted by -Sue

I made this cake fairly early in the month, but between gardening, reading and knitting am only now getting around to posting. And the fact that this was a not-so-succesful challenge for me may also have come into play! BTW- everybody else's cakes look great.
I thought I had found a perfect recipe - it was from Cooking Light, was low in fat and was flavored with Chai. Yum!! Wrong!
The recipe started out by brewing 6 chai teabags in 1/2 cup boiling water, which was later added to the cake mixture. The only problem was that the tea didn't really add much flavor, but gave the cake a funny, tannin-y aftertaste. The only other spice was cinnamon, which also didn't add much flavor.
My other problem was with the leavening; it had neither baking soda nor baking powder but relied on meringue to lighten it. The finished cake was rather dense and gummy. I may have under-baked it, but I suspect the meringue was the problem. The recipe called for "stiff peaks" and I'm not sure I beat it enough. I also repeated a mistake that I've made before by folding in the meringue with a silicone spatula rather than a thin metal spoon, thus losing some of the air in the meringue.
All in all, not one of my better efforts. I'm not even going to include the recipe, since I wouldn't recommend it to anyone!! Ah, well, better luck to me next time!

2 comments:

Amber said...

Oh that is such a shame Sue that it did not work out for you. I am a fan of cooking light as well and usually make recipes based on their ratings. So thank you for trying this one out and now I know not to make this recipe :( I know the other recipes are not as healthy but trust me they are worth the extra calories :) I hope this next month's challenge works out better for you!

shriya said...

It happens sometime and I have lots of disaster happened in my baking.