torte

 I had, what some people would call, an epic failure in the kitchen a few days ago! To back track a few months, last October I made a flourless chocolate cake for Kirsten's birthday - it was good but the edges were more cooked/dry and the middle bordered on undercooked - I thought it was because my springform pan was too small… I baked it again in January, same springform, and a bit longer, ugh. Not good. Way too dry. But the cake itself is quite good so I wanted to get it right.

Enter Amazon and their plethora of pans… the right size was on it's way. Wednesday I tried again… in the right sized pan… took it out at the right time but it was still a bit sticky on the toothpick but I figured it would cook a tiny bit more out of the oven. I was wrong. When I cut it an  hour later it was raw in the middle. Oh oh.

Time for google… it was clearly too late to pop it back in the oven as it was fully cooled… a few sites mentioned microwave so I gave that a go. It cooked it! So I cut it into pieces as bits were going to different people, but gosh, it was dry. Google again - found a recipe for bread pudding using dried cake! Awesome right? I dashed to the kitchen to package the bits into one bag for the freezer but! It was now HARD AS A ROCK. Seriously hard. As in, can't break a piece in half hard. Well, shoot. The bag of rocks is still sitting on the counter - I'll try making crumbs in the food processor - if I can use a hammer to break it into smaller chunks. I wonder what would happen if I soaked some chunks in milk?

Which brings me to yesterday… after 2 days of reading and searching recipes I decided to try it in the instant pot. Sixty minutes later, after checking it 3 times, the final time with a thermometer (210F for pound cake), it seemed to be done. The result is a moist dense cake that is edible but quite different than the original cake. I trotted it out to Pat, Trudie, & Leo last night for dessert - it got a pass. I am left wondering if it's worth the stress though.

I think it would be more aptly named a ‘torte’ rather than a cake.

In between these cooking fiascos I spent the day Thursday with Mom and Dad - a walk with Dad and then Mom and I took off to get our hair cut! A nice day all round :-) 

Through all these adventures in the kitchen I've been trying to keep myself from being dragged down into the murky depths, but haven't been succeeding 100%... I have been having a real struggle the last week and a half - try as I might I can't seem to shake the malaise. Sometimes my mood gets stuck, usually where I don't want it to, and it's hard to turn the dial back to ‘peaceful easy feeling’!

Awesome!

“finally getting a haircut”

“so so chocolaty”