Another Memorable Moment on my Quest for the Perfect Cake. My cake-making reputation is, well, rather sad. Or at least compromised. I have made a few delicious cakes, but they looked terrible. I’ve made one or two ok-looking cakes, but they were dry, or weird tasting, or the ganache I used as frosting was so hard the cake beneath was obliterated when we tried to cut it. Yes, quite a few dry cakes, and even more cratered cakes. And I’m not a victim of circumstance or bad luck here; this has everything to do with my choosing to be a cake maverick, a confectionary loose cannon. A cookie jar cowboy. Traits I inherited from my dad…hmm. Well, maybe that does make me a victim.
When I was a very little girl, Dad worked for his father in law, Grandpa Compton (aka Mr. Bumbleberry, in a purple and pink tuxedo with a purple top hat) at one of his Bumbleberry Restaurants in California. I have memories of Dad coming home from work late, bringing creamy pies in white cardboard boxes with him.
I loved the past-my-bedtime spoonfuls of Bumbleberry pie in the bright kitchen light, sitting in my nightgown on a countertop, or bare footed on the cool floor. Dad didn’t work at Bumbleberry long; he soon went back to school, but I think his imagination was irrevocably impressed. Ever since then, he has tweaked legitimate recipes with abandon and delight (before that time, I imagine the women in his life always cooked for him, unless he was hunting or fishing with Grandpa Wilson and they wanted to fry up some fresh meat). Recipe digression is my tradition. It is my way of life. It’s in my blood.
This particular cake, made this weekend, is the third tinkering of a recipe I discovered on the back of a cocoa box. The first tinkering was delicious, but cratered. I put summer squash in it that time. Wonderfully moist, and ugly. This time, I tried zucchini. Increased the cocoa and the sugar. Watched it cook, waiting for the perfect moment to take it out of the oven, which was about the time that Nora wanted a snack. So the cake was dry, and broke into crumbs when I dumped it out on the cake plate. Also, I didn’t like the zucchini flavor at first. I doctored up the disheveled cake pieces with a simple syrup (made with ice cream instead of water), and poured a ganache (which stiffened immediately into the consistency of chilled butter) over the top. In the end, it was delicious. Delicious, but refusing to cooperate with the fork, and crumby.
