Tuesday, October 05, 2010

ABC bakers; Orange chiffon Tweed cake

ABC Badge_Post*cough* imagine this is my Sound of Music voice, pretending I can sing (and read but that is a story that follows)…

“Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with A-B-C…”

To introduce you to the fact that I joined another group of bakers; ABC-bakers founded by Hanaâ; read all about it here. ABC stands for Avid Bakers Challenge.

Each month a recipe is chosen and on every first Tuesday of the month, we'll post our experiences and photos of the baked creation, but never the original recipe from the book, as they like to encourage everyone to buy the book.
For the year 2010, they've chosen to bake from Flo Braker's "Baking For All Occasions".

I guess I just need a challenge after all to bake those items I longingly look at in my cookbooks and then dismiss because either:
A) too many eggs/butter/cream
B) too much hassle
C) I can’t
D) who is going to eat it (well, easy to answer that one)
E) my hips are doing well enough without….
or all of the above!

IMG_3182So on to my first challenge, due today! An Orange Chiffon Tweed Cake. The tweed here is not the fabric but the sprinkling of chocolate throughout the cake.

Really for a brief moment I thought of contacting Hanaâ how to prepare the pan, because the recipe just said: “prepared pan”. I decided against asking because well, I do know how to prepare a pan right? Wrong! I used a teflon coated tube pan and sprayed with baking spray.
The cake had to be inverted while resting on a long necked bottle and stay there hanging for 3 hours to completely cool. (Now talk about scary, I never tried an angel food cake because of A, B, C, see above).

Sure enough hadIMG_3183 you looked into my kitchen this morning you would have found me wearing big oven gloves, a precariously positioned bottle with a long neck and an inverted cake that immediately started to slide down the bottle.

And only 1 pair of hands.

Hot Damn!

Not sure how I did it, but I managed to shove it back into the form with those big gloved hands while balancing the bottle trying not to upset the cake, causing only minor damage. It's resting on a wire rack now, looking very sad and deflated.

So am I.IMG_3181

The funny thing is that while I was contemplating what to do (I can contemplate very very fast) my first instinct was that I had to take a picture of this stupid situation. Which of course wasn’t possible. Why Why do we only have two hands hm?
On the bright side, next to my elbow I can see an inverted (!) pan of mini-bundts, balanced on two IMG_3184small glass bowls, cakes still intact! See my tube pan wasn’t big enough so I decided to use a 6-bundt pan for the remainder of the batter. Hope that one works out!

{Ploink!} I suddenly remember why I never use that pan… and why it probably was in that yard sale in the first place. It’s in the trash now.

I hope you’ll understand why I didn’t make the zabaglione that had to go with it. Not today. Is it too soon to ban myself from ABC?IMG_3189


Edit to note:
- I should have looked up how to treat a pan for baking these type of cakes...
- the 6 mini bundt all disappeared; the boys love this cake
- the texture of this cake is lovely! I really like the orange shining through and the fact that it's not dry at all, still I think it could use something creamy to go with it. (wow, that's why Flo wanted us to make a sabayon to go with it in the first place I guess).
- Note to self: do grate the chocolate using a food processor, I used a knife and chopped but it's so much nicer to have an even sprinkling of chocolate throughout the cake.
- all in all: a success recipe which deserves a better treatment and a next time!

13 comments:

  1. How brave of you to get stuck in another baking challenge!!
    Chiffon that's with all egg whites right? like angelcake? I once read that you can bake it in a tube pan, but getting it out is very difficult.... guess they were right. Seems that you have to have a real angelcake pan for that. So on your next trip to the states.... wishlist maybe?
    I'd love to eat it, that small one looks cute!

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  2. Ai ai ai...
    Never a dull moment for you challenge-bakers :).

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  3. I've never made a chiffon or angel food cake. Congrats on challenging yourself!

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  4. Looks tasty! Glad you've found somebody else to make you try out new and strange recipes. :)

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  5. So how did you like the taste? I hope the "pan incident" didn't alter the taste or texture of the cake too much.

    The cake doesn't look bad at all, especially the mini-cake. It actually looks pretty with that dusting of powdered sugar! Thanks for baking along with us. I hope this didn't discourage you from participating again. Would be sad to see you leave the group after just one try :o)

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  6. hope I taste good but I know you will. . lol good luck on your challenges=)i

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  7. Hi! Your tiny chiffon looks so pretty and cute! I'm sorry to hear about your chiffon cake went out of form. Actually for chiffon & angel food cake there's no need to prepare the pan, ie no need to spray anything cos you need it to stick to the sides of the pan to hold the structure of the cake while it cools inverted in the pan. :)

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  8. You had issues and still kicked butt! I love how cute your mini bundt cakes are, just adorable.

    Welcome the the ABC group!!!

    Next month is going to be amazing good! Pumpkin icecream filled profiteroles, covered in a shiny chocolate glaze. I, along with several others, are making David Leibowitz (sp?) recipe for the pumpkin ice cream, my first try at it. Hubby thinks I should practice beforehand . . . he's a riot. =)

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  9. This cake looks sooooo good!

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  10. Hi, I always make this orange chiffon cake from Rose levy Beranbaum, here is some video how to mae it, Hope this will help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNCCwHjyogw&feature=player_embedded#!

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  11. Can't join another baking group since I signed on with Cake Slice, but this looks totally yummy! Good tip to grate the chocolate instead of chopping.I would have used a knife and chopped it, too.

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  12. Your minis turned out great! I often dismiss recipes for similar reasons, so it's good to have baking groups to push us. You saved yourself a lot of trouble skipping the sabayon, mine did not turn out well.

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  13. I admire you for joining another baking challenge! I sadly couldn't keep up with even the Daring Bakers...siiigh. You are an inspiration :) This cake sounds lovely...I dream of making light chiffon cakes like this!

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