No pressure, right?
Keep in mind that I’m still learning to use ingredients like butter,
eggs, and white chocolate, especially in baked goods. Butter is a completely different consistency
than butter-flavored Crisco. It has to
be slightly melted and softened before it can be added to the flour mixture of
the cake batter. Oh, how I miss
Crisco! You could just dump it right in
the bowl without any preparation. If
only they would make a soy free version!
And then there are the eggs – the saving grace for any cake – they help
the cake rise and give it a moist fluffiness that no substitute can quite
create. I’m glad that I’m no longer
allergic to these simple miracles, so that I can experiment with cake
making. Finally, the white chocolate,
which is another ingredient I’ve grown to love.
For the cake, it had to be melted, slightly cooled, and then slowly
added to the batter. This was a
challenge because it couldn’t get too hard in the cooling stage or it wouldn’t
mix with the batter. Somehow the timing worked
out though.
I only came across one real snag when mixing the
ingredients: I realized that I didn’t have any sour cream. I never buy sour
cream because I typically still buy groceries that are dairy free unless there
is something special I’m planning to make as in the case of the White Velvet
Cake. Somehow I forgot, so when I came
upon the line in the recipe to add it to the batter, I panicked. Should I skip it altogether? Is there a substitute that might work? I had some applesauce, but would that make it
taste like apples? All of these
questions quickly raced through my head before I decided to Google “sour cream
substitutes” and discovered that yogurt is the best substitute. Too bad I didn’t have any of that
either. I also found that buttermilk and
butter could be used. And no, I didn’t
have any buttermilk, but I normally substitute almond milk mixed with
apple cider vinegar for this ingredient, so I thought I would give it a
try. Unfortunately, I forgot to melt/soften
the butter and it didn’t mix well with the liquid. My husband gave it his best shot as I mixed
the other ingredients, but it was not meant to be. So…I ended up using most of the liquid and
some of the butter that mixed in just so the cake wouldn’t be too dry. At this point I wished that I had bought that
cake mix at the store!
Long story short: the cake looked beautiful and golden in
the pans until I removed them from the pans (and yes, I did grease and flour
them). Parts of the cake stuck, which made
frosting the cake a little more difficult as cake mixed in with the icing. But the frosting actually made the cake. Without the icing on top of the cake, it
wouldn’t have been worth eating. I made
a White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting as the original recipe
recommended. It was delicious and made
me change my negative thoughts toward cream cheese frosting. Add white chocolate and it is a masterpiece!
The cake itself was dry and didn’t really taste much
different than a dry white or even yellow cake.
Where was the white chocolate taste when I went to all of that effort
adding it to the batter? Maybe the lack
of sour cream messed up the consistency?
(I looked at comments on Pinterest and noticed that other people
complained of the dryness too and I’m pretty sure they didn’t make up a sour
cream substitute!)
The case of the cake will continue as I search for better
recipes that are moist and fluffy. Maybe
I should keep it simple and stick to white or yellow cake recipes. No, you’re right; that would be too easy.