Saturday 26 September 2009

Collapsed Marmalade Cake

At work, we have adopted a new policy on birthday cakes. It's previously been ad hoc, and some people had cakes bought for them, some didn't, some had presents bought, some were told they couldn't even sign the freaking card because it was "just in our team" and the whole thing led to ill-feeling and elitism. If you can have an elitist cake. It certainly felt a bit like a popularity contest. So, after a Dilbertian amount of discussion, we adopted a new policy. BYO birthday cake.

On my birthday, I decided that I would bake a cake. I thought that marmalade cake would hit the spot, using some of my home-made whiskey marmalade. The last time I made this buttery, light, delicious cake, it looked like this:But on this occasion it looked like this:
















Even cream cheese frosting couldn't hide the cavity in the middle. I have no idea what went wrong. At half time in the baking I had a look at it (without opening the oven door) and it was rising beautifully and looking perfect. By the end of the cook-time it had collapsed like a pancake and by the time I turned it out of the tin a hole had developed in the middle and it broke in half in my hands. Then when my back was turned the edge somehow fell off and disappeared...

I bought a supermarket cheesecake to take into the office.

11 comments:

Bettina Douglas said...

Oh well. The marmelade cake that I made - inspired by our conversation - was a great hit at home & at work.

Deb in Hawaii said...

Bummer! The last one was perfect--hate it when that happens!

Alicia Foodycat said...

Mother - it is a great cake! When it works... and the flavour on the collapsed one was still lovely.

Deb - exactly.

kat said...

How weird. You know the birthday thing got so weird at my old office I finally said no more birthday celebrations, it lead to too many hurt feelings

maybelle's mom said...

hopefully you ate it anyway?

NKP said...

I bet it tasted great anyway - this is the time when I make trifle, the ultimate saving grace for a messy cake.

Alicia Foodycat said...

Kat - I was pretty close to that point! How can something so silly become so important?

MM - hell yes! It was delicious! Just not pretty.

Natashya - I didn't even consider trifle. I should have - I love trifle!

HH said...

That is strange indeed FC! The trifle idea is a good one - I made this once in mini baba tins, which stuck horribly and I turned them into the apricot and marscapone (i think) trifle from Nigella Feast. It was amazing!

hungryandfrozen said...

Oh, office birthday politics. A book could be written on the subject. We've definitely pared our celebrations back but not to the point of BYO cake - it's all very Dilbert isn't it! Sorry to hear the cake collapsed because it sounds really good.

mscrankypants said...

Birthday cake politics and Christmas party politics are probably the biggest two issues in any organisation *shudders*.

Perhaps the baking fairies wanted your workmates to have something shop bought while you got to keep the lovely, wonky marmalade cake :-).

Alicia Foodycat said...

HH - I love Nigella's trifle addiction.

Laura - I am coming to the conclusion that it's a dud batch of baking powder.

Cranky - yes, it's time for the Christmas party angst to begin.

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