Disaster Baking

[Night Fury]

Making a cake for my Sister's Birthday today.

Pink Lemonade Layer Cake.


Except urrrrgh, I've ran out of food colouring and don't have anyone who can run me to the store to get any (I'm living like, in the middle of nowhere now) and my oven is being such a shit and not cooking things.

I'm so upset, I really hope I can get this cake to turn out because she wanted me to do it so much :(

[Chris]

Baking is SO hard. It's a precise science, and it is NEVER a good idea to improvise or be a smartass about it.

I'm good at baking certain things, but other things like plain bread, buns or baguettes, terrifies me to no end.

[Night Fury]

Yep. Cake is fucked.

I'm pretty convinced it's the oven. For a start it's uneven and wonky - I have just learnt this by the fact my cake is wonky. It's also not cooked all the way through which suggests that the temperature in the oven is wrong. I feel so useless now, I was really hoping this would turn out, but once again it's just completely fucked.

[noxious.sunshine]

That sucks. I've had a pink lemonade cake, but the tartness of it seemed off to me.

If food coloring is your only problem, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Taste is more important than looks.
Especially if you're going to ice it anyway once it's baked (assuming you don't need food coloring for the icing).
No one will care, I promise.

I've muffed cakes when it came to icing them. I always make Mexican 3 milks cake and you have to pour a rather large amount of a milk mixture onto the cake (after poking lots of holes in it with a fork) and let it "soak" in the fridge for awhile. It makes the cake very soft and spongy, so icing it is hard to do. Especially since it's -impossible- to find Mexican-style non-dairy whipped topping like the stores in Phoenix use around here in TN. Something about the texture of it and whatnot is way different than Cool Whip or making it yourself (which I've tried)

EDIT:

Welp. Looks like food coloring wasn't your only problem. heh. Sorry.

maybe try rotating it and putting it back in the oven?

[Chris]

Locky, there's absolutely no chance of saving it? When worse comes to worst, just make sure to cover it with a lot of stuff to distract from the fact that the cake itself is a failure. :(

[Night Fury]

I've managed to salvage one cake. The other broke as I took it out of the tin and isn't cooked through, I've pulled it together and whacked it back in. Gonna hope the icing will hold it all together. Fingers crossed. Really not in the mood to feel like a failure today.

Nope. Cake completely failed. Feel like such a failure. Time, money, ingredients wasted.

[Shorty]

Baking is SO hard. It's a precise science, and it is NEVER a good idea to improvise or be a smartass about it.

I'm good at baking certain things, but other things like plain bread, buns or baguettes, terrifies me to no end.

This man is a liar. I improvise all the time and go off recipe amounts that I remember in my head and if I don't, I determine what the appropriate amount of an ingredient is to use.

Baking is the one thing you don't have to be super precise about. :jess: Cooking is something else entirely, though. Beating eggs for a certain amount of time, whipping cream for a certain amount of time and to stop before it's over-whipped, boiling for a certain amount of time, not letting something rise above x temperature for x amount of minutes.

I don't have anything else to contribute about disasters, I just wanted to school Chris.

[Pumpkin]

I tried to make lemon cookies a few months ago.

It wasn't good :(.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

They were pretty tasty.

They were just pretty tasty sugar cookies. No lemon. :p

[Chris]

lol ok sara-h complete fail

things will naturally fail if you follow a bad recipe, but always follow the good ones, and it will never fail

sarah's been schooled

[noxious.sunshine]

I'm actually with Chris on this one.

I improvise with cooking -all- the time and things rarely end in a bad way.

Baking on the other hand, -is- an exact science. Buddy Valastro (from Cake Boss) has said it himself on his show "Kitchen Boss". I wouldn't dare deviate from a recipe if I'm baking something unless it's to add like chopped fruit to a cake or brownies or something.

[Shorty]

Suum cuique!

[Jinx]

MAKE CAKE CRUMBLE OR SOMETHING

:(

I'm sure you did your best, and your sister will appreciate your effort.

[Formalhaut]

It's the thought that counts, after all. :) I'd be overjoyed if someone gave me their best attempt at a cake or cookies or something!

I'd say my biggest failure was trying to make a battenburg. The marzipan just didn't stick. I don't know how. It said to apply the jam as a 'glue', and I did, and I rolled the marzipan on and... bleh. It sort of half stuck, but some bits crumbled somehow.

It was still tasty, but the presentation was something to be desired.

When it comes to baking, definitely follow the recipe if at all possible. You deviate at your own peril I think.

[fire_of_avalon]

This man is a liar. I improvise all the time and go off recipe amounts that I remember in my head and if I don't, I determine what the appropriate amount of an ingredient is to use.

Baking is the one thing you don't have to be super precise about. :jess: Cooking is something else entirely, though. Beating eggs for a certain amount of time, whipping cream for a certain amount of time and to stop before it's over-whipped, boiling for a certain amount of time, not letting something rise above x temperature for x amount of minutes.

I don't have anything else to contribute about disasters, I just wanted to school Chris.
Uhmm... yeah, sorry baby but I have to tell you about how you are wrong. Wrrrrrrroooooooooooong. It sounds like you probably have good baking instincts and have therefore had no disasters, but baking is a precise undertaking. I'll admit it's fairly easy to whip up a batch of brownies or a basic pie crust, but once you get into cakes, souffles, breads and all things yeast, it becomes really important to know how your ingredients are working together. Knowing that fats and oils need to be near room temperature to properly emulsify, knowing the ratio of proteins to starches for a properly structured dish that doesn't cave in on itself - these things are totally scientific!

tl;dr gurl you need some Alton Brown in your life. :<3: