Tag: Crumb coat

Posted on

Crumbs and crumbles

I had 3 chocolate cake layers in my freezer and since I will do a little entertaining over the holiday season, I need to get some crap out of there. I started with them. As you can see there was an issue with the “bake,” as Paul Hollywood would say. I believe they were a little over-baked, some more than others…the cakes at the back of the oven get baked quicker because the temperature on this brand new oven that I paid 600 billion dollars for, is uneven. 

I often give my cakes a “crumb coat” of frosting which keeps the crumbs contained in a thin layer of frosting which is briefly refrigerated and then refrosted without the unsightly crumbs embedded in the outer frosting. 

In this case we’re going to call it a “crumble layer.” The damn thing was falling apart. I smooshed chunks into the middle layer and spackled on the frosting to keep it all together and threw it into the refrigerator before I frosted it again. It looked a tad lopsided but it tasted fine and I didn’t have Paul Hollywood here to tell me the “bake” wasn’t quite what it ought to be. 



Posted on

Looked good enough outside

Inside, though, it was a mess. Sort of like me. I’m afraid it was not a pretty scene when I smacked the damn cake pan and half the cake stayed in it. One of the problems of having a foul mouth is that really, there are no words sufficiently vulgar when something like this happens. Oh my god was I mad. I was making this for book club and my first thought was, fuck it, they can eat it in chunks. Then I thought perhaps I could make it into some sort of bread pudding-ish thing. I do that a lot with mistakes and leftovers. But after a night spent mumbling annoyedly rather than sleep, I decided to piece it together and frost it. First though, there would be a binding crumb coat. Once that was cooled sufficiently in the refrigerator I frosted it. 

I am not the biggest fan of frosting but this stuff was delicious. The recipe called for 4 cups of powdered sugar. I used only one. Butter and cream cheese. I used orange bitters for flavor and vanilla. 

In the end, the crumb coat, the concept of which I got from my long time pen pal, Annette, held the whole thing together and it worked out pretty well. I’m not sure anyone would have even know what happened except that I had to tell them all the dramatic story. The truth was though, that it was cute outside, inside it was rockin.’ Yeah, I know, sorta like me. 

I had substituted butter for the requisite vegetable oil and slopped in a good bit of orange bitters. 

I took the leftovers to work where they finished it off but they’ll eat anything.