Wednesday 15 October 2014

In The Interest Of Science I Made A Cake

Two weekends ago I took a cake I had made to the Brit Bee Retreat. It proved to be a hit with the others and they asked for the recipe. It was a recipe I had used before, from my Pinterest boards. I had never had a problem with it. Well, some of the others have made it and there has been a varied success rate resulting.


It's a cinnamon roll cake and the recipe is very simple in that you put all the ingredients, bar one, into the mixer and combine, and then add the melted butter, combine and the job's done for the batter.


You then make a mixture of butter, sugar, flour and cinnamon and dot it all over the top.


Take a skewer and swirl it through the topping and batter, cutting that cinnamon through the cake but not too much. You to be able to distinguish one from the other still.


When it comes out and has sat for a moment you will have molten craters of cinnamon goodness, and while the cake is still warm you drizzle on an icing.

So what went wrong for some of my friends? First up a mistake by me. I pinned the recipe - twice. The recipes look exactly the same but they are not. One has more butter in the cinnamon mixture, tells you to cook it longer and insists on a glass baking dish. This is not the recipe I have used, but unfortunately the one that did get used by Sarah. Sorry Sarah! I've deleted the recipe from my pin board now. A little too late for you unfortunately. The other slip up in the making involved plain flour and self raising flour. This recipe definitely uses plain flour. Apparently self raising works. It just makes it puff up more and a lot fluffier in the eating.

Sarah also had a problem with the cinnamon mixture bubbling up and caramelising. I can only presume that this was due to the added butter in the mixture for the recipe she used, and the longer cooking time given by that blogger.

So my conclusions, if you ever want to use this recipe - and really you should as it is very yummy indeed despite the problems - are the following:

- a glass baking dish is neither here nor there but having a baking pan that is big enough is. This is a big cake, a sharing cake. You need a 9" x 13" pan, or one of comparative size.

- the baking time for the recipe I use is 28-32 minutes. It could use a minute or two more but if you leave it for longer you are in danger of the caramelising thing happening with the cinnamon mixture around the edges of the pan. Not that I don't mind a bit of caramelised cinnamon mixture mind.

- if you are used to using weight measurements instead of cups then my books tell me that 3 cups of flour equals 15ozs in weight. And 1 cup of sugar equals 8ozs. That being said I weighed the flour I measured before putting it in the mixing bowl and my scales told me I had 18ozs. I do not sift my flour. Can. Not. Be. Bothered. This may have influenced the weigh scales. If you don't have American style measuring cups then you might want to invest in some.

- I think that the full amount of the icing is too much. But that's just my subjective opinion.I like sugar but enough is enough. I make about 3/4 of the amount indicated and am happy with how much icing I have.

- 350F = 180C = Gas 4 = 160C fan oven

I hope this does away with any confusion. After all this, if you are curious, and hungry - here is the recipe. 


You know that it has to be a pretty good cake if four of my friends went home and made it less than a week after having it at our retreat. It's like chocolate flapjacks. Addictive.

Susan

26 comments:

  1. Love cinnamon so must try this . I have never had chocolate flap jacks , but they sound good

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  2. Oh yes, I needed an other addiction in the house coming from you! I only have to wait an other month until the cook book arrives and we can write all your gorgeous recipes in and never will starve again :D

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  3. so freakin hungry for that cake.... you forgot to mention that despite the almost doubled cooking time mine was inedibly raw.... feel free to use the picture!

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  4. That looks easy! Although, having seen Sarah's scarey horror of a tin I know that is not to be taken for granted! And I won't be able to persuade Chook to make it for me. Or, indeed, eat it since she loathes cinnamon. Shame. *g*

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  5. So fun, will definitely have to make it. I love my American measuring cups, but after living in Greece for 6 years finally broke down and bought a scale so my recipes could come out better.

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  6. Looks bloody gorgeous :) Thanks for all the tips!

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  7. You may also want to remind people that tablespoons are not the same size everywhere. Some times they are 3x as big as a teaspoon, sometimes 4x. That recipe looks NA (north american) so probably the tablespoons are 3x as big as a teaspoon. Just in case that is also an issue. Your photos look very tasty, off to try it.

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  8. I'm definitely not looking at the recipe...I daren't!!

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  9. I'm so going to make this cake, and it's all your fault. Thanks

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  10. I fail at 'mixer' and correct size pan, so I will just look on, sobbing!

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  11. I have made the chocolate flapjacks, so will have to give this a go too

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  12. And now I want to eat cake for breakfast - you are evil....

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  13. ^^ I agree - you are evil (but in a very nice way ;))

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  14. Well I'd pinned the right one... just not had the time. Or the recipients really...

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  15. Now that's my kind of cake! I'm going to send this to Shannon so she can make it for me when she's home in December!! Jxo

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  16. That is a good excuse if ever I heard one...

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  17. Oh my, that looks so good.

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  18. That cake, the correct one, sounds wonderful

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  19. I'm going to have to try this!

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  20. So I just tried it and had a bit of a Sarah thing going on! It was in the oven for 50 mins and was still raw in the middle. The kids have gobbled the edges and loved it and I've put it back in the oven again. Apparently it was a 9/10 cake, but your version was much more delicious!

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  21. Made it. Shared it . Eaten it. Mine was great, thank you! X

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  22. I tried this recipe the other week...so delicious!!

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  23. Think you need to make some for Helen next time you pass by!

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