As you may or may not know, today is my birthday. In our family, the birthday person chooses the place to eat on their birthday, and the type of dessert. Then after dinner and dessert, we do presents.
Since I enjoy baking so much, I’ve made my own cake the past couple of years. This year I also decided to make my own.
After scouring through several of my cookbooks, I settled on a cake called Rigo Jancsi (https://www.thebossykitchen.com/hungarian-decadent-chocolate-cake/). It is a traditional Hungarian, my heritage, recipe, which called to me.
With traveling on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I had decided to make the cake on Monday due to timing. One step of the recipe called for a part of the cake be refrigerated for at least four hours, and another step called for the cake to be in the freezer for at least two hours. We were celebrating my birthday on Wednesday to allow all to attend the dinner. There would not have been enough time to make the cake on Wednesday.
After getting all of the ingredients, I made the cake step. Everything seemed to be going okay until I went to move to a board to cut it in half. The sponge just wasn’t cooked all the way through; it still had batter that hadn’t been baked. Although following the timing instructions, and remembering it just didn’t look right at the time, I had taken the cake out too early. The end result was an utter flop. After a moment of disappointment in myself, I chucked it in the trash. Then I forgave myself.
Today, when I woke up, I decided I was going to try the recipe again. After picking up more eggs (nine are needed for the recipe), I began again. This time I used what I know about baking, and made two adjustments. The first was to use the convection feature of our oven; the second was to use the toothpick test for doneness.
Using both of those adjustments, which added about six extra baking minutes, the sponge came out perfectly. I was also to finish the cake today, and it was most delicious!
Happy Birthday to Me!
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 