One Year Wiser... Hopefully

Well, I'm not really sure if I'm one year wiser, and that's why you can't see that part of the text very clearly in the photo above. (How humble!) :P But I'm happy to tell you that I have made a progress. In the past, I used this kouglof mold only a few times. My first attempt in 2005 was close to a disaster, and on the second one, still the sides of the cake didn't turn brown almost at all. I blamed it on my oven-cum microwave and gave up on the pursuit of "nicely-browned kouglof cake." The mold had been left in the dark corner of my cupboard and forgotten since then. Yesterday, when I was trying to decide which cake to bake for my birthday, I realized that I was not as enthusiastic as previous years. I didn't want to spend hours in the kitchen decorating the cake, because my Meniere's syndrome was not completely gone and I still felt slightly dizzy once in a while. Also, I didn't want to do a major shopping just for this cake, either. And there was an unopened bottle of maraschino cherries which I wanted to use up somehow. All those lead me to chose this cherry pound cake, my favorite recipe. And I was happy with the decision. The only problem, though, was the decoration. The typical Japanese B-day cake decoration consists of strawberries and whipping cream, but it didn't look right for this cake. But if baked in a simple round or square tin, this cake would need some kind of icing, which I didn't want. So I thought about baking it in an interestingly shaped tin and simply sprinkling confectioner's sugar on top. The only interestingly-shaped tin I had was the kouglof mold. And I never had a success with it. Mmmmm... should I risk it? I did. After all. I tried to learn from the previous unsuccessful attempts and did a few things differently this time. First, I downscaled the recipe to 1/4. And this may be a crazy idea, but to brown the sides as much as possible, I pre-baked the mold, then buttered and floured the hot mold right before pouring the batter into it. It seemed to have worked, to some extent. See? It's slightly browned, isn't it? Much better than the caramel butter cake I baked before. This cake might have browned much more if I were patient enough to keep it in the oven for more than an hour... Now I don't know why my cake looks so airy with lots of big holes... like ant nest. Too much baking powder? Too much whipping when mixing the batter? Since I have made a little progress, now I want to be even better and be able to bake something like this soon. Would it help if I buy and use a bundt pan instead of this kouglof mold??? Anyway, I'm very happy today with this birthday cake and these small roses. :) Categories: Sweets