I have found that the times when you have a baking mishap, like my cake that refused to bake on Sunday night, it's important to get right back up on the baking wagon. If you let that disappointment fester, you can lose your bake mojo, and once lost, cooking confidence is challenging to regain. So I struck out again tonight, armed with a new recipe, more lemons and several sprigs of rosemary.
photo by Marisa McClellan
I admit that I was a little nervous as I gathered my supplies and started loading up the mixer. I was even more concerned when I discovered my heavy cream had gone bad and I wouldn't be able to fold in the 1/4 cup of whipped cream, called for (I imagine) to give the cake lightness. I also ended up adding more than twice the amount of rosemary called for, as the first batch I used had almost no pungency. It was from Trader Joe's and I guess it had been sitting in that little plastic box for weeks on end. Thankfully, I still had some rosemary from a friend's garden and so I quickly chopped that up and threw it in. The batter was heavily dotted with green specks by the time I was through with it.
I made them in fancy cupcake tins as opposed to the bundt pan called for, because they are destined to mark a birthday over at my local coworking space, and I wanted them to be pretty (and I wanted to be able to taste them before offering them to others). They turned out pretty well, although at the moment they seem to identify as muffins rather than celebratory desserts. I think that after I drizzle them with a powdered sugar/lemon juice glaze tomorrow, they'll remember their destiny as cakes. Success at last!
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