Back when I was in culinary school, I was told that celebrity chefs put out cookbooks with recipes that weren’t tested, and sometimes not even written by that big name chef. Hearing that really disappointed me but I had never experience a problem first hand, until now.
A couple of weekends ago, I decided to make an Apple Cake recipe from Simply Sensational Desserts
Throughout the entire process, I kept thinking, this is so poorly written. Approximate time for things didn’t even come close. The genoise was supposed to “bake for 30-45 minutes, until the cake has pulled away from the sides of the pan”. The cake never pulled away from the sides and wasn’t done until 45 minutes. Just to be clear, I have an oven thermometer, I measure by weight (more accurate), and I’ve done a whole lot of baking. The whipped ganache portion is made with too much butter. I thought the proportions looked weird but went with it. It ends up being too much butter and looks spotted with bits of butter. Also the picture of the cake is shown with a non-whipped ganache as the outside coating, which is not in the recipe. Lastly, the cake is given 20 minutes to chill and supposed to be served room temperature. At this point, I looked at the cake in disgust and knew I wasn’t going to serve it so I slice a piece for Lon to try to see if he would even eat it. It doesn’t even slice without pushing all the filling out. So it looks bad and it tastes disgustingly sweet (and I didn’t even use all the raspberry syrup) even for Lon, so no I cannot serve this to guests tomorrow.
So, I’m really ticked off now. I have guests coming and no dessert yet. I used up good expensive chocolate on this cake that will go in the garbage.
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This sucks! I hate when I see a recipe that I think won’t work but figure “oh they know what they’re doing” and then it doesn’t work.
oh jessica *hugs*
you are such an amazing chef – it really sucks to have to deal with a bad recipe!
let us know how your dinner party goes tonight 🙂
Yipes, that sounds terrible. I hope things sort themselves out for you!
Agree with KasiandStephen – sometimes it’s better that I just go “f that, that sounds gross” and just use my own take on what they’re trying to accomplish :T
What a shame! Stopped in to say hello! We’ve all had bad recipe days.
Sorry to hear that. What a shame!
Thanks for all the support everyone! =)