Ok, so I'm not the domestic goddess I pretend to be. Wasn't I smug??Remember my angel food cakes one and two? Well, I thought I had mastered AFCs. Today's cake, of which I was so proud, the steps of which I documented thoroughly (to be posted later), down to the separating of the eggs and the sifting and folding of the flour, has sunk. Bastard.
The skewer came out clean as a whistle when I tested it. The skewer lied.
I was sitting at the dining room table, making out a shopping list to enable me to attack the never-before-attempted coconut cake for Easter, when I heard a rustling sound from the kitchen. The AFC was surreptitiously lowering itself to the parchment paper on which it rested. (As if I wouldn't notice.) The cake pedestal, freshly washed, was at the ready nearby. The cake was fifteen minutes early for its one-hour waiting period. As I lifted it, I could smell the too-eggy rawness, and I knew what I would find.
So, the last time I went through this, based on uncooked cake number one, I left the second cake in the oven another fifteen or more minutes after I was sure it was done based on the skewer test, and it came out perfectly. I checked my oven today to make sure it was not running cool, as I was worried about that the last time, but it was right on target.
When you lose, don't lose the lesson: better slightly overdone than slightly under in the case of the AFC. Test it, then give it additional time to set.
I am not going to try to make another cake today. I put the cake back in the oven (what else could I do?) to try to at least cook the rest. I don't think it will puff back up, but at least it will be done and not mushy. Hopefully I won't have to throw it out. I now have 36 egg yolks in the freezer if anyone has a good recipe for...something with a hell of a lot of egg yolks in it.
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