Tasty Tuesdays with Corey - Heart Broken Cake - iNeed a Playdate Tasty Tuesdays with Corey - Heart Broken Cake iNeed a Playdate a Blog for Northeast Ohio Moms

2.26.2013

Tasty Tuesdays with Corey - Heart Broken Cake


Hi! I haven't posted anything in a while. I had the BEST Valentine’s Day post but thought to skip it since it has past, and then I decided to share my experience.

We're all friends here aren't we?

I consider myself a pretty good cook. I've been cooking for about 15 years but I’ve found that many women do NOT like to cook for one reason or another. Maybe their mothers were not the best teachers or they had other things that were more of a priority than learning to cook.

Whatever the reason, it happens. I didn't just wake up one day and know how to cook it took a lot of practice! Trial and error. So, I hope that maybe someone learning to cook or interested in cooking reads this post and will maybe get back on the horse after a culinary disaster.

You see, I have this basic HEART shaped cake pan. It's a WILTON- nonstick pan it looks pretty unassuming - it's a cake pan right? WRONG! This particular cake pan HATES me! I've owned it for over 10 years and every now and again pull it out of hiding - usually around Valentine’s Day.


I should've known the very FIRST time that I used the cake pan it was a spawn from the devil!

Before I was married, I made a beautiful dinner to take to my now husband. For dessert I wanted to attempt a heart shaped cake. I made the red velvet cake batter from a cake mix poured it in the HEART SHAPED pan and popped it in the pre-heated oven to bake.

Cue OMEN music.

I was vacuuming in another area of the house and my neighbor started banging on the door! SMOKE was billowing out my kitchen!

Apparently, my old avocado green oven went into self-cleaning mode LOCKED and turned my heart shaped cake into a flaming charcoal brisket! Me and my neighbor pried open the oven, put out the fire, and I cried over the heart shaped black cake. I tossed the cake, cleaned the oven and washed the pan. It cleaned up perfectly then I promptly put it away.

FAST FORWARD ten years and I had lost track of the pan during one of our many moves. So, when it resurfaced I thought "Why not try the heart shaped cake pan?"

The pan still looks new! My mind drifted to the flaming heart shaped briquette - I sighed and thought "PLEASE, I've just baked over 1000 cookies LAST Christmas; I can make one heart shaped cake!"


I've also made quite a few cakes over the years so surely this is going to be easy peasy, right?

Everything went pretty smooth; I used a Red Velvet cake mix and planned to frost it with some cream cheese icing. I prepped and coated the pan with some non-stick spray even though it's non-stick. Popped it in the oven and baked it till a toothpick came out nice and clean.

Things seemed to be turning around for me and my heart shaped nemesis!

I took the cake out of the oven and let it cool for about 2 hours and even LEFT the house to run some errands. I went to take my cooled cake out of the pan and the heart CRACKED much like my actual heart! The ENTIRE BACK of the cake was broken.


I was able to get the cake out of the pan and piece it back together on my cake stand. It actually didn't look too bad so I quickly slathered it with frosting. But, I didn't have quite enough due to the underside breaking!

I went through my baking goodies and found some RED sanding sugar from Christmas baking and I made a heart shape out of parchment paper. You couldn't even tell the cake had some issues.

The cake came out cute and my boys loved that it was heart shaped.


I think I just may have exorcized the cake pan demons from the pan! Next year though, I'm going to butter, flour and use some parchment just to be on the safe side!!!

This isn't so much a recipe but, a cautionary tale which I learned to SAVE the cake that I wanted to throw in the garbage!

If all else failed I could have crumbled the heart shaped abomination and made cake truffles, or a cake and pudding trifle! I've learned that MOST cooking and baking mistakes can be saved within reason of course!

I've had plenty of cooking setbacks and back in the day I would've been sobbing holding the heart shaped pan thinking “I will NEVER bake again!"

Now, I'm older, wiser and I've found aside from BURNING food that it can usually be salvaged or altered!

KEEP COOKING even if you have a minor (or major) setback!

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