The Early American Rug Tragedy

Even the most experienced of us suffers a calamity once in a while. Over the Christmas Holidays I had a gig to bake a pre-cut birthday cake. It was to feed 22 guests. I used a wonderful chocolate/buttermilk recipe which had won numerous in-house chocolate cake contests. It was a double recipe baked on a half sheet pan. I had prepared it the day before Christine, my friend and helper, brought me her two children for the day.

While I was spreading the batter on the pan, I thought it felt too thick and heavy. After I put it in the oven, I reviewed the ingredients and realized I had left out one and a half cups of water. So I quickly retrieved the cake and scraped the batter off the baking paper back into my mixing bowl and added the missing water. This time it spread better.

It baked forever. Normally it takes about an hour. This cake took close to two hours.
When it was cool, I cut off the edges, pre-cut and lightly iced the sides and top of the cake. It kept crumbling. The crumb seemed dry. Nevertheless, I put it in the freezer on its serving tray.

At two in the morning I woke up and suddenly realized that I had doubled the chocolate in the cake. I usually use a product that divides the chocolate into one ounce squares. This time my product came in two ounce squares, but I had not cut the requirement in half. And I also realized in that instant, that the chocolate had not melted as thoroughly as it normally does in the usual bowl over the usual pot of hot water. The double chocolate would surely account for the longer baking time and the crumbly crumb.

My customer sees me every week in exercise class. I could not face her selling her a faulty product. Nothing would do but to start all over again. I couldn't go back to sleep. By five in the morning, I was back down in the kitchen baking. We breakfasted while the cake baked.

The children arrived when the cake was pretty cool. We trimmed the sides. They watched me cut it into 48 squares, using multiplication to figure out just how many pieces I had made. We misted it with brandy, then applied a light coating of icing together. It was ready for the freezer on the top floor of my tenant's apartment.

I picked up the cake, walked into the hall, turned on the light at the bottom of the stairs and turned to go upstairs. The cake bumped into the corner and flew off the platter upside down onto the Early American rug at the foot of the stairs. The children were aghast and dumbstruck. I was horrified, angry, disappointed and all those thousand feelings that sweep over you when you know the loss is absolutely irretrievable.

One of the children leaped over the divider and ran upstairs to summon Christine. She deals with emergencies like a trooper. She kept saying, "The floor is clean. We can

put it back together again and you can still use it." No way. It had fallen higgeldy piggledy pop, upside down on its icing side. The pieces were breaking as we scooped them off the floor. Just try rearranging that puzzle...all 48 pieces, as if nothing had happened.

We stuffed all 48 squares into plastic containers. Christine mopped up the floor, the wall and the Early American rug. The kids and I returned to the kitchen to bake another double chocolate cake.

Judging from the trimmed edges of all three cakes that we sampled, the last one was definitely the best one. We managed to get it together like masters without any bumps or mistakes. The children told their mother that they had never seen me work so fast. I usually teach them about everything I do along the way. Not this time. I couldn't give them turns to try my methods. We just put it together quickly and shoved it into the oven.

By now we needed a break. We ran down the street for a pizza treat and back home again to cut the cake edges and the pieces. We sprayed again with brandy and iced it all lightly. This time it got up to the freezer safely. It had to harden at least an hour before we did the final icing and decorating.

Originally I had made a quart of icing. By now I had about one third of a container left.
Now it became a grade D movie drama. Could we ice and decorate the cake with what remained? I was out of white chocolate. I didn't want to go to the store and make a new batch.

I selected a small bag and a tip with a narrow star. Instead of flat icing all over, I left my original semi-transparent skim and created a white, ridged grid over the cuts. That done, we were left with one fourth of the container. We colored one eighth blue and one eighth green. I wrote a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY with the blue, using up the space and the color. His name, IRV, we piped in green. Then we embellished the writing with green shadows on the lettering and eked out fleurs de lis in green on the corners. It used our very last drop of icing. Whew.

The cake turned out fine and went back up to the freezer. The kids loved the whole act.

Over the weekend I got out a never-used antique metal melon mold. This I buttered amply. I laid our left-over trimmings all over the mold. Next came some semi-sweet chocolate chips and a layer of sweetened coconut. I sprinkled the works with brandy, then poured a mostly yolks custard over the whole thing. I sealed it with more cake and a thin layer of coconut. I popped a lid on it and baked it at 300 degrees in a bain marie for an hour and a half.

When I was finished, my husband asked if I had made a second small one that we could taste. I had not, so I quickly took out a small charlotte mold, cut up the Early American Rug cakes, mixed another batch of custard and repeated what I had just done. This I sealed with silver foil and set into another bain marie to bake alongside its friend.

We were invited to a New Year's Eve party to which I was bringing a Bûche de Noël. Since I had accumulated four egg whites making my Early American Rug Puddings, I quickly whipped the whites up with sugar and piped out rows and rows of mushroom caps and stems with which to decorate the upcoming Bûche.

We sampled the second one and declared it a triumph. Clearly it was a good example of "making lemons into lemonade". The original Early American Rug Pudding could accompany the mushroom decorated Bûche to the New Year's Eve party.

The guests were flattering and obviously pleased by my sweets. No one preferred one over the other. I felt exonerated and victorious over the success of what had earlier been my grade D Early American Rug tragedy.

c.Nancy Bookman Hoffman

MOCHA/COCONUT MOLD
or
EARLY AMERICAN RUG PUDDING

300 F
1 hour
small covered mold
bain marie (water bath)
bowl

½ buttermilk chocolate cake
butter to butter mold
2 egg yolks
1 Tablespoon egg white
1/4 cup Turbinado sugar
brandy
½ cup heavy cream
1/3 cup strong coffee
semi-sweet chocolate chips
sweetened shredded coconut

1. Find a container that will hold water half way up the outsides of the mold (Bain Marie). Generously butter mold. Light the oven. Pour water into the bain marie and set it in the oven.

2. Line the bottom and sides of the mold with cake.

3. Sprinkle or spray cake with brandy. Spread a layer of chocolate chips over cake, then a layer of coconut.

4. Separate eggs. To the yolks, whisk in coffee, then sugar. Slowly add heavy cream, still whisking constantly, and a splash of brandy. Add the small amount of egg white.

5. Pour custard mixture into mold. Top the mold with more cake and another thin layer of coconut. Cover. Let stand ten minutes before baking in the Bain Marie.

6. Serve warm or cold with a drizzle of caramel sauce over the top.

c.Nancy Bookman Hoffman