The Cake That Lived

We have had a long, rocky relationship with the Hershey's chocolate cake recipe. When I say "we", I really should just come right out and specify just me - but I'm including some of my family in this one, as they've contributed to the love-hate relationship.

This was the first cake I tried to make (or, at least, I imagine it was - because I would always choose chocolate cake for my birthday). And it was the first cake I screwed up. My memory has it that I flubbed it by incorrectly using these teaspoons my mom had that had two lines - one representing 1 tsp, and then full representing 1.5 teaspoons. I mean, come on - who does that. That would be the worst user interface design for baking spoons EVER. I was thirteen. I remember tears, I remember some yelling - David claims he is absolutely positive my mom remembers it differently. This is most likely true.

I went on to successfully learn to bake a cake and was fairly well-known among my Idaho friends for having some decent cake skills.

Except for the Hershey's chocolate cake, because in Idaho (high altitude), the recipe kind of fell apart. My mom came to the rescue yet again, and figured out the perfect high altitude modifications. This did not solve my problem, however, of forgetting the salt one fateful Lucy birthday - chronicled here, titled something about the worst cake ever. This event involved David trying to save the day by putting the salt in the icing. Yeah, salt in the icing - I said that right. He just really likes to solve problems.

Then came last Saturday. This time I was not involved in the making of the batter. This time it was 12-year old Lucy who mixed it up. And to be fair to Lucy, we didn't have all the ingredients so she had to put the partly-done batter in the refrigerator while we did about a million errands before returning to the cake. We didn't really have time to wait until everything got back to room temperature, and to be honest, I've seen more precise measuring than the kind Lucy does. So the fact that the one cake came out with a huge depression it it (and I mean huge), is not all that surprising. The fact that David took a large wooden spatula and hacked up the sides of the cake to loosen it from the pan was in fact a little surprising, and well, I think Lucy and I made him feel bad enough for that already.

Or did we.

David probably shouldn't find himself doing anything with baked goods except eating them. His personality does not lend itself to precise measurements or patience or slowness. It's better suited to activities that work up an appetite for baked goods, rather than making the goods themselves. Or pancakes. Everyone LOVES David's pancakes. Secret ingredient: butter. How much? LOTS.

Anyway, back to the cake layer with the absolutely hacked up edges and the divot in the middle. The other layer was... perfect? Really, it was. How odd.

We were making this cake for his company's Christmas party, so while normally I might've just pitched the thing and eaten frozen yogurt instead, we were committed to bringing a dessert. And I can't exactly just go buy something. That would be... ruinous to my image. So I decided to try to salvage it (Lucy was happily off to a sleepover at this stage).

I saw a container of organic peanut butter on the counter that was about gone, and I said -- hmm. That divot is kind of like the well in the middle of a Reese's peanut butter cup. And I've got peanut butter. And butter - and everyone LOVES butter (this has been demonstrated earlier). What if I tried to make a filling like in a peanut butter cup - and so I got out the good ol' Joy of Cooking and modified the peanut butter fudge recipe based on what I had and the consistency I wanted - and - there you had it, I replicated the inside of a peanut butter cup and the cake called "Peanut Butter Surprise" was born.

"Surprise" because the divot was unhelpfully NOT in the middle of the layer - hence, it was going to be surprise to see if the first pieces cut contained peanut butter or not. Also surprise because who stuffs peanut butter fudge inside a cake?

People that live by the "more butter is always better" rule, and the fact that many people who love chocolate cake also love peanut butter. It's not like I stuffed it with hummus.

Then I topped it with chocolate frosting, also from Hershey's - which I adore. In fact, I'm thinking of doing a Hershey's chocolate frosting "cleanse" - meaning, I eat nothing but that for an entire day. Sounds fabulous.

So what did this cake end up looking like? Somehow the completely mangled ends did not end up mucking up the smoothness of the icing, and magically, it almost looked flat. We'll call it flat-ish. It was the best anyone could've hoped for. I photographed it in fact for Lucy to prove that not all was lost! I couldn't imagine her believing me that it wasn't an unholy mess. It was THAT bad.



We ended up returning from the party with just a few pieces left - which we, of course, ate for breakfast.