I feel lucky…
Very, very lucky…
And probably not for the reasons
you might think.
Not because it’s the luckiest day of all
St.
Patrick’s
Day…
Not because I correctly picked
one single number on
the last
Powerball jackpot…
(I
still need to turn in that ticket
for my $4.00…hope
it’s
not too late…)
It’s
because of this super-amazing twist
of fate…
A mistake.
Yes, a mistake…has caused me to feel like the
luckiest girl
in town.
Remember back to fair season…
the long hours of
planning,
prepping, baking and more baking??
It’s
all coming back to me now…
When you enter some competitions,
the rules require typed recipes…
on specific forms, with
specific steps…
It can become quite tedious.
However, crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s is
how contests are often won…or lost in some cases.
The typed recipes help the judges in
making decisions about
flavors and preparation...
If you win…
the fair board or company
retains your recipe,
the one you attached , the prize-winning
recipe
...which they may print or publish as they see fit…
...which they may print or publish as they see fit…
In some cases, the same recipe may not be
resubmitted.
It’s all in the fine print.
Sometimes…after an all-nighter of baking…
I am bleary-eyed and
using my
last bit of energy to type up the recipes.
This is not a good strategy… this
“last minute Lucy”
approach to getting
out the door with a car-load of pies
and cakes…of this, I am 100% sure.
When it comes to the recipe part of the day,
I am usually rushed and frequently
encounter printing problems, I could run out of ink…
encounter printing problems, I could run out of ink…
any number of things can go wrong in
that
last stretch of the baking race.
Usually
I run into a few wrinkles.
There is a fine line between baking time, travel time
and following all the rules so you don't accidentally
disqualify yourself.
Last August, I had printed off my
chocolate cake recipe
which I tweaked
up until the very last moment.
In fairness, I could not have typed it up ahead...even if I
had every duck in a row...
(Which we all know by now
I did not have any ducks in any rows...
...ducks everywhere....)
When the recipe form emerged from the printer it
was unbelievably
small ...so hard to read…
almost
unreadable and I noticed I had left out an ingredient…
Quickly, I added the forgotten ingredient,
fixed the font size and zipped out the door
with
my fair tags and pies of course.
After winning first place for what I can
only describe
as the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted…
I also handed in the only correct
and
legible copy of “the
recipe”
Yep…that’s what I did.
In my hurried and haggard state...
During the last hurrah of fair week,
I didn’t save the recipe…
Nope, not saved to the computer…
That would have been too
easy.
So, what about luck…??
Where’s
the luck in losing a wonderful,
original and winning recipe… ??
The luck is in finding the mistake recipe,
the discarded, no-good recipe that I
cast aside during my frazzled exit.
Remember the teeny-tiny poorly printed,
almost
illegible copy that had to
have an ingredient added…
If I had
not made the original error…
I
would have been left without any recipe.
Fortunately,
I had the blue print to the most amazing,
chocolaty-chocolate cake ever…
one
with an old fashioned caramel icing
dusted
with flaked sea salt... (Sigh...)
Rest assured,
I edited this recipe to include all the necessary
ingredients
and I saved it… properly.
I’m
sharing this lucky chocolate cake with you today.
First Place 2016 Chocolate cake from the Ohio State
Fair.
Please make sure you get a copy for yourself
and share
it with all your friends.
Life is too short to waste on less chocolaty chocolate cakes.
Enjoy this
cake and remember:
We all deserve a little luck every now and then…
Perfection is overrated. This cake is not.
Thank goodness for mistakes that come in the form
of
teeny-tiny unreadable recipes...
destined for the trash bin,
only to turn out to be our saving
grace...
Sometimes happenings that appear to be
mistakes or set-backs
at first
turn out to be the greatest of all blessings...
and in this case, gave us the greatest of all chocolate
cakes.
The greatest.
Ever.
In the history of my kitchen.
The very best chocolate cake. Period.
In the history of my kitchen.
The very best chocolate cake. Period.
Happily sharing my good luck with you...
Hoping you love this cake too!!
Xo
~Karri
Recipe:
Salted Caramel Dark Chocolate
Devil’s Food Cake
Karri
Perry, Blue Ribbon Kitchen blog
2016
Ohio State Fair Blue Ribbon
Cake:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
¾ cup dark cocoa powder-
Hershey’s Special Dark
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
***
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
¾ cup black coffee –cooled
1 tsp espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup vegetable oil
4 ounces semi-sweet
chocolate-melted (1 Baker’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar)
***
1 cup room temperature buttermilk
Caramel
Icing:
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 ½ cups light brown sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
3 TBS heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups confectioner’s sugar
Large flake or coarse sea
salt-1/4 tsp or to taste.
Preheat oven to 350
degrees. Line two 9-inch cake pans with parchment
rounds spray generously with non-stick cooking spray. How-To: Use nonstick cooking spray to spray
the bottom of pan, place parchment in the bottom and then spray bottom and
sides again.
In a medium bowl mix together
the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda, set aside.
In a second mixing bowl, add
the sugar, eggs, cooled coffee, espresso powder, vanilla, oil and melted chocolate. Mix well with a handheld electric mixer until
combined and emulsified. There should be
no oily puddles on the surface.
Add the flour mixture to the
wet ingredients in two parts, alternating
with the buttermilk. Mix until just
combined and uniform in color, with no streaks of flour showing. Scrape down
sides of the bowl and pour equal amounts of batter into prepared cake pans.
Bake in a preheated oven on
the middle rack for 30-35 minutes or until the cakes are set and a toothpick
comes out clean from the center.
After 5 minutes, loosen cake
from edges of the pan with a paring knife if necessary. Turn cakes out onto a cooling rack and
carefully peel off the parchment paper. Let
cakes cool on racks until room temperature.
For
the icing:
In a heavy saucepan, melt the
butter and add the brown sugars. Stir
mixture until it boils, add the heavy cream and return to a boil. Remove from heat and add the vanilla. Let cool to almost warm and add the confectioner’s
sugar using an electric mixer. Add a
little sugar at a time until desired consistency is reached. Working quickly, while icing is fluid, ice
the cake, icing the, middle layer, top and sides of the cake. Sprinkle with large flake or coarse sea salt
to finish.
The only thing that could possibly
help this story have a happier
ending...??
You guessed it...
what can I use in place of coffee? Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHi Pam, Our grocery sells instant espresso in the coffee aisle. You could invest a few dollars in the instant espresso, and make a weak version of coffee/espresso to use in place of the coffee. You just add hot water... Hope that helps. The coffee flavor helps the chocolate flavor come through.
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