After receiving a question from a reader about Elsie’s Gingerbread (Dec. 2007 issue), I decided to retest the recipe. I remembered the cake as wonderfully flavorful with the coarse texture I prefer in homemade cakes. Here’s what happened:
I preheated the oven, mixed up the batter, popped it in the oven and waited. After 30 minutes (the time called for in the recipe), I checked the cake and found two things: 1) the batter was totally liquid and 2) and I had mistakenly preheated the oven to 250F instead of 350F! (I've got a really old oven, and the numbers on the dial are worn off. Believe it or not, I've painted the degree marks on the dial in 100-degree increments with red nail polish. I missed the mark by 100 degrees. Don’t be alarmed: This is NOT the oven we normally use to test Relish recipes.)
I then cranked the heat up to 350F and baked it for about 20 minutes. And guess what--it was perfect! It didn't fall at all in the middle and the texture was wonderful.
The next day, I decided that this wasn't a proper test. I also thought that perhaps the reason our cake rose on the sides and fell slightly in the middle (as in the photograph in the magazine and on our website) was that the oven temperature was too hot. So, I preheated the oven to 300F and baked the cake for 30 minutes. Then I cranked the heat up to 350F and baked it for 18 minutes. It would have been perfect, except for one thing: When I checked the cake after the first 30 minutes, I jerked the oven rack a little too hard (my oven doesn’t have those wonderfully smooth gliding racks), and the cake fell in the middle. I continued with the cooking though, and the center rose almost as high as the sides.
Anyway, it was delicious.
Based on these two (faulty) tests, when I make the cake again, I’ll
bake it at 300F for 30 minutes and then increase the temp to 350F and
bake it for 18 minutes. (You’ll see that we’ve changed the recipe to
reflect those times and temperatures if you go to
www.relishmag.com/recipes/view/34760/elsies-gingerbread.html )
One more bit of advice: if you use a tube pan
with a removable bottom, wrap the outside bottom of the pan with foil.
I found that the batter leaked out a bit. So now, not only is my oven
really, really old, it’s also dirty.—Candace
Share This Posting With Others:
