The above picture is what happens when you take baking directions from a dog. Another "Cooking with Dog" recipe, this one for Christmas cake. There wasn't as much direction as was needed. Theirs turned out looking fantastic of course, where as mine, literally, fell flat. It tasted like an overly sweet, floury omelet. Not delicious.
After watching a much longer and much more in depth "Cooking with the Stars" (hosted by Julia Childs) Lilian and I decided to make a genoise chiffon cake instead. See, the thing that is similar is that you beat four whole eggs until they look like whip cream, then you carefully fold a small amount of flour (and things like sugar and coacoa and stuff, but not baking powder or soda) into the eggs and bake it, then you cut it into sections and stuff it with whipped cream and berries.
One trick is to beat the eggs over low heat to get them to remain puffy. Cooking with dog kind of touched on this, but it wasn't clearly explained. I used the work bowl from Betty (my stand mixer) over my portable gas burner and just barely turned the heat on. I think this helped to keep the cake more stable during the folding and baking steps.
This cake was fantastic. I will make this again.
I've made it twice since then (once as cupcakes, and once as my mom's wheat free birthday cake) and it's worked fantastically each time. Now I'm loath to learn a new chocolate cake recipe as this one works so well!
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