Well dang…
My gold cake fell. Why did this happen? Because I over-whipped my egg yolk foam. Though you wouldn’t think it, egg yolks and liquid can be whipped to a very high foam — at least temporarily. And you don’t need any special liquid to do it, water will work. It’s all those emulsifiers in egg yolks, donchaknow…they create a thick lipid-water mixture that (at least temporarily) reinforces air bubble walls.
I got so geeked out on that yolk foam that I let the whipping go on too long — especially after I added the sugar. Which meant I had too many air bubbles in the batter. Then when the cake hit the oven the baking powder went off and pushed the cake still higher. That created an extremely weak interior structure that couldn’t hold long enough for the batter to set and…this is the result. Oh well, I needed more egg whites anyway…
People think if you do this a lot you never make mistakes and never have failures but I tell them that that happens a lot more than they think!! When I have a situation like this and texturally it isn’t great but tastewise it still makes the grade, I chop it up in small cubes and make a trifle. Slightly compressed cake works great in that situation! I will have to remember to avoid that pitfall when I try your gold cake recipe. I definitely want to try it and now that I can separate 12 eggs in 2 shakes of a lamb’s tail with that plastic bottle method…I’m game to separate 12 eggs for a reason! Thanks for the warning! 🙂
I’m going to write the precaution into the tutorial, so no worries, Linda. Also, that’s a great use for failed cake!
– Joe
Making mine now. Hope mine doesn’t fall!! 🙂