Monday, January 11, 2010

I have some catching up to do...without further delay: The Snickerdoodle Bundt Cake story!

Awhile back I made this Snickerdoodle Bundt Cake.
Being a huge snickerdoodle cookie fan, I had to try it. It's another one of those "why didn't I think of that" recipes. Cinnamon is my all-time favorite spice. I put it in my coffee, I love the smell, the taste, even the color. Cinnamon in cake form: delicious!
By the way, I love the Busty Baker's Blog by the way, check it out. She has so many great recipes! I'm dying to try the raspberry lemonade cupcakes...but again, as always, I digress.
Because I'm on this kick of trying to cut out processed food, sodas, sugar (except when necessary: i.e. in a snickerdoodle bundt cake!) and other fattening things, I decided I'd try splitting the sour cream in the recipe with 1/2 sour cream and 1/2 yogurt. I know, not a big change, but mentally, I told myself the addition of 1/2 cup of yogurt somehow made this "healthier". Yeah, I know, who am I kidding? Still...
I'm sure it didn't help that the recipe said "full fat sour cream" and I used fat free.
I thought to myself, "what's the worst that could happen?" Everywhere I researched online, yogurt was an acceptable substitute for sour cream. I even used Vanilla yogurt so it had more flavor.
Long story short, everything seemed to work out great in the recipe until I heard my oven timer beep. Sixty minutes into the baking, it looked good (at first glance) and I removed it from the oven. I turned OFF the oven. I then took a closer look. Ooooh....so...not...good.
What I had was a nice outside crust, but the inside was, well, for lack of a better description, I called it snickerdoodle pudding.
But I don't give up that easily. I wasn't about to waste all the cinnamon-sugar goodness in that pan. I figured I could save it.
I turned the oven back on as fast as I could get to it, same temperature, 325 degrees.
I popped the cake back in and set the timer for another fifteen minutes. I crossed my fingers after that time and peeked at it. I grabbed my knife and stuck it in to see if it'd come out clean. Still pudding-ish. Ack. I didn't want to burn the crust on the outside, that was my main concern...I set the timer for yet another fifteen minutes. That was just about right. After an extra half hour of baking, it seemed to be a nice solid cake. I took it out, let it cool and left it alone. I didn't want to anger it at that point! Once it was cool I inverted it onto a plate and cut a slice. It was PERFECT! It was so incredibly moist, I couldn't believe it. So in the end, my weird changes were a bit scary, but I worked through them and ended up with an amazing cake.

The cinnamon-sugary goodness of the crust on the outside of the cake:
See, isn't that worth experimenting?

Try the recipe...but if you do try any subsitutions, be prepared. You might have to also make adjustments. I'm lucky, mine turned out great, but I chalk it up to patience, perservance and definitely luck, not skill. What can I say? Once a cake is in a pan, I say, never give up, never surrender! Take no prisoners! Nothing is going to ruin my cake!
Baking isn't for the faint of heart. Take a leap and enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Great idea to substitute yogurt for sour cream! I would have never thought of that! I'll have to try your version out now! Thanks for stopping by my site and enjoying it! I really like yours too! :)

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  2. Thanks so much! I have a WHOLE huge list of things to try off yours. My man tells me pretty soon he's gonna gain 50 lbs. if I don't slow down with the baking. I'm trying to stick to only one or two sweets/dessert type items a week if possible, but it's tough. ; ) Everything you post looks so yummy!

    To be honest, when I first decided to make the snickerdoodle cake, I was out of sour cream. However, I had two big containers of vanilla yogurt. I was afraid to use all yogurt though, so I went down to the store, got some sour cream and did the 1/2 & 1/2 thing. : ) I'm kind of glad I did. If I didn't use at least 1/2 sour cream, I might've ended up with un-fixable snickerdoodle pudding! lol!

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