My cooking phobia
When I cook, and I’m following a recipe, I’m incredibly paranoid about leaving out an ingredient. I check and recheck the ingredient list. (I hate it when my cookbook has the ingredients on one page, and the instructions on the flip side.) I don’t worry about skipping a step, or cooking times, or burning stuff (contrary to popular belief, I can smell smoke.) But I’m always worried I’m going to forget an ingredient.
This, it turns out, is with good reason. There was the time I left the egg of the cinnamon rolls. Now, I have left an ingredient out of a recipe I shared with you.
I was remaking the peach upside-down cake, with apples and ginger. I mix the eggs and sugar with the flour and other dry elements, and it clumps up like little peas. Yeah….. the original recipe called for 5 tablespoons of orange juice, which I had substituted with water when I made it, but left out of my instructions.
Luckily, adding the liquid a step later seems to have had no ill effects, and breakfast is back!
Apple Ginger Upside-Down Cake
- 6 tbsp butter
- 1 cup unpacked brown sugar
- 2 apples, peeled
- 1/2 tsp. grated ginger
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 5/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 eggs, separated
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 5 tbsp. orange juice, water or a combo
Preheat oven to 350. Place butter in your baking pan, and place inside the pre-heating oven until melted, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven, and sprinkle brown sugar, 1/2 tsp salt and grated ginger evenly over the butter. Arrange the apple slices in the pan, and sprinkle with cinnamon.
In a medium bowl, combine sifted flour, baking powder and remaining 1/8 tsp. salt, and stir.
In another bowl, beat egg whites at high speed until fluffy.
In a third bowl, beat egg yolks with sugar at medium speed until creamy. Add vanilla extract and liquid (water or juice) and beat well. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture, and beat until well combined. Fold in the egg whites with a rubber spatula. Pour cake mixture evenly over the fruit, and smooth with the spatula.
Bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (40-45 minutes for a 9 inch pan, 50-55 minutes for an 8 inch pan.) Place on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Run a blunt knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake. Invert carefully onto a plate. Serve warm or at room temperature.
It’s been fixed in the original recipe, too.
