Life: Idiotropic

Lesson Learned:  When jotting down a recipe that a friend is telling you over the phone, make sure that you specify measurements.  For example:  Is "3 butter," 3 sticks of butter or 3 cups of butter? 

It meant 3 sticks.  Lucky for you, I'm jotting this down for you.  No phone required.




THE RECIPE:

Pre-heat your oven to 350.  Grease and flour a bundt pan.

Cream
          - 3 sticks of softened butter
          - 3 cups of granulated sugar

Add
          - 6 eggs at room temperature
          - 1 t. vanilla (I used 1 t. vanilla sugar and 1/2 vanilla bean because I've yet to find vanilla extract in Spain)

Mix well, then add
          - 1 cup french vanilla flavored CoffeeMate (non-dairy creamer)
          - 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for one hour at 350 or until a toothpick comes out clean.

My results:  On Sunday (when all shops are closed) I made this cake wrongly interpreting the "3 butter" as 3 cups.  Thankfully, the batter just didn't seem right to me.  It seemed, well, too buttery.   I realized my mistake, but I didn't have 6 eggs left in the house, so I refrigerated what I had, then brought it to room temperature on Monday, added the eggs, and more of everything else (except butter) to make a double recipe, and continued from there.  (Amazingly, this all worked very well.)

My oven cooks horribly, so my bundt was dark on the outside and doughy in the middle very much like a gooey butter cake.  I made mini heart cakes though in three different sizes and they all turned out beautifully.

The flavor is good.  At first I wasn't sure, but it grew on me.  It's rich, so you don't want a huge piece, but a little slice is just wonderful.  I imagine it would be great with ice cream.  It would probably be a good base for a strawberry shortcake as well.  Though it had a rather rough beginning in my kitchen, I do believe this is one I'll make again.  I may have to.  I sent each of my girls with a small heart cake for snack to share with their friends who enjoyed it enough that want their moms to have the recipe.