Wednesday night I was looking for a recipe to make something for an office happy hour, and I decided to try out "Chewy Butterscotch Loaf" from Baking in America: Traditional and Contemporary Favorites from the Past 200 Years, by Greg Patent. According to the introductory text, the recipe was adapted from an entry in the 1954 Pillsbury Bakeoff that won $7,500. I figured that since $7,500 was a whole heck of a lot of money in 1954, the recipe had to be pretty good. Plus, the recipe has the strong appeal of requiring less than 10 minutes total prep time. All you have to do is mix together some eggs, instant espresso, dark brown sugar, and a little butter, heat the mixture in a double boiler until the batter is hot, add in a sifted mixture of flour, baking powder, and salt, stir in some toasted pecans and vanilla, and spread the mixture into a 9- by 13-inch pan. It only takes 25 minutes to bake, so you can complete the whole cake from start to finish in just over half an hour.
I did not care for this cake at all. As the recipe name suggests, the texture was chewy and sticky, almost like gingerbread. I happen to like that feature of gingerbread, but here I thought it was just annoying. I used to think that nothing sticks to parchment paper, but this cake does. It was a total mess to cut and serve. And the flavor was just so blah. I can imagine that this cake might be good topped with some vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, but on its own, I thought it was pretty uninspired. I'm happy to leave this sticky mess back in the past.
Recipe: "Chewy Butterscotch Loaf" from Baking in America: Traditional and Contemporary Favorites from the Last 200 Years, by Greg Patent.
I did not care for this cake at all. As the recipe name suggests, the texture was chewy and sticky, almost like gingerbread. I happen to like that feature of gingerbread, but here I thought it was just annoying. I used to think that nothing sticks to parchment paper, but this cake does. It was a total mess to cut and serve. And the flavor was just so blah. I can imagine that this cake might be good topped with some vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce, but on its own, I thought it was pretty uninspired. I'm happy to leave this sticky mess back in the past.Recipe: "Chewy Butterscotch Loaf" from Baking in America: Traditional and Contemporary Favorites from the Last 200 Years, by Greg Patent.
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