you are only as imposing and powerful as your tallest cake

Maybe it is the dull ache of unemployment nagging at my insides, or perhaps I was attempting to compensate for cake-less months past when, uninspired but pressed to create confections, I sloppily scooped spoonfuls of cookie dough onto a sheet and choked them down with tearful milk.

In any case, I haphazardly chose the most difficult cake recipe in the book and applied an afternoon to its inception.  Devil's Food. Gah! And I was much too indulgent to restrain myself and make 7 Minute Meringue Icing... I sprang for the chocolate buttercream!

 This cake. This cake! Actually I over-baked the poor thing into three dry discs.  The difficulty of the recipe (any Devil's Food recipe), is first creaming butter and sugar (in a stand mixer), then adding blended egg yolks (which is much easier to do in a mixer, though I did it by hand), and then (after adding milk and flour in intervals) adding whipped egg whites.  So, if you keep the developing batter (beginning with butter and sugar) in your stand mixer, you need to devise other ways to whip the yolks and whites, or buy another mixer!

I whipped the yolks by hand, but dangerously held a bowl under the paddle of the mixer for the whites. Concentrating fully on not launching the bowl onto a wall, I over-beat the poor whites until the peaks were crumbling (peaks should be stiff but not crumbling mountain tops!!).  This error would not solely doom the cake, but it did contribute to my next fatal move.  The over-beaten egg whites deflated during the last portion of baking time, making the cake appear to have "fallen" (the middle of cake is slightly depressed instead of being the highest point).  Fallen cake syndrome is usually a symptom of being under-cooked or deflating because of erratic oven temperatures. Therefore, I left the cake in for the later time in the cooking range (ie: 30-35 minutes, I left it in for 35) which is rare for me because we have an excellent convection oven which typically reduces cooking time.

For the first day, the rich buttercream seemed to trap moisture inside resulting in a palatable vehicle for ice cream.  The second day, I found myself shaving icing off the three-tiered visual-masterpiece. Oops?  I've learned my lesson - cakes take time, practice and attention to the most finite of details.