How To Save An Overbaked Cake

This past Sunday our Hannah made her confirmation. It was a beautiful day with a highlight for me being that Hannah chose her brother as her sponsor.

It feels like a minute ago that they were this size!……..

It’s such a joy to watch these two and their brother growing up…..a lot of work, a lot of conversations, a lot of laundry, a lot of food, a bit of worry, a lot of driving……but mostly, a lot of joy. They are great kids and raising them is the hardest and best job God could have asked of me! Even when they leave stinky socks on the family room floor and toothpaste all over the sink and drink all the coffee 🙂

For the dinner with family and a few friends after the confirmation, I asked Hannah what kind of cake she would like me to order from the bakery. She said what she REALLY REALLY wanted was a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Specifically, yellow cake from a box mix and the canned chocolate frosting. The gross stuff that is probably not even real food but yet is disgustingly delicious! For her special day I was happy to make her cake dreams come true, and so, admidst feverishly cleaning my house for our impending company, I threw a cake mix together and into the oven. Unfortunately for that little yellow cake, I proceeded to vacuum like a madwoman and completely missed the oven timer going off for a good ten minutes.

The two cake layers were a bit…..crispy. Like when I flipped them out of the pans onto the cooling rack they landed with a thud. But not to fear! An overbaked cake can be salvaged – maybe not in the way you intended but it can still be insanely delicious!

I present to you……

If you find yourself with an overbaked cake, don’t throw it out! Instead……

….make it into a poke cake!

You know poke cakes – the kind that have holes cut into them and then a liquid poured on top? For a dry, overbaked cake, making it into poke cake is the perfect solution. I made mine into a strawberry poke cake with whipped cream frosting and it was deeeelicious!

Here’s how to make a strawberry poke cake:

Trim the edges if they are really crispy – mine weren’t too bad so I left them.

Use a straw to poke holes all over the cake (if you have young kiddos this is a great job for them!)

Chop 2 cups of fresh strawberries and put them into the blender along with 1/4 cup of sugar and the juice of 1 lemon. Blend just for a moment, until the strawberries are reduced to mostly liquid but there are some smaller pieces of strawberry still visible.

Pour the blended strawberries right over the cake and spread into all the nooks and crannies with a rubber spatula. (Reserve a few tablespoons of the liquid for the frosting!)

Repeat with both layers if you made a double layer cake.

Put the strawberry-soaked cake in the fridge for a few hours to let the liquid moisten up your cake, and in the meantime make some whipped cream frosting. Whip 1 pint of heavy cream with the reserved strawberry liquid and 2 tablespoons of confectionary sugar, until the cream thickens and stiff peaks form. Taste and add more sugar if necessary. Frost between the layers and then the rest of the cake. Refrigerate until serving.

The cake turned out to be SO flavorful and moist!

While poke cakes do not generally call for overbaked cakes, this is a good solution if you forget to put the timer on or find yourself in a vacuuming frenzy when the cake is supposed to be taken out of the oven! Poke cakes can be made with all sorts of yummy combinations but the strawberry/whipped cream version was a big hit at Hannah’s party.

A couple other ideas for overbaked cake – 

• cut the cake up into 1″ squares and make trifle out of it (with a chocolate cake, layer with chocolate pudding, Heath Bar bits and whipped cream or Cool Whip; with a yellow or white cake, layer with strawberries/blueberries and whipped cream!)

• make a tiramisu cake out an overbaked yellow cake by moistening the cake with coffee, then filling and frosting. I’ll share my tiramisu cake recipe with you soon but in the meantime this recipe is similar to what I do if you’re interested!

If you’re concerned that my sweet girl didn’t get the canned-chocolate-frosted yellow cake of her dreams, not to worry……her mama threw another cake mix together, put the timer on, and put the vacuum away!

As Audrey Hepburn said, “Happy girls are the prettiest girls!”

Wishing you a day that is as good as strawberries and whipped cream cake!

Thanks for visiting friends. I’ll be back soon with more on our fireplace makeover!