Rainy Day People

As expected, it rained the whole live-long day yesterday, and it got pretty darned cold too. If we'd gone up to the national park as planned, we were going to visit the northern end of the park. Later in the day, I got notification on Facebook that the road in that portion of the park was closed due to ice. Not surprising at all, and so it's just as well we decided to laze around the RV for the day. Mike says he could get used to these lazy days. He's enjoying reading, and he's had precious little time for that since retiring in April.

Sadie thought it was an excellent opportunity to explore the upper reaches of the RV.

She's so strong, she can jump from the reclining chairs up to the highest cupboards in the RV with little effort. Leave those doors open for even two seconds, and she is so there. Then, she isn't really sure what to do next.

But let's talk about the human inhabitants of the RV for a minute. So what did we do? Oh...thanks for asking! Well, you know we made our usual trek to the grocery store...Walmart this time, because we've figured out they have Smitty's favorite dry food. We've been unable to find it anywhere else. Also, they have my favorite wasabi peas...yes, I'll admit it...I like snacking on them occasionally. They're so hot you can't eat too many. But, you might guess that wasn't the real reason for our trip. No. Instead, I was on the hunt for the ingredients for a Tunnel of Fudge Cake.

If, like me, you grew up with your mother making the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, then you might remember it as I do. It was my brother's favorite cake. It's baked in a Bundt pan and, done correctly, you end up with a cake that has a fudge and nut center. It was a runner-up in the Pillsbury Bake-off in 1966. It was created by Ella Helfrich of Houston, Texas. The recipe appeared in the Pillsbury publication published after the bake-off.

Here's the original recipe as it appeared:

The recipe called for Pillsbury "Double Dutch Fudge Frosting Mix," which was later discontinued by Pillsbury. In response to widespread complaints, Pillsbury released a revised version that introduced cocoa powder in place of the frosting mix.

So returning to RV land and our particular trailer sitting in yesterday's rain storm, I've been itching to bake something in this little "bundt pan" I found back home in our local mega mart. As I've mentioned before, I'm trying to create my own desserts for two so that we can maintain our weight loss (so far, so good) without my having to give up baking altogether. When I opened the cupboard yesterday morning to put away the 6-inch pie plate from the recent pie-baking extravaganza, I noticed the bundt pan. And what could I do but give it a try? I went in search of ingredients for the revised recipe, which appears right here.

The resident engineer and I had a lengthy discussion about how much one would need to cut down the recipe to fit a 12-cup-capacity-bundt-pan cake into a 4-cup capacity cake pan. Being an engineer, he likes getting out a calculator and doing (gasp) math. And what do I keep saying? I'm too danged old and cranky for math. I decided to just cut the recipe in half, use what would fit in the pan, and call it good. As it turns out, a half portion of cake batter fit perfectly into my little pan.

Ta-da! And the deal with this cake is that one must be careful not to overbake it because the tunnel of fudge forms from the underbaked ooey-gooey center. So this is a challenge in a not-too-accurate and not-very-large RV oven. I checked mine after half an hour, and then gave it an additional 10 minutes. I decided to take it out when it looked like this.

From there, it needed an hour and a half to cool in the pan. It flattened out a little, which was to be expected.

When I took it out of the pan...Voila!

Okay, well this is the first time it dawned on me that I wasn't actually using a "bundt pan." My pan is actually a little fluted tube pan, but whatever. It worked. So then, it needed to cool for an additional two hours before I added the glaze. (The original recipe did not have a glaze.)

Looks pretty good, huh? Or maybe not, if you're not into that. Since I'm a sugar fiend, it looks pretty good to me. Perhaps the most exciting part of this whole episode is discovering that turning my largest round Tupperware container (not actual Tupperware) upside down will make a perfect cake storage pan for this size of a cake.

Before you think this was a rousing success, think again. And you know we show you the good, the bad, and the ugly here at Cat Patches. Absolutely nothing is too horrible to be seen in the pages of this blog. As it turns out the cake was under baked, and the ooey-gooey center was too icky even for our sugar-loving palates. We ate a few bites, but could go no further.

Nevertheless, it was a noble experiment, and I'll try it again. For one thing, I didn't add enough nuts to my half-recipe, and doing some more reading, I've discovered that nuts are critical to the success of the cake. Don't ask me why...I don't ask questions of the Google. Also, it just needed to bake for longer. Since not overbaking is also key, it was a bit of a guessing game when to take it out of the oven. With an underbaked center, using a toothpick to test for doneness doesn't work, and so one is dependent on accurate timing and temperature...hard to achieve in an RV oven.

The day was still a success though. I've learned something in the process, and baking it kept us both entertained on a rainy day. The weather looks to be a little improved today. We'll have to figure out if the road is opened above before venturing off. Either way, we'll head down to the park office and sign up for a couple more nights here. We're determined to stick it out and get in some hiking before moving on. I'll have to let you know later how we spend today.