Two Strikes....A Pinterest Fail

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you strike out.

I am a big fan of Pinterest, I spend countless hours on there collecting images, recipes being one of the many categories I am always pinning from...no big surprise right? Well on one of my many visits to the site, I saw a retro recipe for a sweet confection made of potatoes, yes, you read that right potatoes! Intrigued, I read the recipe and it sounded beyond simple, and so while my oldest daughter was here for a visit, we decided it was the project for the day. We gathered the few ingredients that the recipe called for, and got to work.

Sounds simple right? I decided to make half a batch, as I did not want a huge batch.

What it is supposed to look like.

I boiled and cut up the potato and let it cool to room
temperature 

I gathered the other ingredients, including but
not pictured the butter and vanilla. 

I mashed the potatoes until smooth and creamy then
added in the rest of the ingredients...

first the butter and vanilla....and the first cup of powdered
sugar. it already looks wrong! 

So here we were following the recipe carefully, step by step, it looking nothing like we thought it would or should. I looked up more recipes on Pinterest for the same candy, and followed rabbit trails to other blogs and bloggers who had tried the same recipe and read them, all mention the dough in the beginning being wet, so we moved forward. We continued to addmore powder sugar, and more and more and yet the dough was not stiffening , before too long we were out of every last bit of powdered sugar....what to do??? 

Oh the horror of it ...it just kept growing like in THE BLOB! 

Undaunted our cooks forged forward....

With no powdered sugar left, we started adding
coco powder.....and more and more...the "dough"
growing, but not thickening.  Eventually....

...it was resembling a dough finally, so we moved onto the next step..so much for a small batch

Confession we put it down to roll out on some of the coco, and then tried rolling but it was so
sticky so we put some parchment paper on top to press flat, and forgot to dust it with more coco,
so this photo was take two. 

We added the peanut butter....I mean it is all good right? Who doesn't like chocolate and peanut butter? I know I do. 

Then came time to roll it into the log...um, way bigger than
anticipated... and as we stood there, it started to
expand!!!! What to do now ????

We then had the idea to press it into a baking dish
chilled it for awhile while we had a pot of tea....and
discussed what to do. Truffles!!!! We decided to
make truffles....a tasty solution??

we rolled them in more coco...truffle style.

My daughter posted it as such...so pretty, almost like
we meant to do this! Oh and by the way they were
actually tasty!!

Take Two!

How I imagine myself in the kitchen trying a recipe 

How it often turns out

So not one to give up or give in to a recipe, I decided I would once again try to make potato candy. I took care to pick the proper size potato. I boiled and then choose to chill in the fridge to make sure it was not too hot...I then went step by step, mashing, adding the powdered sugar, again a liquid state, but I continued on and added more and to my amazement it started to thicken, I thought " I got this..I figured it out..."

Boiled and chilled...

peeled....

ready to mash.....

Oh Oh ....looking liquidy again 

Another 2 lbs bites the dust

Ready to roll out...finally ...with just enough powdered sugar to dust it top and bottom

Looking good..this seemed positive 

I spread the peanut butter ...still looking positive..

The came time to roll it... and then it all went horribly
wrong! It became more and more sticky, started separating,
and just like before expanding.

The more I tried to work it and rework it, it got worse. I tried using new parchment paper...

Well, you can see it went down hill from there. 

Sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and give in. 

Challenge 

If you decide to take this task on and try this recipe out, 

and succeed, show me with a photo on my FB page or in an private message on Instagram of you and the candy and

you could win a special prize pack!!!

"My" Darling Clementine...Cake

Not too many people don't like cake..
including me! 

I am not the only one in the family who likes to bake, my oldest daughter is quite a talented baker in her own right. Many years ago she found and would make a dense cake that used Clementines to flavor a white cake. The cake really needed to have holes poked in it and have a juice based glaze poured over it, it was yummy and moist once that was done, and so when I asked for her recipe, I fully expected my own cake turn out the same way. I do not know what I did wrong, or perhaps right, but my own cake came out moist on it's own, light, fluffy and well so delicious, I know it will not be long before I make another one and perhaps a lemon  or even a lime version. I like both versions, her's more like a short cake type of texture and mine; either way the credit goes to my daughter Chanda ( @pandasbaking on Instagram) ..so thanks kiddo! 

So let's get started!

You will need Clementine's or oranges, or lemons, even
limes would work

Gather your ingredients...

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoon grated clementine zest
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons fresh squeezed clementine juice ( about 7 clementines total depending on size of fruit)

In the meantime...

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Butter the paper and set aside ** I did not have a round cake pan, no idea where it went! So I used a 8x8 square pan, but then did the same as the instructions state. 

Cream the butter and sugar well for several minutes, until it is very pale and thick. You can see just how pale and thick in the below photo...I really whipped it for quite a long time and at a high speed. 

It should hang from the beater

Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition, then add the zest. Add the flour, baking powder and salt all at once, and beat well, then slowly add the clementine juice until it is incorporated. Below, you see what the batter will look like.

I ended up juicing most of all the fruit I had, drinking some of
the juice and  .....

....eating a couple....

... of course zesting as the recipe calls for, and...

This is what the batter looks like after mixing it, again
maybe for a little, bit..ok maybe a lot longer than perhaps
my daughter did...so creating a lot of air in the batter.

Oh and what to do with all those rinds? Use them
to freshen up your garbage disposal! 

Next....

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, and bake for 35-40 minutes - or until an inserted skewer comes out clean (If it starts to brown too much on the top, cover loosely with a sheet of foil I had to.) **Baking times CAN vary, I think because I used a smaller pan and the batter was deeper and more airy, it took closer to 60 minutes to fully bake. Test it with a toothpick, clean knife, and you can always test the doneness with how well it springs back to the touch.

Make sure you tap the pan a bit to level the batter out. 

Allow cake to cool in pan for 15-20 minutes on a wire rack. Then invert onto a plate, remove the parchment paper and allow to cool completely before glazing...I of course decided on not glazing after I saw how light and fluffy my came turned out....but I did add a bit of a last touch to it.

You can judge how dense or fluffy the cake will be
just by the spring back it has once baked.

Once cooled, I was able to flip it onto a plate..again the cake
was so fluffy that lines really made an indent...those do not
bother me tho, does not effect the taste. If they bother  you,
flip cake onto a plate to cool 

As I was not going to make a glaze, I instead made a
flavored powder sugar...you can do this by using
dehydrated zest, I happen to love Penzeys Spices
powdered lemon peel so there is no large bitter pieces.
You can find them online.  

Once creating the powdered sugar mix, then you can use a sifter and a spoon to
create a light "snow" on top. 

Isn't it pretty??

How does it taste??

I mark this cake as "Ruby's Musings Approved" 

A bit of news.....

This past week I was having a contest to giveaway some handcrafted vintage inspired Valentines created by Krissy at Ettatorials, and raffle copter picked a random winner and that winner is....

Congratulations to you Jessica of Chronically Vintage

In other news...

I have started vlogging as well on YouTube.  Taking the cue from my FB followers that enjoyed my weekly greetings that I would post on the fan page, but expressing they wish they were longer, I have begun to vlog. It is a rough and bumpy start to be sure, and it is a lot more involved and time consuming than I thought, props to online friends Emily The Vintage Doll, Miss Semi Sweet and Cherry Dollface !! But nothing ventured, nothing gained. You can find me HERE on my main page and HERE for the actual video.... or by searching for Ruby's Musings on YouTube

See you Friday for a very special blog post!