Baking disasters

Today I tried a recipe that I think I copied from a book belonging to my Grandmother although I am not entirely sure.  It was for a 1910 sponge cake. 

1910 sponge cake
6 eggs
weight of 5 eggs in sugar
weight of 3 eggs in plain flour
grated rind of half a lemon

break the eggs onto the sugar and beat well for twenty minutes
stir in the flour which has been dried and sifted
butter a square tin, dredge it with flour shaking out any which does not adhere
pour mixture in and bake at once in a moderate oven inclining to coolness rather to heat 

This was not a success; it took a very long time to cook and I do not think a sponge cake is supposed to look like half raw pastry when it is cooked.  It is possible that the weight of flour and sugar have been mis-copied at some point (maybe by me)  I will try it again with less sugar and more flour.


 All TV programs, videos and blogs about cooking and baking show beautiful works of art almost too good to eat.  I have been cooking and baking since my early teens if not before and this is not my first mis-hap :- there was the time when I fell asleep and baked the Christmas cake for eight hours instead of three; the time when I was too clever to label the jar of salt (you can see where this one is going) and put six ounces of salt into a cake instead of six ounces of sugar - luckily that one never got cooked.  I thought a different take on lemon meringue pie might be nice if a chocolate flan case filled with tinned  manderine oranges topped with meringue would be nice.  I was right it was nice but I broke the cake so badly trying to get it off the tin no one else got to try it.  

ready to bake

Even before todays effort got to the oven I was having problems with the eggs so I decided to cheer myself up and make some mincemeat squares with the spare eggs.  Just waiting for it to cool down so we can eat it.