If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll know that I’m a bit of a hippy at heart; I love nature and the outdoors, and I’ve been getting more into celebrating the seasons with the kiddos recently, so I decided we’d do something to celebrate the solstice last week.
Traditionally, people used to celebrate the longest day of the year with candle-lit processions, gathering around open fires, staying up all night to watch the sun rise and generally thinking about what you’ve achieved, and what you hope to do in the coming months. We obviously didn’t do that (although one of our lovely friends has just given us a tent, so it might be on the cards for next year!), but I did want to celebrate in some way, so I thought it’d be a good time to finally get round to making an amazing looking bundt cake that I saw in Chickpea magazine. And that was where things started to go wrong.
It’s no secret that I’m a lousy cook (I mention it often enough on here!), but usually I can knock out a fairly decent cake, so I thought making a vegan one wouldn’t really be any different. Me and the littlest whizzed up the ingredients, then popped it into the oven; I had visions of it coming out all fragrant and bundt-ish, then decorating it with flowers from the garden in some sort of Pinterest-worthy style.
So you can imagine my disappointment when we opened the oven and discovered this:
Pinterest it wasn’t.
I honestly don’t know what went wrong; I’m pretty sure I followed the recipe, and it had way longer than it was supposed to in the oven, but the middle was all raw and squidgey (urrghh). When I took it out it sank (a bit like my heart *violins*) almost straight away, and it had a weird sort of crust around the edge, which funnily enough was the only bit that was actually cooked.
So in the end, I decided to stick to what I know; we went around the garden with our little car-boot sale trug and gathered lots of flowers to take to my mum as a little solstice gift. I’m pretty sure they were appreciated way more than that cake would have been!
I am scared of my bundt tin – for this very reason. That, and the cake being welded to the sides. It sits, on top of the washing machine (read:shoved under it so I can't see it) holding some dubious looking red onions. I will tackle it one day – when I am feeling braver
I've never found cooking in bundt tins very successful. I always get a raw middle bit which I can never fathom as surely that bit gets super hot?! I'm no baker so when I've got a undercooked cake, I slice it up and fry it – as you can tell, this has happened to me more than once or twice! Elinor – Beach Hut Cook x
That's a shame! I really want a bundt tin but from the other comments it sounds like that might have been the problem, I'll maybe stick with my mini ones. Love the flowers tho!
Thanks for showing a failed attempt! It can sometimes feel that other bloggers make pintrest worthy crafts every time, so it's nice to see a bit of real life. I'm sorry it went wrong though. I have had a few failures with vegan cakes.
Your photos of failed cake are just as lovely, if not more so than a photo of perfection! I've had plenty of cakes that haven't worked…I tend to chop them up and have the edible bits with ice cream;)
Your cake makes me feel better about the scones I made a week or two ago – absolute disaster! Sometimes it's not how they look though, it's the effort you put it 🙂
Vegan cakes sometimes don't bake properly for me. I think its to do with the lack of fat as a binding. However, I think it is lovely, and mindful that you celebrated the longest day. 🙂
I love a blogger that can show the fails! And somehow your mad photography skills have still managed to make that floppy thing look pinable! heheh Happy Solstice! x x
Love that you shared your failed cake – we've all been there and it's so disheartening. Like Lisa-Marie said, I've found vegan cakes trickier to handle.But how lovely are the flowers! Great to celebrate the solstice like that.