Dessert Auction

Last Wednesday night, our church held it's annual dessert auction. Each year, people bring in desserts to auction off to raise money for scholarships and the bus to take the kids to Centri-Kid church camp each summer.

This is usually an event I go "all out" for each year. I take the day off and bake all day. This year, I made 3 plates of 18 dipped strawberries, a strawberry lasagna (yum!), a Kentucky pie, two Oreo pies and new this year ... a Black Forest cake. I hope the person who bought it enjoyed it as there will be no more Black Forest Cake making in the Latham household! It looked so pretty on the recipe card. That should have been my first clue that I was WAY out of my league.

You bake two chocolate cakes, cut them in half to form four layers and use three of them for the cake and one to crumble for use on the outside. You make your own whipped cream using real whipping cream that you beat with sugar. Ok... that stuff gets sticky and you are adding it (white) to a brown cake that you have just cut. Common sense not prevailing, I used it cut side up. There were crumbs all in the icing. Not to worry, I think, they won't be seen. Then, I realized it was happening on the edges as well. Ahhh... now, I understand the reason for "patting" the crumbled cake on the outside edges of the whipped cream when you are done. The problem with that is that the crumbled cake falls all over the edges of the cake platter. How do you get it off??? I had cake crumbs all over my kitchen. It was a full out disaster.

It turned out pretty nice, I suppose. There were some straggling crumbs on the platter -- I got tired of trying to fish them off. I'm not sure how it tasted and am afraid to ask. What if it tasted awful??? Oh well... next year, I'm back to my tried and true carrot cake.

By the way, here's a tip from "grandma's kitchen" (said so on the recipe card). When beating whipping cream, chill the bowl and the beaters and it will do better. I tried it and it seemed to work. Of course, I don't know how it would have turned out if I hadn't, either.

All in all, though, I am glad that I learned how to make "real" whipped cream.