Epica Insuccessa

"Say it's over. Say I'm dreaming. Say I'm better that you left me. Say you're sorry -- I can take it. Say you will, say you won't. Say you love me, say you don't. I can make my own mistakes. Learn to let it bend before it breaks." -- Brandi Carlile

I don't usually follow recipes when I cook. I learned how to cook from my grandmother, which means that I work in the kitchen the same way she did -- measuring in terms of pinches and handfuls, feeling out the consistencies, tasting things along the way, applying heat until the food looks right. Even when baking, I use ratios and basic chemistry concepts more often than I use cookbooks.

That doesn't stop me from owning many cookbooks, reading tons of food blogs, and subscribing to half a dozen cooking magazines. One of them, La Cucina Italiana, has long been a favorite because it's as much of a resource about Italy as it is about Italian cooking. It teaches you where to stay and what to see in the country, discusses tools and techniques, and breaks down all of its food writing by region. (This is especially useful due to the insane degree of cultural variation across Italy; my Parmense grandfather and my Abruzzese grandfather might as well be from different planets.) Today, I spent my Saturday at home as a consequence of the snowstorm that never happened, which gave me an excuse to go through a year's worth of La Cucina Italiana back-issues to tear out the recipes worth keeping.

One recipe, for a sticky, delicious-looking chocolate espresso layer cake, haunted me all day, and since I had all of the required ingredients on hand, nothing could stop me from making it. The recipe was surprisingly simple -- it was a foam-based cake, made using whipped eggs and only enough butter to grease the pan -- and came together in no time at all.

I poured the batter into several miniature cake pans, whipped up the recipe's chocolate and coffee liqueur frosting while my cake was in the oven, and waited expectantly. After half an hour, I pulled my cake out of the oven. It had basically exploded -- the batter was everywhere except my miniature cake tins, and I was thankful that I had the foresight to place the tins in a roasting pan before baking. I soldiered on, though -- hacked the cake out of the pan and glazed it anyway.

So it looked gross. But that doesn't matter if it tastes good, right?

Well, it didn't. It was so disgusting that I ate a few forkfuls and threw away the rest of the cake.

I then went online to check out what people were saying about the recipe. (I figured half a dozen horrible reviews would make me feel better about my culinary misfire.) Well, it turns out that the reviews on the La Cucina Italiana website were... pretty good. Very good, actually. The cake was downright praised.

I scrolled up to look at the recipe on the website. It called for six tablespoons of softened butter. I then grabbed my torn-out recipe off the kitchen counter. It called for no butter. The recipe on the website gave very specific instructions about how to incorporate all that butter into the batter. There weren't any references to butter in the text of my recipe.

Now I have a garbage can full of disgusting cake and a folder full of recipes that I will never, ever use... on principle alone. I'll read through them tomorrow morning and jot down any meal ideas that they inspire. Then they can join the damned cake in the trash.