Twice Baked Cake

Twice Baked Cake

               This isn’t so much a recipe as a story documenting the salvaging of an error.

               I believe that, because I grew up financially challenged (poor) that I developed a habit of being thrifty (cheap).  I don’t like to throw something away just because it is broken or even unfit for its purpose.  Often a thing has hidden value that you just need to see from a different perspective.  An empty pill bottle is a perfect receptacle for small screws, bolts and other pieces of hardware.  An empty can may become the perfect size biscuit cutter by simply removing both the top and bottom lids.  A sweat sock with a hole in the toe makes a great dust rag or polishing cloth.

               The reason that I’m telling you this is because; last Thursday Ella made a batch of Almond Blondies that did not turn out well.  She left half of the butter out and baked them a little longer than needed.  The results were some very hard almond flavored blocks akin to cinder blocks.  Being the naturally thrifty person that I am, last night a soaked a couple of the Blondies in water and then mashed them into a paste.  I then added some pancake batter and made pancakes out of them.  They were delicious. 

               Because of my success at redeeming the Blondies as pancakes, I decided to make a cake out of the other chunks.  As with the pancakes, I began by soaking the crumbled Blondies in water.  After they were sufficiently softened I mashed them.  I then added additional oil (the missing ingredient in the original baking) and some additional sugar and a little vanilla extract.  Once that was mixed together, I added pancake mix enough to make a batter of the normal consistency of cake batter.   I then poured the batter into a greased and floured 13x9x2 inch baking pan and baked it for thirty minutes in a three hundred and seventy-five degree oven.

               After removing the cake from the oven, I turned it out onto a baking sheet and let it cool to room temperature.  Frosted with a canned cream cheese frosting it looked pretty enough to eat.  Cutting into the cake revealed the same dark blonde color of the original Blondies due to the use of brown sugar.  The texture was moist and a little heavy.  But best of all … they tasted great!