I have baking errors all the time, many like described here. Earlier this year I had an incident. I had baked 2 layers of my husband's favorite cake, a poppyseed cake recipe I got from my mother in law. I had the layers on the counter on the cooling racks waiting to be ready to be filled/ frosted. We got distracted for about 5 mins, and one of my dogs decided to help herself to some cake. She ate about a half of one of the layers. I was furious! It was valentine's day and the cake was my gift to my husband! I had the chocolate frosting and vanilla pastry cream filling ready. I saved it by taking the untouched by the dog layer and cutting it in half and making a half circle cake, which was fine by my husband. I still had plenty of chocolate frosting and pastry cream so I decided to experiment. I combined the frosting, filling, some leftover cream a couple of eggs and some stale bread and baked the best chocolate bread pudding that I have ever had. You gotta make do with what you got! I agree, there's a certain liberating aspect to just letting go of where you thought you were going to end up, and flying by the seat of your pants! Susan

• Reply