Review: DRY!
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 10 15, 2013
I received this book for free during a promo period, the regularly listed price is $4.97.I love, and I mean ~ L♥VE ~ to cook, creating masterpieces, art for the mouth and body. I acquired this recipe book two days ago, went today to the store and purchased two ingredients that I was out of for a SPECIFIC cake, and this evening baked  "The Most Delicate Spice Cake Ever" (page 179). At the bottom of the photograph for this cake the caption states: "This tender, delicate spice cake has no equal among spice cakes. Serves 12." The author is correct about the cake's having no equal, it was the most horrid, dry cake I have ever tasted, but there should be a law designed against using the word 'delicate' in conjunction with this travesty.The cake's design is slightly unusual, and I thought that it must be to make up for the lack of oil in the recipe... the cake truly tasted as if it had been made a week or so ago and left out, it is truly THAT dry, as made. I could add oil (or, a decent amount of butter?) to the recipe next time, but that alone is not going to repair this recipe, the word 'delicate' also should never be used to describe this brick. There is nothing delicate about this cake, the spices are LOUD and bitterly over powering when made following the directions and measurements within this book. It was truly a disappointment in many ways; I had hoped to tweak this recipe a bit and use it as a base for a fruity cake, and, I spent nearly $6.00 on a small jar of a spice that I rarely use. If I could, I would give zero points for this...The cream cheese icing recipe found herein is decent enough, fairly simple, with added advice to insure the frosting is thick enough to swirl. I give one point for that.(As an aside, I note that all the basic cake recipes are very similar to this one, and thus, assume they ALL will be equally dry!)