April 11, 2008

All Aboard the Failroad

I made this cheesecake about 5 months ago. 5. The year was still 2007 and I’m just getting around to posting about it now. And I don’t have a recipe for it either. FAIL. I feel like it’s a common theme lately. Maybe I should just post my life in pictures to the FailBlog. If you’ve never visited this site, go now, it will cheer you up if you’re feeling blue. Yes, I know it’s wrong to laugh at the misfortunes of others, but if this is wrong I don’t want to be right. I’ve just spent way too much time looking through the archives… There are some gems hidden way in the back and I don’t care if they’re photoshopped they still make me laugh.

The vanilla cheesecake originally came from a recipe that my Grandma clipped from the Toronto Star and asked me to make for her, which I happily did. I chose to add raspberry puree on top because it looked prettier that way. I took the recipe home with me so that I could post it here and I’m convinced that I tucked it into a cookbook or magazine for safekeeping but who knows where it is now?

I decided to go ahead and post this cheesecake anyways because at least I know it was good, unlike most of the things that have been coming out of my kitchen lately. I recently made a carrot ginger muffin that I had such high hopes and it probably would have been great if I had of followed the recipe. But no, it was one of those days where I started baking without checking ingredients first and soon realized that I was out of some of the essential ones.

Instead of going to the horrendously overpriced corner store across the street, (appropriately named 3 Star Variety) I made some substitutions which were not in the muffin’s best interest. Maybe these muffins would have been better if I had someone to crack the eggs for me. They would have also been better if they contained the required 2 eggs at all. Ugh. Hot on the heels of the bad muffins, (which I’m still eating because I can’t bring myself to throw them out) was what can only be described as a bad frozen mandarin concoction, (I refuse to call that mess ice cream). FAIL.

Better luck next time.

23 comments:

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

So one day you'll be surfing your cook books and this little slip of paper will fall out and there it will be. I'm sure that's what I've just done with a paper my dad gave me for a CD at a bank.

LyB said...

OK, so I went to see FailBlog and I had to stop because I was laughing so hard I was afraid to wake up the kids, seriously! I really hope you find that cheesecake recipe because it looks incredible and I love vanilla. Promise to post it when you find it? :)

cookworm said...

I hear you, girl. I just made something last night and brought it in to work only to find out that it didn't turn out that well. Oops. Oh well - I loved that caramel banana cake you made, though, which definitely *doesn't* look like a failure! Maybe I'll try that next. :)

Lyra said...

I can totally relate to eating something that isnt really good because I can't bear to throw it out. My dad's parents lived through the depression and they passed along a great thriftyness with food that I have learned from my father. While people are rioting over horribly priced staples around the world, I'm certainly not going to toss something out just because it came out flat or chewy instead of fluffy and moist....That cheesecake looks great btw!

Susan @ SGCC said...

Lol! I lose things all the time. Once, I looked for my keys for 2 days and they were in the garage fridge the whole time.

I hope you find that cheesecake recipe. It looks fantastic!

Cakebrain said...

Better Late than Never! The cheesecake looks fabulous.

Peabody said...

Don't feel bad. I found pictures of a muffin that I made almost 2 years ago. I can't find the recipe I used. :) So those wont be going up.
The cheesecake looks like it was worth waiting for.

Anonymous said...

I call this losing one's baking mojo. It is demoralizing, but the way out of it (sometimes) is to tackle something challenging. Good luck getting out of your rut!

Ferdzy said...

If you aren't failing occasionally you aren't living adventurously! And it's important to live adventurously.
It's not a bad thing to get some sort of feel for how much you can fiddle with a recipe, and how.

Looks like it was a lovely cheesecake. Raspberry topping, mmm!

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

I also call this bad baking mojo, and it always goes away eventually. Sometimes all I can manage to turn out in my kitchen is a bowl of cereal. Nothing to do but laugh about it!

Anonymous said...

I love it so beautiful!

Kara said...

I found your page from tastespotting and I love a good research project! There are a few recipes for cheesecake in the Toronto Star archives online, but not sure they're yours. I bet if you sent Jennifer Bain, the food editor an email, she could dig it up for you? Her email is published in her articles: jbain@thestar.ca (so I didn't get too creepy with my research skills. Good luck, that cake looks amazing and delicious!

test it comm said...

That cheese cake looks amazing. Just look at the raspberry sauce running down the sides!

Anonymous said...

I can't tell you the last time I had Cheese cake. I don't know why ... I love the stuff. You photo's of the cheese cake is making me very hungry. Well done!

Cakelaw said...

This cheesecake looks super, and is extra spcial because you can't find the recipe. No failures here! BTW, this wouldn't be it would t:

http://www.bigoven.com/17980-Amaretto-Cheesecake-with-Raspberry-Sauce-recipe.html

(The poster got it from the 1993 Toronto Star.)

glamah16 said...

I agree with Madame Chow. Sometimes we just lose our Mojo. It will come back, you'll see.Just 'bake it out'.

KJ said...

I know how you feel. I go through bad patches all the time. For a week or so absolutely nothing will turn out. I will decide that I am the world's worst cook. And then suddenly something will come out great and it's all back on track.

So, lots of cyberhugs. It will all be alright in the end.

Anonymous said...

I just discovered the Failblog this past week too -- some of the pics are *hilarious*! And I hear ya on the string of disappointing recipes...I went through a string of those recently too. The cheesecake looks fabulous, though! :)

Cookie baker Lynn said...

Sometimes it does seem like life conspires to make everything fail in the kitchen. Wrong ingredients, out of ingredients you could have sworn you had, and too little caffeine in the chef. But this, too, shall pass and your next magnificent success will erase the feeling of failure and buoy you up with hope. It's happened before; it will happen again.

Annemarie said...

You may not have opened up the world of cheesecake to us, but thanks for showing us the path to the failblog - great site, just as I'm sure the cheesecake was great. :)

Scott at Real Epicurean said...

A good cheesecake is just delicious. Here's hoping yours is as good as it looks!

Deborah said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one that posts when something goes wrong! Hey - we're all human, and even though everyone doesn't write about it, we all have recipes that fail.

This cheesecake, though - it looks amazing!!

Kelly-Jane said...

Great pictues of a stunning dessert, the colours just leap off the screen!