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29 Jul
DB Filbert Gateau: ‘Twas not meant to be
Posted by Chelle as Daring Bakers
Ahhh, I so wish this had worked out, because I had visions of a truly beautiful cake. I will make a long story short - I am allergic to all nuts, so I needed to make substitutions since the base of this cake is ground nuts. Going on some recommendations, I attempted to use ground oats. I’m not sure if the texture or weight shifted, but the cake appeared to bake up okay, however upon trying to remove it from the pan, it turned into a crumbly mess. It took me about 3 hours of work to get to that point, and I just honestly did not feel like starting from scratch or going out to buy more ingredients. Plus, I did taste the broken cake and it tasted, well, like oats. I’ll need to do some research on how best to substitute for ground nuts in cake and cookie recipes that are based upon them. Perhaps just flour? If anyone has any suggestions I’d certainly welcome them!
I am happy to say that this failed challenge wasn’t all for naught, for I learned how to make clarified butter! Clarified butter is made by slowly melting butter so that it separates into three parts: milk solids, water, and butter fat. The solids that float to the top are skimmed off, and then the rest of the mixture is strained so that all that remains is pure liquid golden-yellow butterfat. Look how pretty it is!
Looking forward to what August brings!!
Good on you for even trying. This month has been busy for me and I slackly put the DB challenge on the bottome of my list and didnt get to it - mainly beacuse 3 of the last 5 challenges have been layer cake - hoping that August is something different!
You know you gave it a great try. I lot of people who are allergic wouldn’t have even attempted to make the recipe. Yah for getting something out of it!
I have nut intolerances,which if not as bad as nut allergies, still give me almost the same reactions. Did you think of using ground flax seeds as a replacement for the ground nuts? I think the consistency should be about the same. Keep up the good work!
You deserve “Baker of the Year” award for even trying it without nuts. I passed on this because 2 out of 4 members of my house are allergic and it just wasn’t worth it to me. I made biscotti instead!!
Thanks for making such a valient effort! I am sorry it didn’t work out, but I am glad you were able to get something out of it!
I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you this month. I’m impressed that you tried, considering how many nuts were in this recipe. Hopefully next month will be better!
Geez, at least ya tried! I wrote down my grocery list of ingredients a week ago and then decided the next day I wasn’t going to make it. I just couldn’t afford the ingredients and the cake would be way too much for just me and my husband. Hopefully next month’s challenge will be a bit easier!
So sorry about your cake. Trying to make this with a nut substitute would be difficult. Better to just skip the nuts entirely and I think I would be okay.
I’m looking forward to next month too!
Chelle, the important thing is you gave it a try. Look forward to your creation in August!
At least your butter is beautiful!
You gave it your best shot… that’s what matters! Here’s to next month!
Let’s put this cake behind us and start fresh next month. Silly cake anyway.
Thanks for your comment.
Sorry it didn’t work out for you. I remember making oat flour muffins and the texture was really crumbly due to the lack of gluten, but if you kept in the flour I’m not sure why it didn’t work out, considering nut flours don’t have any gluten. Maybe if you had used a higher ratio of flour:oat flour. Better luck on the next challenge!
No challenge where you learned something can be considered a failure, even if you never end up with a finished product. So good for you Daring Baker!
Oy, that’s such a tough allergy! I read that Nik Snacks (http://niksnacks.blogspot.com/), who also has nut allergies, found a reasonable substitute–maybe you could try it out with some of your own variations and post about it.
Clarified butter is awesome. For this recipe, I asked my Hun to make it for me, giving what I thought were some clear instructions. When I walked into the kitchen, I found a frying pan with a shallow coat of melted butter clinging to the bottom. Eep!
at least you gave it a try! i’m not sure what you would sub for the nuts?? i was pleasantly surprised to learn how easy it is to make clarified butter - i have seen it called for in recipes and simply skipped over them b/c i did not know how to make it …