The Perils of Not Planning Ahead

Half a dozen egg whites languishing in the fridge prompted me to to make a white layer cake. I wanted it to be pretty, with a splash of color between the layers. The first thought that came to mind was strawberry cream cake, but the strawberries in the store weren't all that attractive, so I put on my thinkin' cap. (Obviously I didn't get it on straight, as you'll see later.) My thinkin' cap said, 'Why not put a layer of preserves in between each cake layer? The bright red of strawberry or raspberry preserves will provide a beautiful contrast to the creamy white cake.

As it turned out, I didn't have enough preserves to spread between two layers. So I said to myself, 'perhaps I can use some gelatin and pureed frozen fruit to make a nice layer.' Well, I was out of plain gelatin, but I spied a box of berry flavored Jello in my cabinet (I have no idea how it got there - well OK it was on a really, really good sale), so I thought, what the heck. Let's give it a whirl.

Only after I opened the box did I realize the ugly truth: berry flavored Jello is very vividly, and garishly, tinted with blue dye:

Determined to press on regardless, I whizzed up some frozen strawberries in the food processor and added it to the Jello, placing the now weirdly purple concoction into the fridge while the rest of the cake came together.

Nothing untoward happened with the cake or even the basic traditional buttercream, so once those were cooled I began the assembly process. The cake layers split perfectly and I pulled the Jello mixture out of the fridge to smear between the layers. It was a little on the loose side, and good sense told me to put it back in the fridge and wait for it to firm up more. But the little devil on my shoulder said, "It'll never be ready by dinner if you wait...c'mon, just do it. It will be fine." And against my better judgment, I listened to the little devil.

After I gently placed the second layer on top of the jello mixture, I moved the cake platter. Bad idea! The layers were sliding all over the place. But I soldiered on, vainly trying not to squish out the runny purple goo (that didn't taste too bad considering) while I smeared on the buttercream. After the layers continued to slip slide around, I gave up on making the icing smooth or doing any fancy decorations, and plopped the whole thing back in the fridge.

I cut into it after dinner and it was still very loose, but held together well enough to make it on the plate at least. Here's what we ate that night:

The colors are a bit too artificial looking for my tastes, but it tasted pretty good.

The next day, when I sliced it again, the Jello had finally set and the slices were neat and even with no sliding around. If only I had either planned ahead in the first place and had enough preserves, or else listened to my gut and not put it together right away, I would have been much better off. I hope I've learned my lesson this time!