Harmonie from Viroqua, WI (2018 Week 1: Cakes)

Baker

Harmonie

Location

Viroqua, WI

Baking Challenge

Upside Down Cake

Give your cake a name based on the ingredients and decoration – and tell us about the origin of your recipe.

Summer Solstice Upside Down Cake. It is strawberry, rhubarb and rose flavored. I found a gluten-free almond cake recipe online and worked off of it.

Tell us about your proudest moment – or humble failure – in this week’s baking challenge.

My proudest moment was getting the layout of the top engineered. I created a druid start out of rhubarb and filled in the other space with cut strawberries. That’s about where the successes in the baking process ended. The cake started burning about half way through the bake. I topped it with foil and then cut off the burnt part before flipping. I had a hard time flipping the cake so the gooey juicy top spilled all over my stove. Almost NONE of my design peeked through and I have no idea why. Lastly, I planned for a rosewater whipped cream to accompany it, but my local store didn’t have it in stock. I tried to steep the cream with rose petals, but that didn’t lend much of a flavor. All that being said, it tastes great, especially the crispy edges!

Describe how you added a Wisconsin twist to your creation.

The rhubarb came from my CSA. The butter is local. The eggs come from my backyard. I was a few days short of getting local strawberries. Shucks!

How did you do?

Feeling humbled.