Last weekend I experimented with a Cola Cake that turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. So, you ask, why try another soda pop cake? Well, the original recipe for the 7 Up Cake came from the folks at America's Test Kitchen, and the cakes they make are practically (almost always) fool-proof. Nevertheless, I had misgivings about this cake. It calls for 2 1/2 cups sugar, 2 1/4 cups melted butter, and 3 1/4 cups cake flour. Heavy. Well, it is a pound cake after all..!
Everything went in the food processor--except the flour. I forgot the 7 Up! When I remembered it, I was adding the flour. I poured in half a cup between batches of flour and whisked it in. Didn't seem to hurt the cake at all.
I tried a ring shape, just to be interesting. The batter for this recipe fills one 12-cup Bundt cake pan so I divided it between one 6 cup loaf pan (8 1/2x4 1/2x2 1/2) and a 6 cup Savarin ring mold. The cake in the mold was baked in 70 minutes whereas the loaf took the full 90 minutes.
The glaze hardened like cement the minute I added the sugar! I stirred and stirred but it wasn't a pourable consistency. The glaze instructions were uncharacteristically cryptic for ATK. All it said was add the sugar to the citrus juices and stir. So I tried heating the glaze and thinning it with a teaspoon of milk. I ended up making two batches of glaze. I think the glaze looks uneven and I should have dusted off the crumbs off the cake first. I also definitely need practice pouring a glaze. I know it isn't Christmas, but doesn't the plate look pretty though?!
And what about the taste? Well, surprisingly, the 7 Up Cake has a lemon-lime flavor that's tart rather than sweet. The juice and zest cut the sugar both in the cake and in the glaze. I couldn't taste the 7 Up. I wonder what flavored carbonated water is supposed to do to a cake?! The science teachers at school say the soda provides leavening, making the cake lighter in texture. Indeed, the crumb was fine and the cake was delicious. This recipe's worth repeating.
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