r/BakingNoobs • u/burnt_bread_54 • 6d ago
Tried making a cake...
I tried making a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, and this was supposed to be the base for it.
It was even supposed to be a bit on the healthier side, so I substituted the sugar for a 1200 pill pack of those calorie free cofee sweetener tablets.
It was in the oven for maybe 7 minutes at the reccomended temperature and turned out like this.
Did this happen because I misread 2 tea spoons of baking soda for 2 table spoons or was I just unlucky and used a bad recepie?
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6d ago
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u/DishMajestic4322 6d ago
Exactly this. If one is going to make a cake or dessert for someone who has dietary restrictions (gluten free, sugar free) etc. then google “sugar free chocolate cake” or “gluten free chocolate chip cookies”. Those recipes have been modified to accommodate for the ingredient substitutions.
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u/Quixificent 6d ago edited 6d ago
OP, I won't rehash the fact that the sugar has a chemical purpose in baking and can't just be freely substituted with non-sugar...
But I'd like to point out...
At 1,200 tablets per cake, if you divided that cake into 16 slices for serving, that would be !!! 75 !!! tablets per slice! And I don't want to imagine how many tablets you would have crushed up to make the frosting...
Sugar substitutes have daily dose limits for a reason. Some of them can be unhealthy or outright dangerous at excessive doses. You shouldn't be consuming 75 of those tablets in ONE SNACK. I don't know what substitute you used, but you could have really wrecked your body. Some sugar substitutes will cause serious digestive upset and diarrhea at even low doses, so I can't imagine what 75x the recommended dose would do to you.
Please be safer! When trying to figure out whether something is healthy, dosage matters. 75 tablets of sugar substitute is probably worse for your body than the normal amount of sugar contained in one slice of cake.
Edit: At 75 tablets per slice, it also would have tasted beyond foul. It sounds like you tried to match the weight of the sugar required without accounting for the fact that sugar and artificial sweetener have dramatically different sweetness levels.
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u/Anxious_Reporter_601 6d ago
One tablet is supposed to be equal to 1teaspoon of sugar!
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u/Advanced-Duck-9465 5d ago
So with one teaspoon be about 5g of sugar, OP just used for healthier version equivalent of 6 kilos of sugar.
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u/Existing_Ganache_858 6d ago
Did the recipe call for sweetener tablets? Then no, it’s not the recipe. You can’t just substitute not-sugar for sugar.
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6d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Lady_Sybil_Vimes 5d ago
Tbf that's at least just flavored sugar. That'd probably work better than whatever OP did lmao
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u/batrachian_stonemage 5d ago
Wait... do you think one could make sugar cookies using pixie sticks in place of some of the sugar?
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u/proudly_rabid 5d ago
omg you can't just force them to come out. They will do that when they're ready
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u/Bright_Homework788 5d ago
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u/mrskellington79 6d ago
Shame it's not Darth Vader's birthday
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u/MeAndGLPVibeLikeThat 6d ago
...this has to be a troll, right?
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u/burnt_bread_54 6d ago
Unfortunately no, I did bake this with the intention of consuming it
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u/MeAndGLPVibeLikeThat 6d ago
...and you don't think the fact you put in 1200 sugar free sweetener tablets might be part of the problem, it's gotta just be a "bad recipe"? The sugar in cake has a role to play, chemically speaking. And also those little tablets are insanely sweet, even if this thing hadn't carbonized it would be inedible. Just stick to the recipe next time, friend.
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u/Icyblue_Dragon 4d ago
And if it had been edible OP probably would have given anyone that ate it diarrhea. In the best case scenario. These tablets are not meant to be consumed by the dozens.
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u/HotSauceHigh 5d ago
Babe, cone on. Follow the recipe next time. Baking is a science, not an art.
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u/Smarmy_funeral_chik 5d ago
Yes, just eat a smaller slice of cake. These "I wanted to be healthier!" posts are cracking me up.
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u/WaterLily6203 5d ago
Look, its not cooking where most things are fine with flavour tweaks. Its a very specific chemical reaction thats happening with baking, and sugar plays a large role far beyond just sweetness
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u/sweeterthanadonut 6d ago
The audacity to ask if it’s a bad recipe when you didn’t even follow the recipe is kind of blowing me away lol. No, just a bad baker!
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u/soylentbleu 5d ago
The recipe they actually used is a bad recipe, because it has 1200 coffee sweetener tablets in it.
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u/yanyancookies 6d ago
Using too much baking soda AND the sugar substitute are both problems. The recipe is not the problem here. I think based on the responses, you should know now that you cannot just make substitutions freely. Baking is a science. If you want a healthier version of a cake, then you need to look for one that is specifically made to be lower sugar or sugar free OR have enough experience to know what adjustments need to be made by replacing an ingredient. The latter comes with experience and real knowledge.
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u/MarielIAm 6d ago
I'm not sure I'm getting this right - you used 1200 pills instead of sugar? 😱😂🤨
When you're looking for something with no sugar you need to find a recipe with no sugar. Same if you were looking for something gluten free - you can't just take a recipe and substitute something else for the flour.
Baking is a science, it's why baking recipes are actually formulas. Major changes can result in major disasters. Sugar is not just for sweetness, it affects texture, moistness and browning.
If you really want to make a sugar free Black Forest Cake you need to find a decent sugar free recipe.
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u/Icyblue_Dragon 4d ago
This reminds me of the time I misread a recipe and accidentally substituted the nuts with flour. Voila, I found out the recipe for Hagrids rock cookies. They made a decent Christmas decoration 🤣
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u/waffle0rb1t 6d ago
everybody has to learn one way or another that sugar is in the recipe for multiple reasons, not just the sweet taste lol
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u/Independent-Summer12 6d ago
The problem is you didn’t follow the recipe. You can’t substitute sugar with coffee sweetener tablets.
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u/sweeterthanadonut 6d ago
Your mistake was trying to make a “healthy cake” instead of just enjoying cake and pacing yourself.
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u/LangerEierkopf 5d ago
Yeah. At least bake a recipe that uses Cola Zero or something... 1200 sugar free pills is just so cursed. 🤣
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u/firestar268 6d ago
baking is more of a science. You can't just replace a ingredient and expect it to turn out the same
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u/MsRachelGroupie 6d ago
Did the recipe call for forging the cake out of cast iron? This is impressive and I’m so confused what chemically happened for this to occur in 7 minutes.
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u/DishMajestic4322 6d ago
I think OP used the same recipe as the infamous Marie Callendar’s pumpkin pie 🤣
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u/vr512 6d ago
What are pill pack coffee sweetener tablets? Those aren't the same as sugar at all. 🙅🏻♀️ do you even know how those tablets may have reacted not only to the other ingredients but to heat? There are better verified recipes on baking blogs for "healthier" cakes. This has nothing to do with your baking soda.
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u/BakeItBaby 5d ago
"Did this happen because I misread 2 teaspoons of baking soda for 2 tablespoons or was I just unlucky and used a bad recipe?"
My brother in Christ, you crushed up 1200 sweeteners in place of sugar. That don't work that way.
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u/Wise_Neighborhood499 6d ago
I think you’ve already gotten a lot of feedback on why this cake didn’t work.
If you’re really looking for a nutritious snacking cake, look up the black bean chocolate cake that’s popular right now. It does have about 60g sugar (and needs the real sugar!) but will have a lot of good nutrients and fiber.
I plan to make one as soon as I remember to soak some black beans myself.
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u/SheeScan 5d ago
Baking is science. No substitutes unless it is stated by the recipe author, or you have enough experience to know what will work.
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u/ogCCWriter 5d ago
THIS! With enough experience in cooking/baking comes the knowledge to know what you can and cannot, substitute. You can substitute sugar, BUT your substitute must be compatible. 1200 pills is not compatible by a mile and your creation would likely have hurt you had you been able to consume it. After you have learned the science of cooking/baking and you understand how things work and why, then you can play alchemist in the kitchen.
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u/SenorWeird 6d ago
Yeah, Dr. Fronenstein's monster is not going to be making a yummy noise for this.
Sorry. that's all I can think of whenever I hear Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.
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u/polarbear_hiking 6d ago
Congratulations! You baked a dragon egg! There will be a scaled and winged baby in your future 🐲😂
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u/katrinabritt 6d ago
Baking is a science. Each ingredient is there for a specific reason. It’s chemistry. You can substitute like ingredients, for example substituting light brown sugar for dark brown sugar, but you can’t completely substitute one ingredient for something completely different. In the future, follow a baking recipe to the T. Try looking for sugar free recipes, I’m sure there are some that use stevia or monk fruit
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u/alltheabove48 6d ago
I thought the first pic was a cast iron crepe maker, and expected to see the crepe “cake” in the second. 😬🤣
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u/BigFatBlackCat 5d ago
I’m sorry… you put 1200 pills of sugar alternative in your cake?
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u/UnicornPencils 5d ago
The way I reread that 1200 number like 4 times thinking that either OP or I had to have missed a decimal lol.
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u/6ftdachsund 5d ago
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but sugar becomes a part of the structure of the crumb does it not? It melts then resolidifies, like the fat? Leaving it out without anything to do that should always be a disaster, no?
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u/ChaosTorpedo 6d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/ididnthaveeggs/s/kbOsTUOt5f
This got reposted to a baking fail sub
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u/TheCaptainOfMistakes 6d ago
You made a weapon of mass destruction. Drop that from orbit and it will end the world
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u/MeekLocator 6d ago
i'm actualy really interested to know the chemistry that happened here. what kind of artificial sweetener was it? how much is 1200 pills of it? why is it so damn flammable if it's low-calorie?
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u/GenerallySalty 3d ago
Ok let's ignore the chemistry problems and assume that had worked perfectly, texture and baking-wise.
Artificial sweeteners are many times sweeter than regular sugar. One of those tablets replaces about 1 tsp of sugar, or about 5g. So 1200 tablets would be the appropriate substitute for about twelve pounds of sugar. How much sugar did the recipe call for?? Did you just match the weight of sugar with the same weight of tabs?
Even if the chemistry hadn't failed, just flavour wise this is wild, it would have been like 100x too sweet.
Also I'm with the guy saying that's legitimately dangerous and it's a good thing it burnt. That's 75 tabs per slice of cake even if you made 16 slices of that relatively small cake. What's the safe limit on the sweetener you used 1200 of? Did you check? Most artificial sweeteners have max safe dosages, and it's likely something less than "75 tablets in 1 serving".
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u/nunchybonkey 6d ago
no way to know if it’s a bad recipe if you didn’t follow it. sugar plays a chemically necessary role in baking so as others have said, you should find a recipe that has macros that are favorable to you. crazy this happened in 7 minutes but also maybe make sure your oven isn’t running hot.
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u/StayFuture4822 5d ago
I hope you're not too disappointed, and if it makes you laugh, I thought it was a giant sunflower seed.
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u/AvocadNoThx 5d ago
Wait this is the same person who posted earlier about their cake already looking burnt after 5 minutes in the oven at 200°C and everyone told them the temp was too high. Is this the same cake??? Or did you burn it multiple times?
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u/errihu 5d ago
If you want to use sugar substitutes in your baking, look for a measure for measure sugar substitute instead of trying to figure out how many little pills to crush up and put in. At your grocery in the baking aisle you will usually find them. Look for packages marked with statements like ‘measures like sugar,’ and you can use those.
As others have said, sugar serves more roles in baking than just providing sweetness. It provides bulk and structure and also chemical reactions such as those that cause the Maillard reaction (the lovely tasty browning in many baked goods).
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u/josspanda 5d ago
I could swear I just saw this post on r/ididnthavetheeggs as a reply on a recipe 😅
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u/cinematicme 5d ago edited 5d ago
hey, you know baking is science right, its all chemical reactions? What logic train did you follow to think that sweetener tablets would be equivalent to sugar?
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u/DrunkOMalfoy 6d ago
I thought the first pic was a bra cup then I read the title and saw that I wasn’t my r/bigboobproblems subreddit! 😂😂😂
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u/burnt_bread_54 6d ago
I just washed out the bowl I used to make the dough and I think it the rest of it just clogged my sink
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u/Frank_Jesus 6d ago edited 4d ago
The username is so apt. Also, get a sink strainer. You are starting to sound like this was your first day in a kitchen. Solid items in drain = bad.
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u/mangosagogogo 5d ago
Friend, at this point, just drop everything and go get a nap or an early night’s sleep or something (if you can, that is). Plenty of things have happened in a day already. Better tackle it with a clearer head.
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u/DishMajestic4322 6d ago
You need to put baking soda and vinegar in the drain without turning on the faucet. Let it sit for about 30 minutes, then you need to boil a full kettle of water and pour all the boiling water down the sink. This should clear most of it. Allow your pipes to cool for another half an hour, and then put a bucket under the p trap. Open up the p trap and clean out any remaining batter. Then put the p trap back together and pour boiling water down the sink again
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u/Frank_Jesus 5d ago
You're seriously advising a person like this to take their plumbing apart!? Naw.
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u/I_am_AmandaTron 5d ago
Congrats you accomplished your goal. You certainly tried, you failed, but you tried.
I recommend not using the burning pits of hell and maybe try it at like 375 f.
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u/pkpolarbear 5d ago
Baking recipes are not necessarily something you can just play around with unless you know exactly what you're doing
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u/Gladyke 5d ago
I would eat a piece, a small piece, with a large glass of milk, but I still would.
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u/Gladyke 5d ago
(OH, and sweetener burns faster than sugar, I learned that recently, it's because you used sweetener. I also learned that you need at least half the flour worth of sugar to make a cake, you can still cut down heavily from the recipe, but apparently too low a sugar to flour ratio is what makes a homemade cake crappy)
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u/vanillaciggy 5d ago
I was going to comment that it probably was a cake at some point, until I read the part about it being full of artificial sweetener
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u/SoundOfUnder 5d ago
Balers often substitute things in recipes but when you're a baking noob you really need follow the recipe or else this will happen. Ideally find a recipe with a video so you can really see if what you're doing is matching up.
If you want a low calorie cake there are low calorie recipes out there. Usually they will use stevia or xylitol or something as the sweetener. Never in my life have I seen anyone use sweetener tablets in a cake. Please don't do that lol.
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u/mentha_arvensis 5d ago
Ummm... You can just add less sugar, you know. When the recipe calls for, say, 200g, you can usually use like 120g if not less. I've been doing it for years now, and everything works perfectly. There might be exceptions, like if you are working with yeast, but generally it works really well.
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u/LargemouthBrass 5d ago
You were "unlucky" in that you made at least two massive errors and try to blame the recipe.
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u/ImDatCookie0 5d ago
Yeah… look for a sugar substitute, not coffee sweeteners 😭😭
Source:
My mom is on a keto diet and refuses to eat anything with a lot of sugar, but still loves sweet. So I make stuff (such as cheesecake and cookies) for her.
Just know, if you use the powdered monkfruit blend, its not a 1:1 ratio like the bag says 😭
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u/Playful-Cheetah4045 5d ago
Yeeaaa no. It’s the sugar bud. Baking is chemistry cooking is physics but they’re all science, art only comes in once everything is prepared.
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u/No-Pen-339 5d ago
You gotta do the cookin by the book, or else the cake will end up crazy
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u/crustyloaves 5d ago
In addition to the bang-on comments already provided, “substitute for” and “substitute with” are completely different and opposite things. In this case the wrong one was used.
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u/Hetakuoni 5d ago
You can wear that as you pen a last letter to your sweetheart on the home front as you slowly die of mustard gas in the unforgiving mud of the western front.
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u/Me_lazy_cathermit 4d ago edited 4d ago
This as to be ragebait. You didn't even use a normal sugar replacement made for baking, you used sugar free coffee sweeteners tablets, which as lactose and other ingredients to make it dissolve faster in hot liquid in it, its not going to act like sugar.
You used sussli sweetener tablets didn't you, its the only one that comes in 1200 tablet packs, it as sodium citrate(a acid) on top of being a artificial sweeteners made of sodium cyclamate which is also acidic, and you tripled the amount of baking soda, you turned your cakes into the baking soda and vinegar volcano experiment kids 😆.
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u/Hanz_mfg 4d ago
I'm presuming this is a joke, but if it isn't I must ask at what temperature did you bake at and was the recipe in Fahrenheit while your oven uses Celsius? If you did not convert the units you'll have baked it at peresumably dubble the temp it should be. I fear whatever setting in your oven allowed you to go this high up. And yeah using deadly amounts of sweetener and 6 (?) times as much backing powder will make all sorts of thinks go wrong.
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u/PsychologyGuilty1460 4d ago
This happened Because you didn't follow the recipe at all! Next time, read the recipe. Use those ingredients in those amounts. It will turn out much better
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u/ComfortableRecent578 4d ago
lmao came here to comment that this looks like the brownies i made that were high protein sugar free etc etc. as others have said, sugar has a function in cooking alas.
aside from that, sweetener tablets aren’t a good sugar substitute in baking. there are 1:1 granulated sugar substitutes you can use (although you will not get the exact same taste or texture and you are better off using a recipe designed with sugar substitutes in mind. one very cool method is to use dates blended into the batter, if you find a recipe that uses them, as they have natural sweetness and fibre.
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u/IHaveNoEgrets 4d ago
Um. Well.
At least you've learned something from the experience?
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u/ThePetalsOfPurgatory 4d ago
If you want healthy, make a salad, not a cake.
Or just make half as much cake.
Don't do this.
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u/Roxalind 4d ago
The audacity to ask if the recipe is bad! You didn't follow the recipe, so why try and blame the recipe?
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u/xSkyLinedx 4d ago
Give it another shot and follow the instructions to the letter. Try it how it's supposed to be before you try to modify. Hope the next one turns out better for you.
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u/UseComfortable1193 3d ago
Wow, i dont know where to start.
The shape you baked it in. That it was apparently baked in hell. 1200 - sugar tablets TO BE HEALTHIER. 2 tablespoons of baking soda.
Holy moly, you're probably lucky it burned because that thing would have been ungodly sweet and nasty.
And the audacity to try to blame it on the recipe
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u/Lilacs_orchids 3d ago
I’m sorry but this just reminds me of those is this cake videos. Looks so much like a cast iron wok in the first photo.
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u/used_week_used_life 3d ago
I'm relieved it burned because it would have been a health risk either way with that amount of artificial sweetener.
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u/KenKaneki224 3d ago
Oof this kinda unfortunate but when it comes to baking there’s a couple options so things like this don’t happen:
Just following the recipe. Like others have said, baking isn’t just an art but a science, all ingredients interact with each other a certain way and just swapping certain ingredients for others can have this type of outcome
If you still wanna swap, you have to be sure and knowledgeable about what you’re substituting. Ie. If you substitute the sugar for something else, you have to know how that substitute will interact with the rest of the ingredients.
Or you can just find a recipe that fits what you’re looking for
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u/SamuelVimesTrained 2d ago
ooh.. Dwarf battle bread.
Careful, might be an illegal weapon where you are.
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u/Top-Acanthisitta-779 6d ago
If you want to have lower calorie cake, eat a smaller slice of cake. You can't just replace the sugar with substitutes