This cake had better be good after creating all these dirty dishes!

This week’s Labor Day recipe for the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group was the labor-intensive Nectarine Chiffon Upside Down Cake. I figured that any recipe that requires dirtying my stand mixer and my food processor has to be good.  I think it was just mildly good, and not worth the effort I put into it, but the reasons why it wasn’t so good are mostly my fault.  Here’s what happened.

I made this Saturday afternoon while George watched the kids. I usually have Julia help me, but I wasn’t in the mood for helpers that afternoon.  I had an hour to bake on my own. What a luxury.

Melt the butter and brown sugar, then layer on the nectarines and the batter.

I had only quickly scanned the ingredients list before starting to bake because these days I do everything quickly to take advantage of whatever pockets of time a hungry or fussy newborn allows me.  I should have looked closer at the list though, because I didn’t have enough sugar!  I needed a cup and a half, and I only had half a cup.  Instead of running to the store because I feel like everything has to be done quickly, not well, these days, I just substituted Splenda.  The whole time, I was thinking I should probably be kicked out of the TWD group for this gross substitution.  And what would Julia say?

Add the streusel and the rest of the batter.

But it gets worse.  I thought I had a lemon, but it turns out I had only half a lemon, so I used bottled lemon juice.  The cake did not taste lemony at all.

Oh! And then I didn’t read the directions carefully and I beat four egg whites instead of six.  I realized this right before I started to combine the whites with the yolk batter.  I just returned the egg whites to my mixer and added two more whites to the already stiff-peaked batter.  With all of these errors and substitutions, it’s a wonder that I even concocted something edible.

Enjoy!

Thankfully everyone at the Labor Day party graciously ate my rendition of this cake.

Yes, that’s Jarryd playing Scott’s bass saxophone in the background. It was quite a party!

This week’s baking party was hosted by Marlise from The Double Trouble Kitchen and Susan from The Little French Bakery.  Click on over to their sites if you want the full recipes.  To see what other bakers did, go to Tuesdays with Dorie.