Baking disaster-Chocolate cake turned GREEN: Any ideas what I did wrong?

[Jockaroo]

My neighbor gave me a Friendship Bread starter. I baked it once following the recipe and it turned out great. I decided to make it a little different and had a flop. I wanted to make chocolate cake; when I cut the loaf, the bottom of the cake was a nasty, moldy-looking green!

The recipe calls for a box of pudding so I used Devil's food pudding. I substituted powdered cocoa for the cinnamon. I always bake with unsweetened applesauce instead of oil and didn't have any problems with this the first time. I used Ghiradeli semi-sweet chips and added a cup of raw hazelnuts. I pounded the nuts with a meat mallet--they did have the skins on them.

The recipe calls for buttering the glass loaf pans and then dusting them with sugar and cinnamon (I used powdered cocoa and sugar instead.) The cake is green on the bottom and about one inch up the sides. What did I do wrong?

Needless to say, hubby won't be taking the extra loaf to work tomorrow. I'm a really good cook. Baking--not so much. I'd appreciate any advice. My mom didn't have a clue on this one.

 

[merekc]

I don't know. My thoughts are that Friendship bread is a fermenting recipe with live yeast growing it probably isn't meant to be adjusted. The ingredients you added probably had a weird reaction. Did you put the cocoa in prior to your days of fermenting, or just on the day of baking?

Out of curiousity, did you taste the green part?

I'm also not a baker, I feel your pain.

 

[Jockaroo]

The cocoa and chocolate pudding were added on the baking day and after all the other "starter" starts were fed and dished out. So the cocoa was not left to ferment. I'm thinking that Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines are calling my name.

I hate to admit it, but I did taste a tiny bit of the green part. I knew my ingredients were fresh. It really didn't taste or smell any different, but I can't bring myself to eat any more. I'm just hollowing out the center top--which is good by the way. There is no way I would eat this if I hadn't baked it myself. It looks spoiled.

I baked two loaves of the cinnamon version and will cut it up in slices to send with hubby. I would be horrified if he had taken this green mess to work.

 

[minkydog]

I'm thinking that some of the coloring agents separated during the cooking process. Bet that is an interesting looking cake.

 

[HollyJoy]

I'm so sorry, but I'm laughing because this is totally something that would happen to me! While I consider myself a decent cook, I cannot bake!

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

I think that was the same recipe that turned Dr. Banner a little green

 

[Sheree Bobbins]

Curiouser and curiouser. I love to bake but have never encountered a chemical reaction that turned my baking green. What on earth could have caused this?

 

[The Mystery Machine]

It was the nuts, is my best guess.

 

[bumbershoot]

I was thinking the raw hazelnuts as well.


"I'm thinking that Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines are calling my name."

Get the Betty Crocker cookbook. Start with the "starlight yellow cake". Perfect that. Takes almost no more time than making a box of "her" cake, and without chemicals. Once you perfect that, make another one of her cakes (she has a snack cake that involves vinegar and it is SO delicious). Perfect that.

If you know you're not a baker, don't make so many substitutions! Perfect something, and then start changing things.

However, baking is chemistry. Therefore, until you're an expert, just go with recipes exactly.

Just made starlight yellow cake last night to make the from-scratch version of Paula Deen's "is it really better than s*x cake", even made pudding from scratch (cornstarch, milk, stir stir stir, boil one minute while stirring, put half the milk SLOWLY into two eggyolks, stirring so you don't scramble the eggs, put that back into the pan with the rest of the milk, boil 1 minute, toss in butter and vanilla, melt in and stir, PUDDING), all while making another cake from the Betty Crocker cookbook... I make the snack cake and starlight cake quite often, but I do NOT SUBSTITUTE! That way lies madness.


But Friendship Bread is beyond me. I tried once but kept forgetting about it the dough's upkeep, and it did NOT make anything edible. So that's good that your first one came out good. Just don't substitute.

 

[Kycha]

Did you throw the cake away yet? I would love to see a picture of it. I have only seen cake with a green bottom one time. Once upon a time, a friend of mine decided they wanted to make marijuana brownies. Well, they didn't have a brownie mix on hand. All they had was a microwaveable spice cupcake mix. They mixed it up, added the "special" ingredient and "baked". All the green stuff sank to the bottom of the cake. Made it look very interesting, but it didn't taste bad. And for the record, that was the last time I ever used marijuana. I only had 1/4 of a cupcake and I was high for 3 days. Never ever again.

 

[SandraVB79]

Unlike cooking, baking is almost an exact science. When you cook, you just add stuff to your taste. When you bake, it ha sto be right.
I would stick to the recipes, and not make so many changes.

Also, I would take a picture of the cake and post it on the DIS...

 

[juligrl]

My neighbor gave me a Friendship Bread starter. I baked it once following the recipe and it turned out great. I decided to make it a little different and had a flop. I wanted to make chocolate cake; when I cut the loaf, the bottom of the cake was a nasty, moldy-looking green!

The recipe calls for a box of pudding so I used Devil's food pudding. I substituted powdered cocoa for the cinnamon. I always bake with unsweetened applesauce instead of oil and didn't have any problems with this the first time. I used Ghiradeli semi-sweet chips and added a cup of raw hazelnuts. I pounded the nuts with a meat mallet--they did have the skins on them.

The recipe calls for buttering the glass loaf pans and then dusting them with sugar and cinnamon (I used powdered cocoa and sugar instead.) The cake is green on the bottom and about one inch up the sides. What did I do wrong?

Needless to say, hubby won't be taking the extra loaf to work tomorrow. I'm a really good cook. Baking--not so much. I'd appreciate any advice. My mom didn't have a clue on this one.

I have to say, I stuck with the "regular" recipe for making it with chocolate and now I may never go back! Two small boxes of instant chocolate pudding and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips - divine! I use unsweetened applesauce too so I don't think that's the problem. I didn't have any cinnamon and didn't substitute anything this time. Also didn't sugar my pan this time and it still came out normal. The chocolate was more than sweet enough.

Could the hazelnuts have been the culprit for your greening? I don't eat hazelnuts so I truly don't know, just throwing the idea out there.

 

[Jockaroo]

First, I promise that there were no illegal drugs involved in my cake. I will even take a pee test for the DIS folks if needed! That would have made for an interesting staff meeting with hubby's team though!

I'm thinking there was a weird chemical reaction from the nuts or some dye ingredient in the devil's food pudding. There has to be lots of dyes in that pudding to make it so dark.

I don't know how to post pictures. I still have an uncut loaf so I could try to get pictures. It really is a memorable cake. I dissected the green off the first cake and it went to the trash. I only sampled a small green bit that had a nut in it. I love hazelnuts, but I don't think I'll be baking with them again unless the recipe calls for it. This green cake/bread is so gross and funny at the same time. I do think it is a waste of a good bag of Ghiradelli chocolate though.

SandraVB and Bumbershoot: I do hearby swear that I will follow directions from now on--at least most of the time. I did pull out my Betty Crocker cookbook and marked the starlight yellow cake recipe. I do want to try this. It sounds simple and I do like that I can control what goes in the cake. I promise I will follow the directions--at least the first time.

I also baked the standard cinnamon version the same day and followed the directions. It turned out OK. I'm really thinking it is the nuts or the pudding. Thanks for the advice folks. I appreciate your responses!

 

[Imzadi]

It's a DIS green cake.

I think it's your starter mix. It probably got moldy.