Yesterday I became an aunt (indirectly, since this was from Tom’s side of the family). This perfect little baby girl that we all be waiting for decided that 12:11am was a good time to make her way into the world.

Do you know what we were doing at 12:11am yesterday?

Tom and I were cutting into this cake to have a taste. From this day forward I will officially call this cake “Sienna’s Birthday cake” in honor of my new niece.

Way to go kid, being born when you aunt Monica was busy baking. You and I are going to get along just fine.

I never have been a fan of foam cakes. Chiffon, Angel food cakes were always “lacking” for me in flavor. Since this type of cake does not have butter, it lacks much of the rich flavor of butter cakes, and in most cases they are typically eaten with “something”, a flavorful sauce or other accompaniments, such as chocolate or fruit filling.

So there was no appeal for me at all with this choice. It did not help matters, that the last couple of days have given me a total beating and I been tired and cranky and simply not up to baking. But, I’m a sucker when it comes to promises and commitments. Not to mention the fact that this cake was being heavily promoted by Hanaa, Shandy and Faithy. I got tweets, and emails and facebook messages to “DO THIS CAKE!” “DON’T PASS THIS CAKE BY!”

With all that advertising, I was intrigue – I mean how special can an Angle food cake be?

I got to say I was a bit afraid of this cake. The factor of baking this and then turning it upside over the neck of a bottle and left suspended there for over 3 hours of cooling time had me full of butterflies and doubts. I had visions of the cake falling off the pan, into a full puddle on the counter top – a la Marie.

Not good.

And you know what they said about transferring your fears into the food you are baking right?

But, the tweets and facebook messages keep coming from the other bakers and I just could not resist. So Tuesday night, Arm with tips from Hannaa, I started baking.

This cake it pretty easy to put together – no major twist and turns, unlike the previous Pineapple pudding (yes, I’m still mad at it) And since I have a huge mentality of pre-prepping everything before hand, once I had all the ingredients out, measured and in place, it was all a matter of whipping, adding and folding – took me about 20 minutes or so.

At the 30 minute mark, my house smelled so good. The strong orange and chocolate flavor was working its way through the house and it was driving Tom and me crazy. This cake was going to be good.

At the 45 minute mark, it was still not ready and I got worry. I put another 10 minutes and hoped that the whole thing would not burn.

We got lucky, the cake came out of the oven and the moment of truth was upon me. Turning the whole thing upside down and hang from the bottle neck. I took another route and had previously noted that Flo suggested the use of a metal funnel instead of the bottle. I went searching and was surprise that I had one in my kitchen ( note to self: clean drawers!). Out it came and after counting to ten, I flipped the whole thing over it and closed my eyes.

Counted to ten again, and open them to find it suspended and holding. YIKES! The damn thing held!

I did a little bit of kitchen dance, held my arms overhead and scared the dogs to death when I shouted on top of my lungs – VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I do get carried away sometimes. Don’t judge.

Now it was just a matter of waiting the 3 hours for the whole thing to cool off.

I was too tired to continue on and do the Sabayon, regardless of the high praises by all the fellow ABC bakers. So, I called it a day and figure that I will mark it for future doing.

And that is why Tom and I found ourselves having a taste at the midnight hour.

Verdict

Tom: “It’s good and very airy and I’m surprise that the orange comes thru and the chocolate does not overpower the flavor. You do have to the Sabayon, it’s probably better with it.”

Me: I like it, I’m not a fan of the orange-chocolate combo, but here it works. And Tom is right; I’m going to have to do the sabayon for it, because while the cake is really good on it’s own, it totally screams for it to be eaten with something else to compliment it.

If you’re a Flo Braker fan, or you enjoy baking, and you have easy access to her book, “Baking for all Occasions”, feel free to join our monthly baking group. Just email HanaasKitchen [at] live [dot] com. If you want to buy the book you can get it here