The Pork Rind Cake Verdict

So I made the pork rind cake. I started with the canonical recipe, making these changes:

* I did use sour cream instead of heavy whipping cream I soured with vinegar or lemon juice.

* I cut back on the cinnamon. The original recipe called for a half a cup, which is a heckuva lot of cinnamon. It's also 43 grams of carb, although 30 grams of that is fiber. I used 6 tablespoons, or 25% less.

* I left out the cinnamon extract, simply because I didn't have any. Indeed, I'm not even sure where I'd buy it.

* Instead of Splenda I used a stevia/erythritol blend that measures roughly 1/2 cup = 1 cup Splenda (or sugar.) I also used it to equal 2 cups, rather than 2 1/4 cups, sugar.

* The recipe specified either 2 8x8 square pans, or two 8" round pans. I only have one 8x8, and one round cake pan, and that one is 9" across. (I used to have two cake pans; I have no idea what happened to the other one. It's not like I bake a lot of layer cakes, you know? If I'm going to do the grain free, sugar free baking book I'll need to get another, though.) It also said you could use one 8x16, but I don't have one. Closest was about 8 1/2" by 14 1/2", so that's what I used.

So how'd it come out? Not bad, actually. Didn't rise tremendously, despite baking soda, baking powder, and 7 egg whites beaten stiff and folded into the batter. Still, the texture is perfectly acceptable; it's reasonably moist, too. Might be that it would rise higher if I used the heavy cream instead, since the batter would be more liquid. Might be that the erythritol/stevia blend affected rise, as well.

Too, rise might be a function of the pan size, but that can't be critical, since the pan sizes specified are somewhat different -- an 8" round pan has 50.24 square inches, while an 8x8" square has 64 square inches. Accordingly, I figure it would rise higher in the 8" round pans.

I was glad I cut back on the sweetener a little; it was plenty sweet this way.

Despite leaving out a quarter of the cinnamon, and all the cinnamon extract, it's very cinnamon-y -- really a little too cinnamon-y for my tastes. Clearly whoever devise the original recipe is a big cinnamon fan. It's nice to note that cinnamon is a pretty powerful blood-sugar-lowering herbal medicine. Since the cake is very low carb, you might even call it therapeutic.

While the cake is okay, all by itself it's not super-scrumptious. However, the recipe specified a cream cheese frosting. I didn't feel like hauling out the mixer this morning, so I took some whipped cream cheese I had in the fridge, and stirred in some vanilla and a couple of drops liquid Splenda, and spread it on a square of cake. This improved the cake quite a lot; with this simple frosting it became quite delicious. That's how we'll be eating the rest of the cake.

Unlike cake made from flour and sugar, pork rind cake is seriously filling. I had a square about 5x5, with cream cheese frosting, for breakfast first thing this morning -- was around 9 -- and I wasn't hungry again until 3. That's 6 hours of appetite satisfaction. Try that with a doughnut.

All told, this cake was enough of a success to peak my interest. I'm thinking it would make a good gingerbread, and I'm very fond of gingerbread. I'll try that next, and if it's good, I'll let you know.