When the Shortening Goes Bad

Last Sunday I was responsible for bringing the desserts for our after-church fellowship. I made three desserts: chocolate no bake cookies, Neiman Marcus bars, and a banana nut cake. The first two were great and everyone loved them. The banana nut cake was a different matter.

I have been trying to perfect my mama's signature cake. She has been making it all my life and her receipe is actually even older than she is. Created before mixers, it tells you how many strokes you are to beat the icing and cake mixture (no jokes, please,). Seeing how this recipe is so old and tastes so amazingly well, I've been trying for the past 4 years to make it.. and each time, something goes wrong.

The first time I tried to make it was a complete disaster. Subsequent attempts have been better. My last attempt I ran into problems: I ran out of extra confectioners sugar and, this is the kicker, my shortening was bad. I discovered it was bad only after it was baked and I tasted the cake and there was this slight metal taste to it. I was talking with a church member and had asked her if she too, thought there was something wrong with the shortening and she said, "Yeah, your shortening went bad."

She said that I shouldn't be too freaked out about it. She explained that she a can of 8-month old shortening in her icebox. "You keep it in the icebox?" I replied. To that she and everyone around her immediately put their cake down.

Actually, depending on what you use shortening for, some keep it in their icebox but if you use it for cakes, you are not to refridgerate it. However, where you do store it, it needs to never get hot which will make it turn bad quick. (Yeah, I read that on label.) My kitchen tends to get hot and when I called mom, she said that's why she keeps it under her sink.

Anyways, my banana nut cake sucked yet again. Next time though, it'll work- I am definitely stoked to make and have the best banana nut cake ever.