What I am trying to do seems very simple...but I haven't yet been able to figure this out for some reason.

What I would like to do is—for just one particular category—change the sort by attribute and sort order direction via the Magento backend. That said, I'm thinking the best thing to do would be to use custom Layout Update XML. After searching extensively on the internet, I cannot for the life of me seem to find an answer (I'm hoping an answer to this will will help others too).

Very simply, I've tried the following custom Layout Update XML for one specific category:

```
<reference name="product_list_toolbar">
    <action method="setDefaultOrder"><string>created_at</string></action>
    <action method="setDefaultDirection"><string>desc</string></action>
</reference>

```

And it just doesn't work! (It simply does nothing in both my custom theme, and in the default RWD theme.)

Is what I'm trying to do impossible? It seems so easy!

Thanks in advance.

Note: I am using Magento version 1.9.1.1