Bucket List - Bake a Cake

 

The Bucket List is a list of things I want to do/feel I should do before I die. I've done some of them already, and I'm telling one of those stories here. To see the whole list, click here.

37. Bake a Cake

This seems to be such a simple thing, but everyone should have the experience, just once, of baking a cake, and I think many people don't get to try this. 

There is something about gathering the ingredients, measuring them (experimentation with quantities doesn't work with cake baking), sieving the flour and sugar and putting some elbow grease into mixing it all. 

There's the aroma which starts to waft through the house as the cake is close to being done, taking this hot, risen thing out of the oven and gingerly separating it from the rim of the cake tin before carefully - care....ful....ly - tipping it out onto the cooling rack.

Icing a cake is a sensual experience.

Mixing the icing, spreading it on the cake, licking your finger as you mess it up.

It's a sweet, homely thing.

For me, reminiscent of Sunday afternoons getting ready for visitors to come for tea, looking forward, after working and waiting for two hours, to actually have a soft, sweet slice of your labors.

Baking a cake is about being at home.

It's a small sigh of happiness.

My mother's amazing Chocolate Cake Recipe (which I know by heart)  

• Heat oven to 400F/200C


• Mix half a cup of cocoa with one cup boiling water


• Sieve together:
  
  
  
  • 1.5 cups flour
  
  
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  
  
  • 3.5 teaspoons baking powder
  
  


• Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add:
  
  
  
  • 4 egg yolks
  
  
  • 0.5 cup oil
  
  
  • Chocolate mixture
  
  


• Work the dry ingredients into the liquid, mixing it in slowly so there are no lumps


• Beat the egg whites to a stiff peak


• Grease your cake tin


• To the mixture add:
  
  
  
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  
  
  • The egg whites
  
  


• Fold (DO NOT JUST STIR) this into the mixture, creating lightness and air in it


• Bake for 25-30 minutes in a deep cake tin

Enjoy!

Follow up...

OK so my participation in the Bake Off (see post comments) didn't go so well.

First, I forgot we don't have a cake tin. My memory gets confused between the kitchen stuff we have here and what we have in the UK. So I rush off to the store to get one and all the have is those shallow tins to make layers. What is this insistence on layering cakes un the US? The extra filling adds calories and your cake should be moist enough to stand alone. Sigh.

So I get two layer cake tins.

Next screw up happens at the very first task. I filled the kettle and switched it on. Unfortunately it wasn't plugged in. So I mix the cocoa with cold instead of boiling water by mistake.

There are, I believe, cake baking days and days when you should just stay the hell outta the kitchen. Yesterday was the latter.

But I soldiered on, mistakenly putting bits if cocoa in the egg whites, flour in the sugar container...

Finally, to bake.

How to adjust the timing for shallow tins?

I checked the cakes at 18 mins and they weren't ready. My little voice told me to do another 5 mins, but I didn't listen. I set the timer for 7 mins.

I don't have to tell you, do I, that the bases were burnt?

Then I forgot to loosen the cakes while they were warm out of the oven so, when we finally tried to prise them out, a quarter of one cake stayed stubbornly stuck to the tin.

Fluffy Bear was scroogey with the icing (frosting) so, by the time we put some in the middle to stick them together, the icing on top looked like a bald man with a bad comb-over.

Last but not least, I forgot to take a photo of the completed abomination for you, so you get a picture that portrays the true sadness of the entire event.

Caveat: this is NOT a reflection on the recipe. It's a reflection on the fact that I was born tonever wear an apron.

   

Update on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 9:15AM by Ittybittycrazy

I hereby challenge you to a bake off!

Everyone who bakes this cake and sends me a picture and/or some comments on the recipe will have their photo and comments added to this post.

I'll take a pic of mine too!

Let's get baking!

Comments

[Kathy 1]

We should definitely knock this one off the bucket list. My kitchen or yours?

[ittybittycrazy]

I challenge you to a bake off! We both make it and take photos and I'll put them up here! I'll try to do mine this weekend.

[Kathy 1]

You're on!! Sunday would work for me but then we have to eat them too. Is this cake served as is,with frosting, a powdered suger dusting,.....?
Let me know so I can stock up on ingredients.

[Ittybittycrazy]

Up to you how you ice the cake. I think it works best with either chocolate butter icing or a chocolate glaze icing (cocoa, icing sugar and water).

[taffy]

Can you use a bunt pan? I don't like frosting, I am a wierdo.

[Ittybittycrazy]

You can use any pan. I've even made cupcakes out of the mixture. It's pretty moist so you needn't put frosting on it

[taffy]

I am doning this, and will make you proud. My husband likes a whiskey glaze, I'll use that. We love your baby girl and her brother. So sweet.

Just tell me how to send my photo.

[ittybittycrazy]

What's the recipe for a Whiskey glaze? Sounds wonderful!

Send photos to ittybittycrazy@gmail.com

I've got fresh eggs, new icing sugar and cocoa and I am ready to go!