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So I have a bit of a dilema on my hands. I have promised one of my female friends that I would bake her a birthday cake. Her birthday is Saturday. It is now Thursday night and I juuust woke up from a nap.
Aside from the cake, I am super busy at work and will not have any time to do this until Saturday morning. Friday night I am rearranging my livingroom into a bit of an open concept type setup, for the after party, plus hanging out with said girl and our friends.
So, having never baked a cake in my life.. but keeping in mind that I'm a decent cook.. would it be feasible for me to put something together Saturday morning? I have no idea what sort of ingredients I would need to get - and I would need to get them tomorrow after work while nobody's looking
The reason I promised her this in the first place is because she did the exact same thing for me. She baked me a birthday cake in a TOASTER OVEN.. I thought that was pretty impressive, so I wanted to pay the favour back and put together an awesome birthday cake for her. Am I going to be able to do this, or should I cave in and buy a premade cake somewhere instead?
Pilsbury or Betty Crocker mix. All you need is milk, eggs, oil and the mix plus a pan. It'll take you 30 minutes to bake. Its very easy very very easy.
'Twould be difficult to do Saturday morning, since you need time to put the cake together and bake it, then you have to let it cool off before you can frost it.
Theres plenty of recipes on the internet... It will look like crap if it's your first cake, but that's what icing is for make sure you cover all the imperfections... As long as you don't screw it up too bad it will still taste great. I have actualy baked several cakes btw.
Hmm.. I will have a looot of time Saturday morning. I think. I will likely have to pick up the ingredients tomorrow. I have briefly tried looking up recipes online, but there's just so much BS out there. I would rather get a recipe directly from someone who has done this before.
I was going to bake a test cake first, to see how it goes. I want to make something semi-special.. like.. with layers and stuff.. and chocolate stuff in between the layers.
Hmm.. I will have a looot of time Saturday morning.
I was going to bake a test cake first, to see how it goes. I want to make something semi-special.. like.. with layers and stuff.. and chocolate stuff in between the layers.
Two layers is easy the hrad part is getting the bottem layer flat for stacking. Simply shave the inevitable bulge on top off of the bottem layer with a big long bread knife.
I would buy a cake or get my mom to help me.. or something.. but then the whole point of this exercise was to make a point of doing something special for her birthday. So if I don't have to, I won't.. I want this to be a warpus venture
I would buy a cake or get my mom to help me.. or something.. but then the whole point of this exercise was to make a point of doing something special for her birthday. So if I don't have to, I won't.. I want this to be a warpus venture
I think. I will likely have to pick up the ingredients tomorrow. I have briefly tried looking up recipes online, but there's just so much BS out there. I would rather get a recipe directly from someone who has done this before.
You'd be fine getting a box of cake mix, they have instructions on the box as to what to add. Which is nice, so you can make sure you get everything in one trip to the store.
I was going to bake a test cake first, to see how it goes. I want to make something semi-special.. like.. with layers and stuff.. and chocolate stuff in between the layers.
Hmm.. I will have a looot of time Saturday morning.
I was going to bake a test cake first, to see how it goes. I want to make something semi-special.. like.. with layers and stuff.. and chocolate stuff in between the layers.
Two layers is easy the hrad part is getting the bottem layer flat for stacking. Simply shave the inevitable bulge on top off of the bottem layer with a big long bread knife.
Yeah, do this. Most pilsbury/betty crocker recipes have directions for 2 round pan cakes. You just need to shave off the bulge, or if that doesn't look like fun to you you can always just add more frosting to the outer ring.
It's a snap. My 11 y/o likes to bake cakes and brownies for his sibling's birthdays.
Be careful though I made a cake once with a striper in side, well we can just say that she didn't take to being baked.
Anyway don't make it to heavy other wise the weight will cause it fall apart. Trust me I have seen it happen ,to much frosting... and the cake splits in half and falls over.
Well, good for you, and good luck! Do you know what units of measurement you'll be using? Grams or ounces?
Afaik the simplest cake to bake is a Victoria sponge: 2oz each of sugar, butter and flour to each egg. A normal cake is 2 or 3 eggs. This will take up to an hour to make, depending on your skillz - normally around 30 mins; up to an hour to bake, and allow ten minutes to decorate it for the simplest methods, or 45 minutes for the complex ones. Note you can get the icing etc ready while the cake is baking.
If you wanna make one of those, here's what I do to make a sponge cake, complete with translations from the culinary:
Spoiler:
Weigh out the ingredients first.
Turn the oven on first, so it'll be warm ready for the baking.
Get your cake tin ready to cook it in: if possible, cover the base with baking parchment so the cake will come free more easily; if not, just smear some butter all over the inside. Go on, just use your finger.
Decide on the flavouring, if any: fruit, chocolate, coffee and citrus are the easiest. Amounts added depend on the strength of your flavour and how strong you want it, obviously. Fruit: add a handful or so of mixed dried fruits (from the baking isle - or add some sultanas, chopped crystallised ginger, chopped crystallised pineapple, glace cherries, chopped dried apricots, etc. Chocolate: add some spoonfuls of cocoa powder to the flour. Coffee: add a few spoonfuls of instant coffee powder/granules. Orange / lemon: wash an orange or lemon or two, and, using a cheese grater, grate off the rind all over it - do NOT grate into the white pith, as it tastes bitter. Mix this into the butter/sugar.
Plain cake is pretty good too: cut it in half (horizontally) and stick it back together with solid/whipped cream and strawberry/raspberry jam.
Cream the butter and sugar: after letting the butter soften from the fridge (or microwave it), stir it into the sugar and keep stirring until it's very smooth and goes paler. Sift the flour: weigh it out, pour it into a sieve, shake the sieve gently over a bowl until all the flour has gone through. If you're using plain flour instead of self-raising, add a couple of teaspoons (small spoons) full of baking powder. Fold in the flour and eggs: smash an egg into the sugar+butter, and add the reciprocal amount of flour as the number of eggs you are using (eg, if using 3 eggs, add 1/3rd of the flour). Very gently stir in, trying to incorporate air, until it looks smooth and mixed; then do the same for the next egg/s+flour. Add milk if needed: this is in case your eggs were a bit smaller than the recipe was expecting: just add milk a spoonful at a time until the mixture is about the consistency of toothpaste. If it seems too runny, just add a little bit more flour.
Empty into a cake tin: find a spatula sort of thing that you can scrape all the cake mix down into it with. Then, try to level it out to more or less flat. The cake will rise more in the middle than the edges, but usually unpredictably, so don't bother trying to shape it spectacularly. Bake for 30-60 minutes (larger cakes and cooler ovens take longer) until it's risen and is firm to the touch - if you poke it, it springs back rather than leaving a mark; it should be shrunken slightly away from the edges.
If you've got some skewers (thin metal pins), try stabbing the cake in an unobtrusive place; if the skewer comes out clean, then it's probably done - if it comes out with goo on it, it's not done.
Icing:
Icing can be just piled on top, or if the cake is sliced in half horizontally, you can stick them back together with the icing to make the traditional sandwich appearance.
The simplest icing is just sugar bound with egg white: icing sugar (or fine castor sugar), beaten into an egg white until it's really thick. If you're doing an orange or lemon cake, you could even just use the juice from the grated ones instead of egg white!
A nice chocolate icing: lots of icing sugar, plenty of cocoa powder, and some butter: melt the butter in a saucepan, add a spoonful of golden syrup or treacle if possible, and stir in cocoa powder and sugar until it's pretty thick. It will harden as soon as it cools, so spread it on the cake as fast as possible. Or just sort of spoon lumps of it all over the top. Buttercream: the best instant icing, but more complex. Warm 1/4pint of water, and add 4 oz sugar. When the sugar has dissolved (don't stir it!), heat it until it reaches 114 degrees C, at Soft Ball on a sugar thermometer: the bubbles will go small and sticky, and some of the goo dropped into a glass of cold water will form a ball that you can squidge with your fingers. Be careful, as this is dangerously hot! While it's dissolving and heating, soften 34oz butter (stir it until it's soft and smooth) in one bowl, and separate two eggs - whites in one bowl, yolks in another. It won't matter if you get some white in the yolks, but yolks in the white will ruin them. When the sugar is at soft ball, take it off the heat and let it cool for a minute. Then (you may need three hands here), pour it very slowly into the yolks while stirring vigorously. When it's all poured in, beat that a spoonful at a time into the butter. When that's done, flavour it if you like (see above cake recipe), and let it rest for a few minutes before adorning your cake with it.
After doing those, you may have some left over egg white or yolk: whites can be used to make meringues, yolks to make mayonnaise.
Spoilerusing up those left-over bits of egg :
Meringues:
Whisk the egg whites until they go white, and all the goo is converted into bubbly stuff: this should form soft peaks when you wave the spoon in it, and a spoonful of it should not quite slide off an inverted spoon.
Fold in 2 oz of sugar per egg white: sprinkle the sugar onto the top and stir it in very gently.
Then, spoon lumps of the meringue mix onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment.
Put it in a very cool oven, e.g. Gas Mark 2.
Leave the meringues for several hours.
Eventually, you'll have some white, crunchy, mild, sweet things that go well with cream, jam, and puddings like trifles.
Mayonnaise:
Good for putting in sandwiches, or eating with a cold meal (salad, cold fish and meat).
Add loads of pepper, and a tiny bit each of salt, sugar and mustard to the egg yolks.
Drip in a few drops of good olive oil, and stir in.
Keep adding oil a few drops at a time and stirring until it goes very thick.
Then, add a bit of nice vinegar - or some lemon juice. It'll go paler and thinner.
Then, start adding olive oil again, and keep doing this until you get bored.
And, all that was typed at a library computer with no reference books - I just remember most of my recipes!
Woop, just re-read the OP. Ingredients to buy (though you'll probably have most of these already):
FOR CAKE: plain or self-raising flour, baking powder, castor sugar, eggs, butter, milk. A normal-size pack of any should be enough.
Possible flavours: cocoa powder, coffee granules, oranges, lemons, mixed dried fruits.
FOR ICING: butter, sugar, eggs, + flavourings.
If you don't have them: cake baking tin (can use roasting tins), egg whisk (can use spoons), mixing bowls.
Layer cakes: if you want to make it look extra pretty, get two or three baking tins, and divide your cake mix between them while baking, and then you'll have two or three cakes that you can stack and stick together with icing/buttercream.
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- normally around 30 mins; up to an hour to bake, and allow ten minutes to decorate it for the simplest methods, or 45 minutes for the complex ones. Note you can get the icing etc ready while the cake is baking.
