Tag: cake

Celebrate Yourself: The Joy of Baking Your Own Birthday Cake

When I was a kid my mom would always make me a birthday cake. I got to choose the cake flavor, and her doing that for me always made me feel really special and loved. When I went to college my brother and my friends bought me cakes, but they were never as special as the ones my mom made for me. Over the years I started baking birthday cakes for my husband, my sister, and friends, but there was still no one to bake a cake for me, and that made me sad. Several years ago I decided to stop feeling sad and show myself the love I showed others by baking a cake for myself. Making my cake is now one of my treasured birthday traditions. This year the recipe for my birthday cake came from the King Arthur Baking School book.

I started with the mise en place:

I mixed dry ingredients,

then the wet ingredients,

then combined the wet and dry mixtures. That’s all you do for this batter. It’s so easy.

I divided the batter into 2 cake pans and baked them, then let them cool completely at room temperature.

While the cake cooled I made the frosting.

I creamed the butter, salt, and vanilla together,

added the cocoa powder,

mixed in the heavy cream,

and then added the powdered sugar.

Once the cakes were cool trimmed the tops to be level, then I assembled the cake on my new cake turntable (it was a birthday gift). I frosted the first layer, then laid the second layer on and frosted the top and sides.

The last step is always the most fun: decoration. I transferred the cake to my cake plate, then I used a star tip to pipe a row of stars around the base of the cake as well as the top edge of the cake. I finished with a star in the center of the cake and some pearl sugar.

I forgot. The best part of making a cake is eating it. This cake is so moist and really delicious! The cake together and the frosting are such a good pairing. The cake has a more bitter chocolate flavor compared to the frosting, and the frosting is sweeter. It’s amazing that such an easy cake tastes so good!

Until the next time: may your yeast always rise and your flour never run out.

The Trials of Baking a Lemon Bundt Cake

I love lemonade and lemon-flavored treats, so I bought a bag of lemons not fully realizing just how many lemons I had just acquired. In an effort to use some of the lemons I decided to make a lemon cake. I leafed through the King Arthur Baking School cookbook and found this lemon bundt cake. Perfection.

I gathered my mise en place:

I started by creaming together the butter, sugar, and lemon zest.

Then I added the eggs one at a time, beating each one in before adding the next.

Next, I alternated stirring in the flour and the milk.

With my batter ready to bake, I prepared my bundt pan. Normally I would prepare the pan before mixing my batter. I typically use the classic method of generously buttering the pan with a pastry brush and then flouring the pan, but the book suggested that I could merely spray the pan with oil liberally just before scooping the batter in and all would be well. I was skeptical, but I’ll try anything once.

I put my cake into the oven and watched as it baked. It all looked good for the first 20 minutes, but then the center of the cake began to dome upwards. I watched helplessly. There was nothing I could do but wait for the cake to be finished baking.

The recipe said the cake should take 40 minutes to bake, but mine was in the oven for over an hour before the cake tester came out clean.

I let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes as recommended, then attempted to get it out of the bundt pan. Friends,it was stuck in there. With the cake still warm I couldn’t get it out of the pan without completely mauling it, so I took a page out of the angel food cake recipe and flipped the cake-in-the-pan over on a cooling rack to cool with the hope that gravity would assist me. Unfortunately, this did nothing. I ended up using my least rigid spatula to pry the cake away from the pan once it was fully cooled. It was not my best moment, but the cake still looked alright, so I whipped up the glaze.

Before plating the cake I cut off the domed portion to help it sit flat on the plate. I drizzled the glaze over the cake, then wrapped the whole thing up to take to a meetup with some friends.

My friends declared the cake to be delicious. They had no idea of the fight I had just had with it. I agree it was a good cake. Lemony, but not overwhelmingly so. Sweet, but not too sweet. Very tender, and not dry in the least. I would absolutely make this cake again, but I would go back to the tried-and-true method of buttering and flouring the cake pan, and I would lower the oven temperature in an attempt to avoid the doming I got with this cake.

Lastly, this cake makes excellent strawberry “shortcake”. This was a great way to use up the leftover cake trimmings.

Until the next time: may your yeast always rise and your flour never run out