Let Them Read Cake

As I haven’t blogged in ages, I thought I’d write a quickie on cake seeing as baking has become one of my methods of procrastination (along with cleaning and slaying virtual dragons) to get back into the swing of it all.

Now, I realise a lot of you may just buy your cake in a box – either ready-made or in just-add-most-of-the-ingredient-you-would-have-used-anyway form – but I can assure you now that making it from scratch is both incredibly satisfying to know you baked something so delicious and a billion times better tasting than any other way of getting cake into your mouth.

The magic rule with cakes is that you use equal amounts of butter, caster sugar and flour* and, if weighed in ounces, half as many eggs. So, if you use 6oz of all the other ingredients, you’d need 3 eggs (which makes about the right amount of mixture to make around a dozen fairy cakes).

* To make chocolate cake, substitute about 1/6 of the flour for cocoa powder

Method:

·         Pre-heat oven to 180°C

·         Beat flour and sugar until creamy

·         Sieve in 1-2 table spoons of sugar and add 1 egg and stir in thoroughly

·         Repeat until out of eggs

·         Sieve in remaining flour and stir well

·         Pour mixture into greased  tin or cake cases

·         Bake until knife comes out clean when cake is stabbed (or, alternatively, until the cake springs back when lightly prodded.

Compared to other cake mixes (both supermarket-own and well-known brands), homemade cake tastes better – it’s lighter and fluffier and, if cooked properly, never tastes oily or powder-y.

Anyway, have fun cooking whilst I eat cake and try and motivate myself into writing a serious blog – until next time!