How I was Defeated by Cake

[TexasT]

So, a couple key parts of background information:
1) My friend is about to have a baby any minute now and we decided to surprise her with a baby shower. I was in charge of food
2) I had surgery of the sinuses in March.
3) My boyfriend is better at cake decorating than I am so we were trying to work it so I made the cake, but the put the final touches on it.

So, here's the tale of how cake defeated me.
Attempt #1: Tuesday morning, I woke up and attempted to make a cake in which each layer is a different color. Here's the before:



And out came this (picture taken after BF took a bite out of one):



Notice that they are nothing more than pancakes. So, I looked at the recipe. Oh, TWO boxes are needed to make it work.

Attempt #2: A trip to the grocery store later, I now have the ingredients to try again.



Notice how full the pans are? They came out beautiful! I frosted it and, that night, BF came over to decorate it. When he started working on it, this happened:



Which, I will add, is 100% my fault for not leveling the layer and for not using the proper frosting. I'm upset. I cry. I wanted this beautiful cake and I failed.

So, later on, I start saying how I don't want the cake to go to waste and I wish it was on a more disposable platter so I could take it to the fire station or hospital or somewhere else that someone would appreciate it. BF then says he could make that happen. All he had to do was devise a disposable platter and move the cake over. This is what happened:



Which led to this:



We didn't eat it all. He took most of it to work and his coworkers loved it.

Attempt #3: At this point, I gave up on the idea of a cake. I decided cupcakes would be a much better use of my time and made the plan that on Wednesday, after I took my friend to the airport, I would stop by the grocery store again and get the ingredients to make said cupcakes.

So, I made my plan happen, only instead of making the 24-30 that the boxes says would happen, it made 16, which is exactly the number of people who said yes to being there, making them not enough.

I would've just made more, only I had to go to the doctor's RIGHT AWAY due to me having multiple bad bloody noses. Remember that whole I had surgery recently thing? Apparently the doctor's office tends to not like it if the surgery site is bleeding badly a few months after surgery.

Since I couldn't make more, I decided at this point, I would just buy a small sheet cake and put it on the platter with the cupcakes. I could even use the decorations BF and I got for the layer cake I was trying to make.

BF did a beautiful job with the cupcakes (best picture I got, sorry):



Attempt #4: It's now Thursday, the day of the shower, and I picked up that small sheet cake a mere couple hours before the beginning time. I go to decorate it and discover that the sugar letters we got weren't the same colors as the outside describes. Actually they're neon. Baby shower colors, they are not.



Well, I give up. I went to the shower with the 16 cupcakes and the badly colored sheet cake and set up the display.



At least it's pretty on the inside.



And the kicker? Only 11 cupcakes were eaten due to 4 no shows and 1 guy being on a specialized diet. Yeah, so attempt 4 wasn't even necessary.

[Food Lady]

First, hugs. Second, I must say this thread is very entertaining with all the pics and such. Third, you are adorable. I wish I looked that cute in glasses! Fourth, I would totally eat any of those cakewrecks.

[42_42_42]

Boxed cake mixes used to be 22 oz. They are now just over 15 oz. They just don't make the amount of cake that they used to make, despite the claims on the package.

The solution to that, of course, is to bake from scratch.

Here's my go-to white cake recipe:

Buttermilk White Cake

Ingredients
1 cup butter
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon almond flavoring
1/2 teaspoon lemon flavoring
6 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
2/3 cups sugar

Instructions
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (you want it to almost look like mayo, so this means you'll be creaming them for a LOT longer than you think you need to, but this is the crucial step to getting a moist cake!)

Sift flour, salt and soda together add 1/3 at a time alternately to the creamed mixture with the buttermilk. Blend in the flavorings and beat until light.

Beat egg whites until frothy. Add cream of tartar and beat until stiff but not dry. Beat in 2/3 cups sugar gradually and fold this into the first mixture carefully.

Bake in 3 greased and floured (I use PAM with flour) 8 inch pans at 325 degrees for 60 minutes or until done cool and turn out. Cool completely before frosting.

[MoonCat]

Awww, are those little duckies on the cupcakes??? CUTE!!! And I love the different colors! I wanna try that.

Listen, at least you tried! I would have given up after the first disaster and bought a ready-made cake. Domestic I am not.

[Food Lady]

42, that sounds gooood. It sounda like a southern recipe.

[Seshat]

And a note re 42's recipe: you can most definitely add food colourings to it, to make coloured cake.

I'd strongly recommend making one exactly as her recipe says, as a trial run, before trying any variations. It'll also show you how much it makes, and all sorts of other good (important!) things to know.

A wide range of things can affect baked goods. Climate has a significant effect - air humidity and air temperature most of all. The exact type of wheat your flour was made from; and what fineness it's ground to. Variations in the butter.

The more you practice, the more you get a kind of instinctive feel for whether you need to add a bit of extra milk, or put in less. Add flour, or reserve some. Microwave the butter so it's a bit softer, or refrigerate it till the last possible minute.

Anyway... I'm babbling again. You definitely did well by your friend, and if you tell her the Tale Of The Cakes, she should get a laugh as well as a feel for how much you love her.

[Pixilated]

My sympathies, LOL, although I would've also happily eaten the demolished cake. Hey, it's the taste that counts!

I once tried to make fudge for a party. All well and good, except for some reason (and Mom had warned me about this) it was impossible to double the recipe and get anything edible as a result (maybe it's something to do with making any type of candy?) If you want two batches, Mom had said, you make one batch, clean everything, and make a second batch.

Nah, says I on this occasion, I'm sure it'll work!

It didn't. You could've used the fudge as the cornerstone of a new city hall.

[Food Lady]

I have no idea why that's true, but it is. One thing I have learned in life is that if the recipe says don't double, then you don't double. Baking and candymaking are sciences.

[Bardmaiden]

My recipe that I use for making buns/cupcakes:

125g Self Raising Flour
125g Butter
100g Sugar
2 Eggs
1tsp Vanilla extract
Milk to be added if the mix gets a bit stiff.
(I sometimes add raisins usually about 75g as my partner loves them )

Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5 90 degrees C/375 degrees F or on a fan assisted oven 160 degrees C

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Then add the beaten eggs, then the vanilla extract. Then add the flour in slowly. The mix should have a soft dropping consistency.

I tend to use a fork rather than a spoon to mix my cake mixture as I find it gets more air into the mix and makes for nice spongy cakes. Also I put a bit less sugar than the original recipe called for because I don't like very sweet cakes but they never seem to last very long .

[Ree]

Here's my go-to white cake recipe:

Buttermilk White Cake

I can make a great chocolate cake from scratch, but my white cakes are always really dry.
This sounds like a great recipe to try.

Just curious if it has to be buttermilk.
Have you ever tried another type of milk?
What about soured milk?

I am just not a big buttermilk person, and I would worry that a container would spoil on me before I got another chance to use it.

Will definitely follow the exact recipe the first time, though, if I do decide to try it. Thanks for sharing it.

[Trixie]

I have many baking disasters mainly around the holidays feeling all sentimental and stuff. This past year I tried making magic cookie bars because my mother used to make them. I followed the recipe because I'm generally good when I do but I don't know what happened. I managed to make one giant bar that was a mess of chocolate and coconut. It tasted good but I wasn't going to share it with anyone.

If I played around with things more I'm sure I could get it right but I just don't have the patience for it. I really hate having an electric stove especially an older one.

I just ended up getting the Pilsbury ones that just go from the package to the oven and my co-workers seem to like them. So far this year my inner Martha Stewart hasn't kicked in about baking things beyond my skill for the holidays.

[42_42_42]

I can make a great chocolate cake from scratch, but my white cakes are always really dry.
This sounds like a great recipe to try.

Just curious if it has to be buttermilk.
Have you ever tried another type of milk?
What about soured milk?

I am just not a big buttermilk person, and I would worry that a container would spoil on me before I got another chance to use it.

Will definitely follow the exact recipe the first time, though, if I do decide to try it. Thanks for sharing it.

I've only ever made it with buttermilk, but soured milk made with milk and vinegar should work. You need the acid to help leaven the cake and buttermilk cakes are always more moist without being gummy.

Also, make sure you whip the heck out of the butter and sugar when you cream it. You really do want it to turn white and the sugar to almost completely dissolve into the butter so that it looks like mayo. This is the real secret to making any butter cake so that it doesn't turn out dry. Baking for a longer time at a lower temp, helps, too.

Buttermilk lasts for a really long time in the fridge. I've used it a month past it's date before without any ill effects on the recipe or on the consumers of said food. I use it in so many baked goods that I just keep it on hand. Don't use the powdered buttermilk. It adds the flavor but doesn't react the same as the liquid and so it doesn't work right.

[Ree]

Thanks.

I am going to also try your suggestion about beating the butter and sugar a lot longer.
That's probably what's going wrong.

I cheat a bit and use mixes, but I add milk instead of water, plus vanilla and sometimes, I will add an extra egg and melted butter instead of oil.
Nobody ever complains. (In fact, some people come back for more. LOL)

[Food Lady]

I love having a stand mixer. I'd hate to stand there with a mixer in my hand. Just think what it was like for our great-grandmas!

[Ree]

When I was really young and first started baking, we had an old hand mixer, or egg beater. (Picture below.)
It wasn't until I was in my early teens that my Mom got an electric mixer, but it was not on a stand.

Actually, until about 2 years ago, I used a hand held electric mixer for everything. (Probably explains the carpal tunnel.)
The guy I was seeing at the time decided I really needed a KitchenAid stand mixer, and so, he got me one for my birthday at the store where I work. (I ended up paying the $300+ for it myself because he was a freeloading leech, but that's another story - and one of the reasons he's my "ex". If I could afford that kind of money for a mixer, I would have had one years before. )
I usually forget I have the big mixer and get out the old mixer, but I am starting to try and use the stand one more, especially for a large icing batch. I can set everything and let it whip and by the time I'm ready, it's all nice and creamy.