Cake!

So I made a cake yesterday. Like full on actually baked one from scratch! A chocolate cake. I haven't baked a cake in forever! And I even did the entire thing by hand! No mixer just some good old elbow grease. And probably for the first time ever I didn't even taste the mixture. Didn't even lick the bowl. And as I took it to a friends for their birthday I also didn't taste it. So hopefully it's ok! It did look pretty good though. Even though I couldn't ice it or put on sprinkles as I couldn't find any icing sugar. It still looked rather delish!

Photographic evidence...

I used to bake cakes all the time. Back home on the farm baking cakes you'd always make a double batch and even then if there was any left the day after you make it your usually pretty lucky. Most often it would probably be a chocolate cake though I certainly tried lots of different ones. Plain cakes, sponges, lamingtons, marble cakes, cupcakes of all sorts, chocolate chip biscuits, yo-yos, scones, slices such as hedgehog, lemon slice, liquorice slice and sometimes even jelly slice! We always have cooked such delights at home. Chocolate pudding was always a good one too. I think partly because we were taught by the best! My lovely Grandma, like many I'm sure, has many years of cooking experience and has always cooked the best cakes and various other goodies. I don't care what you claim, my Grandma actually is the best baker. Judged many a show I believe. So naturally she taught me a thing or two in the kitchen. Especially sponge making, I recall sponge making with Grandma on sleepovers. Sponge making is such an art and you have to be so precise. I can only hope that one day I will be able to make a cake as perfectly as she does!

I remember one occasion when I was probably about eight or nine and mum was helping me make a hedgehog slice. She got distracted when there was someone at the door so I went along making it myself and instead of putting the sugar in with the melted butter part of the mixture just threw it straight in with the biscuits. Whoops! I soon learned that this wasn't a good idea. That was a rather crumbly slice and I recall it being like eating tasty sand as this mistake changed the texture of the slice. These things happen! And you can bet I have never made the same mistake again!

Another time I got all productive and made a six times chocolate cake batch. That's right! SIX! But the mixer, though a reasonable size, didn't quite handle it so well. This in combination with using plain flour and baking powder instead of self raising flour possible resulted in a miscalculation. The cakes looked fine but all you could taste was the baking powder. They hadn't risen extra or anything, they just tasted horrible! One of them was for my little brothers birthday and so he unfortunately got stuck with this horrible cake! But once again lesson learnt, don't make more than the mixer can handle!

I feel I should defend myself after confessing these mishaps. I'm not a bad cook. These are just a few mishaps that have happened but nine times out of ten the baking went off without a hitch. 

You can't beat home made baking from scratch.

Happy Saturday!