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Cake!
I'm making a cake!
And since it's not much harder than making one from a mix, it's from scratch, the first time I've done this, or any such recepie.
As of now, I've successfully avoided burning it (a challenge, since while the directions say to bake for 45 minutes, with my oven and pans, it's done in 25-30, and burnt by 35-40; having heavilyburnt one cake and mildly burned another, I seem to have figured that part out, since I checked both layers at 25 minutes, took one of them out then, and the other five minutes later. I also avoided the mistake I made last time -- assuming that non-stick baking pans and a 55 year old cookbook (The new American Cookbook, given to me by my beloved Aunt Margerie, RIP) meant I could ignore the instruction about greasing the pans -- this time, 2 tablespoons of butter gave their lives so the layers would slide smothly and easily out of the pan.
The frosting, as usual, I have to modify heavily from the recepie by adding more chocolate and cream instead of/in addition to milk. Right now, I'm waiting for some almsot melted chocolate to cool so I can put it safely into the microwave again...and returning with the one ingredient, aside from cream and milk, I didn't have in the house when I decided to make cake in the first place -- a roasting tin to put/transport it in (maybe this time I should kee, transport, and stow the tin when the cake is gone so I have it next time?)
Ok, time to "improve" the frosting more!
And since it's not much harder than making one from a mix, it's from scratch, the first time I've done this, or any such recepie.
As of now, I've successfully avoided burning it (a challenge, since while the directions say to bake for 45 minutes, with my oven and pans, it's done in 25-30, and burnt by 35-40; having heavilyburnt one cake and mildly burned another, I seem to have figured that part out, since I checked both layers at 25 minutes, took one of them out then, and the other five minutes later. I also avoided the mistake I made last time -- assuming that non-stick baking pans and a 55 year old cookbook (The new American Cookbook, given to me by my beloved Aunt Margerie, RIP) meant I could ignore the instruction about greasing the pans -- this time, 2 tablespoons of butter gave their lives so the layers would slide smothly and easily out of the pan.
The frosting, as usual, I have to modify heavily from the recepie by adding more chocolate and cream instead of/in addition to milk. Right now, I'm waiting for some almsot melted chocolate to cool so I can put it safely into the microwave again...and returning with the one ingredient, aside from cream and milk, I didn't have in the house when I decided to make cake in the first place -- a roasting tin to put/transport it in (maybe this time I should kee, transport, and stow the tin when the cake is gone so I have it next time?)
Ok, time to "improve" the frosting more!
no subject
What I forgot to mention is that this was the first time my cakes haven't suffered from a -myriad- of stressful timewasters and annoyances -- from difficulties finding one of the 3 mysterious powders (ie, baking soda, baking powder, and the corn starch I use to make cake flour), to having to calculate the formula for cake flour on the fly (this time, post-ited into the recepie), to not being able to buy a sifter or appropriately sized cake pan (this time, I had two square nine-inch pans just waitint to be used, though the recepie really should have circular pans, and I've had a sifter since my second cake). I probably should -not- wait a year and a half until my -next- cake. :)