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Cake is luxury, unnecessary, only existing because we have a surplus of resources with which to indulge ourselves and others. Cake is love because it takes care and speaks when words just cannot.
Show up with a cake instead of empty hands and you won't have to stutter words, your effort and care are clear.
Cake is everything best about us and our lives, a dawdle with friends, packaged happiness and love. Yes I LOVE cake and that's what this blog is about.
Cake is the product of freedom, the Workers' Paradises barely do food, surpluses and choice are market benefits. capitalism's urge to make wealth makes food & lots of it & at quality like never before. The WMKB would stop us having cake,their cousins, the food fascists, hate the lovely rich everyman pleasure & the food snobs affect to despise the the very pleasure itself. I keep hoping with their attitude to pleasure they will soon give up sex & stop reproducing. A man can dream!
So then lets have a cake!
One of the best cakes to know is Pound Cake, richer than Madeira & a basic recipe that can be used over and over again.
I'm talking pound here but you can make half or quarter this mixture. I like to make more rather than less because it more cake bang for my buck of effort.
Turn oven to 150° C for a fan oven, 160° if not BUT ovens vary more than people so always learn your oven and WATCH your cake.
Take a pound of fairly soft butter & beat it in a food processor/electric mixer for 3-4 minutes, longer again if your beater is small and much longer if you are stuck doing this by hand. This will be with the paddle mixer if you have one. Yes BUTTER. Nothing else will do. Flies that will eat ANYTHING wont eat marge.
Add a pound of sugar and continue beating. Add 1½ teaspoons baking powder. Beat on!
Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Not essence which is anti-freeze: pure natural vanilla extract. I use Nielsen & Masseys. Beat on!
When the sugar butter mixture is gone pale change beater to whisk you poule-de-luxe that had a paddle.
Now take from the fridge 8 free range eggs.
Its not Harry Potter or Star Trek, you put them there earlier and they are free range, not third-world-children-starving organic because you are not evil. Duck eggs are great, mixture of duck and hen are great & just hen eggs will do lovely. But FREE RANGE, properly coloured bright yellow yolks. And FRESH. Always cover eggs in the fridge: eggs are porous, breathing & will pick up anything near them. Onion smokey bacon Pound Cake anyone?
Even though your eggs are fresh you still take the care to break EACH one into a cup before adding.
Add an egg to the mixture and continue to whisk/ beat. after a few minutes the mixture will become cohesive, not two different mixtures sliding against each other or against the bowl.
Continue to add in sequence, breaking each egg into a cup to make sure you have not some horror reeking of Hydrogen Sulphide & beating thoroughly between additions. Take your time! Scrape down the sides of the bowl so the whisk can get at all the mixture,
While this whisking is going on you are going to need something in which to bake the mixture. Tin space between roughly 130 to 160 square inches are what we want: spring-form tins two nines or tens, a large roasting dish 12 by thirteen or even four seven inch spring-forms. Rub the tin(s) with butter, margarine aside from not being fit for consumption by flies will stick your cake, or spray with those cake releasing oil sprays. I prefer butter.
Line at least the bottom of the tin with baking parchment (remind me that we need a glossary page that has more information . I'll do tin lining there) and better the sides.
Weigh 12 ounces of plain flour and add 4oz of cornflour. Sift.
When the last egg has been whisked in gently and thoroughly mix the flours in. By hand is best, you want to avoid developing the gluten in the flour. When that is done I like to mix in a dash of cream, double is of course best but I've used milk. 2 fluid ounces, a few tablespoons.
Pour and spatula (spatula is a VERB?) into your tin(s) mounding the mixture to the sides if it will mound, leaving a hollow in the centre.
Bake.
The cake is done when you can see a slight gap between the side of the tin & the cake, depending on tin and oven, up to 90 minutes but watch it. Burnt cake is an abomination and a shame and the burner shall feel misery and know the smell of failure.
Turn out of the tin onto cooling rack after a while, not any sooner than 5 minutes.
Show up with a cake instead of empty hands and you won't have to stutter words, your effort and care are clear.
Cake is everything best about us and our lives, a dawdle with friends, packaged happiness and love. Yes I LOVE cake and that's what this blog is about.
Cake is the product of freedom, the Workers' Paradises barely do food, surpluses and choice are market benefits. capitalism's urge to make wealth makes food & lots of it & at quality like never before. The WMKB would stop us having cake,their cousins, the food fascists, hate the lovely rich everyman pleasure & the food snobs affect to despise the the very pleasure itself. I keep hoping with their attitude to pleasure they will soon give up sex & stop reproducing. A man can dream!
So then lets have a cake!
One of the best cakes to know is Pound Cake, richer than Madeira & a basic recipe that can be used over and over again.
I'm talking pound here but you can make half or quarter this mixture. I like to make more rather than less because it more cake bang for my buck of effort.
Turn oven to 150° C for a fan oven, 160° if not BUT ovens vary more than people so always learn your oven and WATCH your cake.
Take a pound of fairly soft butter & beat it in a food processor/electric mixer for 3-4 minutes, longer again if your beater is small and much longer if you are stuck doing this by hand. This will be with the paddle mixer if you have one. Yes BUTTER. Nothing else will do. Flies that will eat ANYTHING wont eat marge.
Add a pound of sugar and continue beating. Add 1½ teaspoons baking powder. Beat on!
Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Not essence which is anti-freeze: pure natural vanilla extract. I use Nielsen & Masseys. Beat on!
When the sugar butter mixture is gone pale change beater to whisk you poule-de-luxe that had a paddle.
Now take from the fridge 8 free range eggs.
ADuck eggs on Jordan's and Laura Green's
farm in Edinburgh, Virginia,US.
Ducks, Khaki Campells anyway are still semi-wild!
Even though your eggs are fresh you still take the care to break EACH one into a cup before adding.
Add an egg to the mixture and continue to whisk/ beat. after a few minutes the mixture will become cohesive, not two different mixtures sliding against each other or against the bowl.
Continue to add in sequence, breaking each egg into a cup to make sure you have not some horror reeking of Hydrogen Sulphide & beating thoroughly between additions. Take your time! Scrape down the sides of the bowl so the whisk can get at all the mixture,
While this whisking is going on you are going to need something in which to bake the mixture. Tin space between roughly 130 to 160 square inches are what we want: spring-form tins two nines or tens, a large roasting dish 12 by thirteen or even four seven inch spring-forms. Rub the tin(s) with butter, margarine aside from not being fit for consumption by flies will stick your cake, or spray with those cake releasing oil sprays. I prefer butter.
Line at least the bottom of the tin with baking parchment (remind me that we need a glossary page that has more information . I'll do tin lining there) and better the sides.
Weigh 12 ounces of plain flour and add 4oz of cornflour. Sift.
When the last egg has been whisked in gently and thoroughly mix the flours in. By hand is best, you want to avoid developing the gluten in the flour. When that is done I like to mix in a dash of cream, double is of course best but I've used milk. 2 fluid ounces, a few tablespoons.
Pour and spatula (spatula is a VERB?) into your tin(s) mounding the mixture to the sides if it will mound, leaving a hollow in the centre.
Bake.
The cake is done when you can see a slight gap between the side of the tin & the cake, depending on tin and oven, up to 90 minutes but watch it. Burnt cake is an abomination and a shame and the burner shall feel misery and know the smell of failure.
Turn out of the tin onto cooling rack after a while, not any sooner than 5 minutes.
