Monday, July 13, 2009

Homemade Cake

This may sound lame to many of you who've been homemakers for a lot longer than I have... but last night I made my first cake that didn't come out of a box! I even made the icing. I just had to share. I don't think I'll ever go back to boxed, this was so easy and tasted so good.

The recipe came out of the Good Housekeeping Cookbook from 1955. I had all the ingredients on hand, which is part of why this recipe won out over other options. The cake is a basic recipe. The icing is butter cream flavored with creme de menthe candy oil I had in the pantry from Christmas treats. The mint leaves decorating it are from my very own, rapidly spreading spearmint bush.

Simplicity 1-Egg Cake

  • 1 1/4 c flour
  • 3/4 c sugar
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/3 c shortening (next time I think I'll use butter for more flavor)
  • 1/2 c milk
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 egg

Heat oven to 375. Grease a 8" cake pan. Sift together all dry ingredients. Cut in shortening. Add mild and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Crack in egg and beat at least 2 minutes. Turn into pan and bake 25 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

Butter Cream Frosting

  • 1/3 c butter, margarine, or shortening
  • 1/8 tsp. salt
  • 3 c powdered sugar
  • 1/4 c milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla -- I replaced this with a few drops of mint to taste

Cream ingredients until fluffy. Spread and serve.

PS I posted about my new skirt, but it is out of order since I started drafting it Friday. See below 2 posts!

4 comments:

Sarah said...

This sounds very good and it looks beautiful! I always have a hard time with cakes since mine inevitably turn out too crumbly or they crack across the top and taste dry. I can't wait to try out this recipe! The butter cream frosting sounds wonderful too.

Emily said...

I've been making scratch cakes since I was eight or so, but my first attempts certainly didn't look that good. I'm glad you took this step-nothing beats the flavour of a fresh homemade cake.

Gillian said...

What a beautiful cake! I did the opposite and only recently made my first cake *not* from scratch... but I have to say that the first from-scratch cakes I make never looked that good. They tended (and still do) more towards craters from cracked cake, and crumbs in the icing!

Oh - I have an award for you over at my blog! (That's supposed to be a link but it's decided to be cranky....) Enjoy!

Jenny P. said...

Thanks ladies! The cake was great right away, but it got dry pretty quickly. We ended up throwing the last couple pieces away. Oh and just as a warning -- if you use candy oil in the frosting like I did, only use like 3 drops! It was almost too strong.