Making Extraordinary Cakes: Secrets

Last night was Nathan's Grandma Dinner. This used to be called the Grandparents Dinner, and it has been a birthday tradition since Haley was two. Now that we don't have any grandpas with us, we have just the two grandmas come for dinner to celebrate a birthday. The birthday kid gets to pick out exactly what he (or she!) wants for the meal, including, of course, the cake.

For dinner, Nathan really wanted my homemade chicken nuggets. I happily obliged but I had forgotten how long they take. The meal ended up being served in chapters, as I forgot to make the gravy for the mashed potatoes and had to wait until one pan was free of nuggets before I could whip it up. I spaced turning the burner on under the carrots, so they were late, too. Everyone sat down to eat garlic breadsticks, naked mashed potatoes, jello, and the first round of nuggets while I frantically cooked the rest of the meal.

When it comes to big dinners, I really suck at the timing.

But you know what I don't suck at? Cakes. Any dessert, really. They are sort of my specialty. They don't always look perfect, but they taste good. Mostly this is me standing on the shoulders of dessert giants (meaning: I read a lot of recipe books) but I have two secrets for extraordinary cakes.

1. Prepare your pans with sugar instead of flour. So: butter the pan, then add a little extra spritz of Pam just in case you missed any spots. Then, dust the buttery pan with sugar instead of the traditional flour. This way you avoid that icky, white crust on the edges. Instead, you end up with a slightly-crispy, sugary edge. (The cake will still slide right out of the pans.)

2.  One-and-one-half times your recipe. I do this almost every time I make a layer cake: increase the ingredients by one half. (So, for example, if the recipe calls for 4 eggs, use six. Just make sure to 1.5x ALL the ingredients!) This makes your layer cake taller and it feeds more, too. It does take more time to bake this way. Start by adding five minutes to the recipe's time, and start checking it. (The time increase seems to vary depending on the ingredients in the cake.)

Even though I was just cooking for my family, my mom, and my mother-in-law, my ineptitude at timing the meal right was embarrassing to me. But it's amazing how eptitude with cake overcomes all my other ineptitudes.

(Nathan with the carrot cake he always requests; the 2 candle looks weird because it tipped over into the "happy" blue frosting.)

The cake's the best part of the birthday party anyway, right?

Do you have any baking/cooking secrets?

Comments

[Becky K]

Mmm, I love your cakes. I will use these tips for sure.

And I hope Nathan had a very happy birthday. I can't believe he is 12 already!

[Pamela K.]

I'm licking my chops reading your post and seeing the picture of your cake. Yum! I'm going to use your baking tips next time I bake a cake. Thanks for sharing!:-)

[Elizabeth]

I am the master of cake wrecks. Truly. Ask Angie and Wendy if you ever see them, they've witnessed the ugly truth. : ) I will try the sugar tip though... perhaps it will distract from the rest of the mess. Now pies... I can do pies. It's only cake I can't ever seem to pull off...