* * * * *
What a cut-up
[Sorry for the poor quality picture—scanner not working] [1] [2] Instead of
watching horror unfolding on TV (Television) [3], I spend most of the morning
(between midnight and 7:30 am) making a cake for The Younger. His birthday is
later this week but he'll be in Colorado with his Dad so we figured we'd
celebrate his birthday today.
I have a copy of _Baker's Cut-Up Cake Party Book_ [4] that's about as old as
I am (and apparently, very rare and going for anywhere between $30 to $120
from what I can see) and I thought it might be fun to try to make one of the
cakes from the book (I'd make some scans from the book, but I can't locate
the power supply for my scanner). I should note that I've never actually made
a cake from scratch before. But hey, it can't be that hard, can it?
Famous last words.
The recipe calls for 2½ cups of sifted flour, and I wasn't sure if that was
2½ cups before sifting, or after sifting, so I assumed before sifting. It was
quite a pile of flour after sifting and it took on the consistency of dough
rather than batter. I did manage to get the stuff wrangled into the cake pan
and into the oven for about five minutes before I realized I forgot the most
important ingredient—sugar!
See, the recipe said:
> Sift flour with baking powder, salt, and sugar.
>
But in cooking terms, sugar is considered a “wet” ingredient and it's never
sifted into the flour but added with the rest of the wet ingredients (or so
says Alton Brown (Just Here for More Food: Food × Mixing + Heat = Baking)
[5]); then again, I actually didn't see that I was to sift in the sugar with
the flour. In any case, that batch was ruined.
And I was also out of vanilla extract and eggs.
And it's after midnight.
An hour later, after a trip to the nearest Wal★Mart Supercenter I had my
missing ingredients. By this time, Spring [6] was home from work, and she
informed me that sifted flour was always measured after sifting.
The second attempt went much better.
Once out of the oven, it was time to let it cool for an hour or so before the
next stage.
[Assembling the pieces of cake into an airplane-like configuration] [7] [8]
[Applying the frosting skin] [9] [10] [Coconut already applied, starting with
the final decorations] [11] [12] [Cut-up Cake Airplane I] [13] [14] [Cut-up
Cake Airplane II] [15] [16]
The frosting was uneventful (even if I did have to substitute honey for light
corn syrup), but the end result was a metric butload of frosting. Way more
than I evern ended up using.
And then the cutting and construction.
In theory, it looked easy. But like all theories, things tend to get messier
in practice and this was no different. In the book, the airplane was supposed
to have four jet engines, but the actual bits of engine pieces were too small
in practice to use. And the tail setion was too heavy to actually stay up
without the help of multiple toothpicks (and even then, I had to lob off the
top half of the tail). The frosting was thick and sticky and a hellacious
pain to spread over the cake.
Now, one of the curious things about the book was the use of shredded coconut
in every recipe. I remember as a kid, when Mom would make my birthday cakes
they were always slathered in shredded coconut. In fact, I don't recall a
single cake made in the 70s that didn't have shredded coconut slathered over
the outside. I always wondered about that.
But no more. Shredded coconut plays the same role as plaster popcorn for
ceilings—it hides the shoddy application of frosting (or in the case of
ceilings—plaster). And the final results weren't that bad, considering it was
my first cake and all (and The Younger certainly loved it).
I did end up with enough leftovers to make a rather shapeless mound of cake
that The Kids promptly joked was a “crashed airplane.”
Still tastes good though.
[Um … pile o' cake] [17] [18]
[1]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/thumb.p1010006.jpg
[2]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/p1010006.jpg
[3]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2001/09/11.2
[4]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000B61TBW/conmanlaborat-20
[5]
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1584793414/conmanlaborat-20
[6]
http://www.springdew.com/
[7]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/thumb.p1010001.jpg
[8]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/p1010001.jpg
[9]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/thumb.p1010009.jpg
[10]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/p1010009.jpg
[11]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/thumb.p1010013.jpg
[12]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/p1010013.jpg
[13]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/thumb.p1010015.jpg
[14]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/p1010015.jpg
[15]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/thumb.p1010017.jpg
[16]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/p1010017.jpg
[17]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/thumb.p1010021.jpg
[18]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/IPhlog:2005/09/11/p1010021.jpg
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