Being 14 years old, I thought it was kind of fun. I'd scan through my H.olly H.obbie Cookbook and choose the menu based on the pictures or followed the cooking instructions mother would leave for me.
My favorite thing to make was cakes!! They were SO easy; empty mix into mixer, add water, oil and eggs. Mix until well blended, pour into a 9 x 13 greased pan and bake for 30 minutes. It was a snap and they always came out perfect.
There was a special someone in my life (I was at least 15 by then) who had a birthday and I wanted to make a cake but couldn't find a box mix in the pantry. I pleaded with my mom to take me to the store so I could buy one, but with out hesitating she said, "Not everything comes out of a box! Go find a recipe book and look up cakes. There are plenty to choose from."
Wow! She was right and to this day, it is a very rare occasion that I might buy a boxed cake mix.
I consider myself a fairly good baker, most things I try for the first time turn out well & tasty. When the kiddos were small I enjoyed making 3-D cakes (no molded pans) like a space ship, teddy bear, Ba.rbi in a gown and a monster truck. All turning out very well!
I offered to make the dessert (cakes) for our Wednesday Connection meal tomorrow evening at church. I'm the coordinator of Wednesday Connect, it's a buffet meal served from 5:30 -6:30 followed by children's choirs/clubs & adult prayer meeting and programs all ending at 8 pm. Our current cook's term ended in January and we have not found a replacement for her, so there is a "sub" filling in. But she is totally overwhelmed as we serve 168+ people an evening. So being the every so helpful person that I am (then asking myself later "What have you done?") I offered to help her out.
I was totally thrilled to be able to try out some new recipes. I had cookbooks covering the table with post.it flags tagging the ones I wanted to try. My first choice was a moist Shoe fly cake complete with crumb topping and if I do say so myself, it came out beautiful! Then it was on to my second choice, an Oatmeal cake. My first clue that something wasn't right should have been the texture of the batter when I was finished. It was very clumpy, almost like a bar cookie batter and looked like I had missed some liquids. I looked over the recipe and nope I hadn't forgot anything so into the oven it went. You can only image my excitement as I peeked through my oven window and saw the cake rising and turning a golden brown. When it was done baking, I placed it on the counter to cool. Minutes later . . . the entire golden brown top had collapsed! Yep, it was a major flop cake.
So long story short; I trashed the Oatmeal cake, went to my favorite "bent & dent discount" store, bought (you better sit down mom, I'm going there!) six boxed cake mixes along with ready made icing and I was back in the baking business. And all 6 cakes came out just fine.
I can still consider them homemade if they were made in my kitchen, right? ;-D
3 comments:
well man, all i had was the "easy bake" oven...you were COOL! hmm, oatmeal cake? and yep, the pictures of how they turned out does make me wanna lick the screen!
more than 160 servings ? every week ? oooh my !!
Your cakes look good !
That's a lot of people to serve. I think they still count as homemade!
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