Birthday Cake; or, Why I Don’t Bake

I made Ramsey a birthday cake from scratch today, complete with chocolate frosting, a hamster, and decorative writing comparable to a fifth grader’s (which is just like my normal handwriting on paper). The photo above makes it look like a fairly successful cake, but a select few know the truth of the trials and tribulations of its creation.

It’s time for me to share a perfect example as to why I rarely bake cakes from scratch. Muffins are fine, cupcakes are easy, even pies are less daunting than a vanilla cake.

I woke up extra early this morning and went to the store for the ingredients for a Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cake. This recipe can make either a dozen cupcakes or two 9″ layers for a cake and can be found in the book More From Magnolia.

-1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
-1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
-1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
-2 cups sugar
-4 large eggs, at room temperature
-1 cup milk
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about 3/4 full, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Or, divide batter between two 9″ cake pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

4. Cool the cupcakes in tins for 15 minutes. Remove from the tins and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Upon first glance, the two layers looked fabulous when they came out of the oven:

Well, instead of only cooling the cake for the acceptable 10-15 minutes and then turning out onto a plate or platter of some kind, my boyfriend and I went out to the grocery store to grab our supplies for the week. Flash forward to later that afternoon: As I prepared to make chocolate and vanilla buttercream frosting, I started to bang away on the bottoms of the cake pans. The layers wouldn’t budge.

According to some internet sleuthing, if the cake layers are placed back into the oven and allowed to warm, they should slip right out without too much trouble. Unfortunately, both layers fell apart once they are finally wriggled free, so I started the recipe over again. This time I used more oil on the pan, coated it with flour, the whole nine yards.

Again, I lost some cake to the bottom of the pan, even after allowing only ten minutes to pass after taking the layers out of the oven. One layer has to be completely scrapped, but I was able to salvage the other one with a little improvising. Some portions of the other layer were used to fill in a shallow hole in the middle of the cake.

With a little frosting and TLC, everything looked alright, albeit only one layer tall:

So where did I go wrong? I think two main factors contributed to the cake falling apart: beating the batter too much thus incorporating too much air, and not greasing the pans enough.

Although this was one of the more challenging Sundays I’ve spent in the kitchen, I think it all paid off in the end since it’s the thought that counts for birthday desserts (and it still tasted good). I think the hamster agreed