Bake a cake

DazzaMc

I've never baked a cake before and want to bake one for my friend's birthday tomorrow. I'm at university and don't have a lot of money to spend on him so as well as a present I thought it would be a nice thing to do for him.. Where is the best place to buy ingredients? I don't want to spend a fortune as I'm only making a littlish one. Going to ice it too and have jam / cream in the middle

DazzaMc

Also does anyone have a good, simple recipe for a birthday cake? Is it better to use butter cream or whipped cream for the middle? Bearing in mind I have to bake it today to bring home tomorrow on the train?

Margey

Google is god. SO any cake you want or need, google will have a recipe for it. i think whipped cream would be better. You should probably invest in a box a bit like you see in cake shops. Or you can buy a cheap plain cake from somewhere and put the icing on yourself. that way you don't have to bake it and it looks like you have made the effort by putting your own topping on there. M&S do them, but they are a little expensive. or you could go to tesco or morrissons etc to see if they have cheap ones also. Cheating wihtout anyone having to know about it

DazzaMc

I would know haha! I'm gonna have a go at baking from scratch. I have a recipe, now to get the ingredients cheaply...

Triker

I'll repost your question on Oldstyle as there are many, many wise bakers there.:D

Triker

In the meantime have a shufty at this thread....https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3136590

Flora_Poste

All sponge cake recipes are basically the same. Equal quantities of SR flour, fat, sugar and eggs.

So for a little cake weigh two eggs (shell off or on, doesn't make much difference) then add same weight of sugar, fat (Marg, butter or even veg oil will be fine) and self raising flour. Add a pinch of salt for flavour.

Bigger cakes would start with three or four eggs. How big is your tin?

Beat it all together so there are no lumps. Pour into a small cake tin 7" max or it will make 12 fairy cakes. Cook at 180 degrees for about half an hour if it's one big cake or 12 mins for fairy cakes. it's done when you can press it and it isn't squishy ( technical term).

Top with icing and loads of sprinkles and some candles and it will be fab.

freyasmum

Asda might be cheaper for you to buy the ingredients. And - sorry if this sounds a bit obvious, but it's amazing the amount of people who either don't realise or just don't believe you - you can use value ingredients. Honestly, I don't find it makes much difference to the taste, but certainly does to the price! E.g. flour is like 50p/bag value - or over £1 for branded.

For the cake, it would depend what size tin you wanna use, and obviously the type of cake you wanna make, but I like a good madeira sponge, so......

For an 8 inch round tin, you will need:
4 eggs - let these come to room temperature if stored in the fridge
250g self-raising flour.
125g plain flour
250g butter, softened(you could use a soft baking margarine, like stork if you really must. DON'T use the low fat spreads though - there isn't enough fat in them to support the cake when it's in the oven)
250g sugar (most recipes call for caster sugar - which is just really finely ground-up sugar. I use granulated and my cakes always turn out fine. Either that or I'm just easily pleased. Anyway...)

What you need to do:
1. Heat oven to 160'C.
2. Read recipe, make sure you've got all the ingredients ready to go.
3. Re-read the recipe. Just to be sure. Grease and line your cake tin (or give it a fine spray with some vegetable oil. I use cake release - that stuff's like magic! ).
4. Mix your flours up in a bowl - it's also better to sift them a few times to make sure there's plenty of air in there.
5. Cream your butter and sugar. That is, mix them up and don't stop till they're much lighter and fully incorporated - you'll actually see the change in how it looks. It's important not to scrimp on this stage as what you're doing is getting the air into the mixture which is what'll help to keep the cake nice and risen.
6. Now, add your eggs in. BUT - do it one at a time and add a tablespoon or so of flour with each egg. It's important that you add in the flour as this helps the egg mix in nicely. It might look like it's going to seperate slightly, but that's fine.
7. Carefully - very, very carefully - fold in your flour. Again, it's best to do this in a few additions. You need to fold it in and mix gently because you need the air that you've just beaten into the butter/sugar to help raise the cake in the oven. If you just whack it in and go at it, you'll have a flat, unrisen cake.
8. Pour the batter into your cake tin and level the top of it before you put it in the oven.
9. Let it cook for around 50 minutes. You should, however, check it after around 40ish, and then check every maybe 15 or so minutes thereafter, until it's ready to go.

If it looks like it's getting nice and brown, but it's still not cooked, you can place a bit of tin foil over the top and let it cook till it's done.

Signs to let you know it's cooked:
The cake will be trying to gently come away from the sides of the tin.
A skewer (or sharp knife) inserted will come out with a few crumbs attatched instead of batter.
If you press it gently in the middle, it'll spring back up nicely.

Re the filling - although, to me, the taste of the fresh cream would be far, far superior to buttercream (which I just don't like ), I think the butter cream would hold up better to being transported. Or you could make a chocolate fudge icing? It's easy, and stable, so would be perfect for transporting.

For that, you need: 100g dark chocolate (That's the size of the value bars, btw, fo reasy measuring. I don't like eating dark chocolate, but trust me, if you use milk chocolate for icing, it'll just be like eating sugar :eek:); 50g butter (1/5th pack of butter); 1 egg, beaten up a bit; and 175g icing sugar. You're much better to sift the icing sugar - as much of a nuisance as it might seem, it makesa much smoother, easier to handle icing.

Melt the chocolate and butter. By far the easiest way to do this is in the microwave. Now, I don't mean stick it in for half an hour, literally just 30 second bursts until you can still see some small lumps of chocolate - if the chocolate burns you can't rescue it! Then take it out and give it a good stir to make sure it's all nice and smooth and add in the egg. Again, give it a good stir and it might look a bit weird at this stage, but that's ok. Beat in the icing sugar - it's best to do this in maybe two or three goes, cos if you put the whole thing in, you'll just end up with a big mess. Ask me how I know :rotfl: Then, that's it. Just leave it to cool down a bit then spread between the layers and all over the cake.

To decorate the top you could then add either the little chocolate stars, or just simply drizzle over some more chocolate - a la this picture...



Sorry, I didn't mean that to be so long

salthegal

Im gonna try that recipe above, thanks. Used to always find great recipes on the BBC site, cant seem to find them now?

DazzaMc

Only just seen this recipe! Made the cake now, for some reason when I put the 2 halves together on top of the jam / cream, it oozes out the sides.. Is that normal? Looks really messy but sure it will taste yummy.

In_for_a_Bargain

You have maybe put a bit too much cream in the middle but it is perfectly normal for it to ooze out of the side. At the end of the day you have put something heavier on top than the cream and jam.