“It’s nice to have cake. I haven’t had cake in … I dunno … years.”
I say, “Really? I haven’t had cake, since … I wanted some. So I made some.”
“Well, I don’t know what goes in cake …”
I go … :dubious:
“Well, ingredients, and amounts, and proportions, and mixing methods, and …”
I learned, as a child, how to make a 1-2-3-4 cake. These are the basic proportions of the ingredients of cake. People often criticize, that such a cake is dry, and has poor crumb, and they’re correct, the recipe even said so. Also mixing is a task people have to learn to do properly. However … if you don’t have a recipe, and you can’t search online (although, how’d you get here to the SDMB :eek:,) here’s how cake is made.
1 cup of butter and milk (a cup of butter is two sticks. So you’re gonna make half)
2 cups of sugar
3 cups of flour, 3 teaspoons of baking powder (also known as 1 tablespoon, but we’re using 3’s here – Note: the baking powder can will also tell you flour to powder ratio,) 3 pinches salt
4 eggs
Cream butter and sugar – you’re coating granular sugar with fat, separating granules, dissolving sugar in the trace of water in the butter, this is a cake base. Beat in eggs – this is more fat and water, emulsifying fat and sugar. Sift flour and baking powder together (sifting is how dry things are mixed intimately – we don’t expect dry and wet things to mix together well. But you can stir these dry ingredients together.) Throw salt over shoulder for luck. (Seriously, who notices this sort of thing in a cake? Not me. Kidding. Mix it in.) Mix dry ingredients into egg mixture a little at a time, add a little of the milk when its too hard to mix, until everything is mixed.
You bake at 350 deg F. Because everything is baked at 350 F. Because a century ago, people couldn’t control oven temps to 355 or 327 degrees.
Its done when its done. You use a toothpick to check the middle for no more raw cake.
Its fat 'n sugar 'n leavened flour baked good. It is cake. It is delicious cake. You must eat it. It is not a lie.
Hrm … seems you don’t have baking powder. But only baking soda. You will need acid, and although brown sugar has some, probably not enough. You may want to use the internet in such a case for conversion factors. However … half as much baking soda as powder, with the acid in dark brown sugar, may still leaven the cake … somewhat. Then again, maybe only slightly. Shortbread anyone?
But do try to keep the components, of cake, in the house. So you can have cake.
Later, you can apply baking tricks to make such a cake smoother.
