Thursday, May 24, 2007
Mmm, cake!
First, let me say that this thing rocks:
Someone got it for someone for Christmas (Patty for Chris? Da Bo for Patty? Who knows?) and it is excellent. It's angled, so you don't have to squat down to view the measurement markers from the side when you're measuring out ingredients. Highly suggested - and inexpensive! - gift for your favorite cook.
Anyway, yesterday was Chris’s birthday! So I set out to make him a cake from a recipe I found online. A mango cake! From scratch! My first ever from-scratch cake!
The recipe, I discovered partway through, wasn’t detailed enough for a novice baker like me, but I figured it out - after a panicked phonecall to a co-worker who was the only person I could think of that may know how to bake a cake! And I wasn’t huge on the frosting, and there wasn’t enough of it, so I ran over to get some of the nice, pre-made Betty Crocker stuff. It’s times like this I’m happy that walking to Winn-Dixie is a less-than-3-minute endeavor.
I used my frosting, mixed with chopped-up mango and chopped-up raisins, in between the two layers of cake. I wasn’t too sure about using raisins, as called for in the recipe, but tasted them with the frosting and it was pretty good. In retrospect, I may have chosen chopped-up mangos and chopped-up dried mangos instead – you need a change of texture and taste, but I don’t know if the raisins were such a good addition or not. Also, I would suggest mango NECTAR instead of mango JUICE as the juice is just not mango-y enough.
It was all topped with cream-cheese frosting. 150 calories per 2 tablespoons. Whoa mama! I can’t imagine my homemade frosting was any more nutritious, considering the ingredient list was: 2 sticks butter, 1 cup sugar, 1.5 cups cream, 1 tablespoon kahlua. :)
What a mess!
I got done and cleaned the kitchen JUST in time for Chris to get home from the airport. We ate leftover yummy, yummy Chinese brought from Houston and cake. The cake was pretty good! The first taste, I was not too convinced, but I think the fact I had been licking cake batter and frosting for the past two hours had put me into sugar overload. It was good when I tried it a bit later, though. And definitely a learning experience! Most importantly, Chris liked it - and I don't think he was just trying to be nice. :)
Finished product! I was supposed to use a mango and cut it up to arrange like flower petals on the cake. Have you ever tried to cut mango bits into flower-petal shapes? Yeah, no. So instead I just did this craziness with the fresh fruit.
The animals got Chris a card! They're so sweet! Elliot was the only one who wouldn't sign it. The cats didn't do so well, but amazingly they left perfect little paw prints on the kitchen floor after these messy ones in the card. :D ¶ 10:13 AM
Someone got it for someone for Christmas (Patty for Chris? Da Bo for Patty? Who knows?) and it is excellent. It's angled, so you don't have to squat down to view the measurement markers from the side when you're measuring out ingredients. Highly suggested - and inexpensive! - gift for your favorite cook.
Anyway, yesterday was Chris’s birthday! So I set out to make him a cake from a recipe I found online. A mango cake! From scratch! My first ever from-scratch cake!
The recipe, I discovered partway through, wasn’t detailed enough for a novice baker like me, but I figured it out - after a panicked phonecall to a co-worker who was the only person I could think of that may know how to bake a cake! And I wasn’t huge on the frosting, and there wasn’t enough of it, so I ran over to get some of the nice, pre-made Betty Crocker stuff. It’s times like this I’m happy that walking to Winn-Dixie is a less-than-3-minute endeavor.
I used my frosting, mixed with chopped-up mango and chopped-up raisins, in between the two layers of cake. I wasn’t too sure about using raisins, as called for in the recipe, but tasted them with the frosting and it was pretty good. In retrospect, I may have chosen chopped-up mangos and chopped-up dried mangos instead – you need a change of texture and taste, but I don’t know if the raisins were such a good addition or not. Also, I would suggest mango NECTAR instead of mango JUICE as the juice is just not mango-y enough.
It was all topped with cream-cheese frosting. 150 calories per 2 tablespoons. Whoa mama! I can’t imagine my homemade frosting was any more nutritious, considering the ingredient list was: 2 sticks butter, 1 cup sugar, 1.5 cups cream, 1 tablespoon kahlua. :)
What a mess!
I got done and cleaned the kitchen JUST in time for Chris to get home from the airport. We ate leftover yummy, yummy Chinese brought from Houston and cake. The cake was pretty good! The first taste, I was not too convinced, but I think the fact I had been licking cake batter and frosting for the past two hours had put me into sugar overload. It was good when I tried it a bit later, though. And definitely a learning experience! Most importantly, Chris liked it - and I don't think he was just trying to be nice. :)
Finished product! I was supposed to use a mango and cut it up to arrange like flower petals on the cake. Have you ever tried to cut mango bits into flower-petal shapes? Yeah, no. So instead I just did this craziness with the fresh fruit.
The animals got Chris a card! They're so sweet! Elliot was the only one who wouldn't sign it. The cats didn't do so well, but amazingly they left perfect little paw prints on the kitchen floor after these messy ones in the card. :D ¶ 10:13 AM
