How To Bake Cake In 8 Simple Steps
So let's go!
Baking a cake could be tiring especially for some amateur who probably want to do it all by themselves in a bid to learn something new.
But there are certain challenges which such persons might just keep bumping into but this article will allay all your fears and make it very much easier for you to bake your own homemade cake at home with little or no hassles.
First Things First, here are the ingredients you will be needing to make your yummy cake (This is largely dependent on the size of the cake you would want to bake though):
4 cups (500g) Flour
12 Eggs
4 sticks (500g) Butter (NOT Margarine)
400g (2 cups) Granulated Sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons vanilla extract
½ cup brandy
Tools You Will Need
An oven.
Cake mixer.
Kitchen scale.
Sieve (Colander).
Egg Whisk.
Bowls.
Spatulas.
Cake Pan: 10 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches deep.
Step By Step Recipe
Step 1
Cream the butter and the sugar
Put the soft butter and the granulated sugar into the mixer and start creaming. In case you do not have a cake mixer, you can actually alternate with a mortar and a pestle or a bowl and a spatula (Trust me, it is not as easy as it is spelt o). If you are using an automatic cake mixer, ensure you read the manual to understand how best to use it as what works for Mixer A might not work for Mixer B (depends largely on the product yeah).
You will know you have achieved a well-creamed sugar/butter mix when the mixture looks whiter than the butter you started with, softer (it should be able to drop from a spoon) and also, you can barely feel the granulated sugar when you taste the creamed butter and sugar although some sugar could be as stubborn as me, Lol.
Step 2
Grease your Cake Pan
Grease your cake pan with butter and add some flour into the greased pan. Be sure the flour touches every part of the pan and then pour out the flour. This is to enable the cake to come out freely after it must have been baked.
Step 3
Whisk Your Eggs
Break all the eggs into a big bowl and whisk them to a smooth blend. If you are using an egg whisker, then perfect, but in case you like to suffer a little extra, you can use a fork and beat after breaking the eggs into a plate.
Step 4
Mix your creamed butter/sugar with the egg
Mix until you have achieved a smooth fluffy blend of the creamed butter/sugar and the eggs. This could be both boring and interesting depending on what you like on a normal day.
Step 5
Add the other ingredients
This is the point where you should add the vanilla extract, your milk flavour or milk (Don't add too much of this for preservation's sake, save you would want to finish the cake in a jiffy!). Add any other flavours of your choice, add the brandy and pre-soaked dry fruits, and stir with a wooden spatula till everything is well incorporated. You can also add browning if you want a brown cake but can do away with it if you love your cake creamy in colour.
Step 6
Add the plain flour with the baking powder
Now, add the baking powder to the plain flour. Sieve each of them with a sifter. To achieve the best results, add small quantities of the flour through the sieve/sifter into the bowl where you already have other cake ingredients and then stir very well with the wooden spatula. Add another small quantity of the flour with baking powder. Stir (preferably in an anti-clockwise direction to prevent air bubbles from being trapped). Repeat this process until all the flour is incorporated.
Step 7
Pour the cake mix into the greased cake pan
Once every ingredient is well incorporated, it's time to pour the mix into the greased cake pan.
If you want to make a multicolour layered cake then you should at this point divide the cake mix into the number of colours you want. Put these into separate clean dry bowls. Add the colours to each, stir well and pour into the cake pan one after the other. You should make sure you level out each coloured cake mix as much as possible before pouring another one.
Once you've poured in all the cake mix into the cake pan, gently lift and drop the cake pan several times to level out the cake mix as much as possible. Don't worry if the top is not so smooth, as soon as the heat of the oven gets to it, it will level out.
Step 8
Bake Bake Bake
At this point, you must have preheated your oven. Transfer the cake to the preheated oven, placing the rack halfway between the top and the bottom of the oven.
Bake for at least one hour 30 minutes before attempting to open the oven door to check the cake. If you open the oven door before the cake has fully risen, you have interrupted the baking process, the cake will stop rising, may not be evenly cooked when done and it will be harder than normal when done.
Check whether the cake is ready using a knife. If the knife comes out clean, then you have your cake right there!
Happy baking and don't forget my own share when it is done!
See a picture of a cake I baked sometime last year. I can bet it was so yummy! You know I love to try out new things right? S, I added cashew nuts, milo beverage, groundnuts, fruitings and a lot more to spice it up and it came out really nice.
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