I made my VERY FIRST homemade cake yesterday. As in: from scratch! Impressed aren't you? Good. You should be. It took hours! The bad news: as you can see above, it's definitely not the prettiest cake you've ever seen. The good news: it tasted fabulous! It's the Fresh California Orange Cake from Your Home Based Mom. The recipe was a blue ribbon winner, created by a baker who once won 77 ribbons in one year. I'm pretty sure I'd try just about any recipe from that woman!
Some things I learned...
- My sifter sucks. But a sieve/whisk combo works quite well and about 100 times faster.
- Cake flour is hard to find. Safeway had some, but it's a Pillsbury brand that comes in a box and has a synthetic sounding name. I really didn't want to buy it, but couldn't find any elsewhere and wasn't willing to risk an all-purpose substitution on my very first cake. If anyone local sees cake flour in their stores that looks a bit more natural, let me know!
- A Kitchen Aid mixer would come in handy on occasion.
- I have things to learn about perfecting frosting. Obviously it was a bit runny. Part of the issue was frosting the cake before it was completely cooled (cause I couldn't let our guests leave without eating cake!) I also think that if the frosting had some more time to sit it may have set a bit more. But I'm not really sure about that one. Maybe throwing it in the fridge for a bit would help?
- I need to pick up a cake server. And maybe a cake plate with one of those sweet covers.
Raf's parents stopped by with a couple cousins who were visiting from Poland, on their way home from Yosemite. The inspiration for making the cake was to use up all those oranges from their tree, so pretty or not, it had to be served! Good thing it still tasted so darn good!
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