Let Them Bake Cake

It takes love to bake a cake. Cakes cannot be baked indifferently or in a hurry. When you look at a triple-layer German chocolate cake with its caramel chock-full of pecans, or a moist carrot cake with creamy icing swirled in soft peaks, you say to yourself, "Someone spent a lot of time and effort on this. This is special." Maybe that's why cakes are the centerpieces of occasions such as birthdays, graduations, and weddings?

Cakes are not just baked. Their flavor is carefully chosen to match the occasion. Then they are measured and beaten and stirred. They are tipped out of their pans with breath held in check until the pan safely releases them. They have to be cooled. Iced. Decorated perhaps. Refrigerated. Then transported safely to festivities.

Cakes take lots of eggs-an egg is a symbol of new life, a new beginning. And they take a lot of butter or oil, symbols of blessing and richness. Their frosting is an extra bonus, "like icing on the cake," a favorite figure of speech in the English language.

Therefore, cakes are not particularly ferial (everyday) cuisine. They are festal! To do them honor, both the cake and the occasion they grace, eat one piece. Not two, and not zero. And be the baker of a cake once in a while. It does indeed feel like giving a gift, like being the baker of bread for a Communion service.

I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN a spectator in the cake-baking arena, relying on three tried-and-true family recipes: a chocolate cake, a lemon cake, and a nutmeg sherry cake. I admit freely that two of the recipes are based on box mixes. But I would like to expand my horizons.

Feeling curious one day, I got out several cookbooks and began searching for new recipes. I was astonished at the choices: angel cake, spice cake, applesauce cake, pound cake, coconut cake, orange cake, jam cake, "mystery" cake (it had tomato soup in it), tortes, and yeast dough cakes. Then there were the fillings-fruit, custard, liqueur syrups, whipped cream. And the icings-caramel, fudge, cream cheese, coffee. The choices went on for page after page. It was inspiring.

I had a few flops in the following weeks. I found out things like if I'm not going to follow directions and sift the flour, I need to cut down the flour amount a bit or else end up with dry cake. (Fortunately, most of the newer recipes don't call for sifting anyway.) I discovered a cake will come out of a pan flawlessly if, before greasing the pan and pouring in the batter, I cut a paper square or circle to fit the bottom. (Use the side of a brown paper bag; grease the paper when greasing the pan.) I was very happy to learn how to make several frostings (most were cooked then cooled) that weren't so gratingly sweet as traditional powdered sugar frostings are.

In short, I found that cake making doesn't allow quite as much margin for fudging as other types of cooking, but you can still safely improvise a bit if you don't have the exact ingredients or pan sizes called for. Just save yourself enough time so you don't have to bake in a hurry.

I recommend this pursuit to you for 1995, even if it's only one or two cakes. In my mind, cake baking is rewarding in the way, perhaps, sewing a quilt or remodeling an old building is...it just takes far less time!

Some version of the following recipe exists in many families. If it doesn't in yours, it should-it's easy, richly flavored, moist, and adapts well to many uses such as cupcakes, layer cake, sheet cake, or any shape of decorated birthday cake.

Cocoa Cake

1/2 cup powdered cocoa
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, shortening, or margarine 2 eggs
1/2 cup yogurt, sour cream, or canned milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp. salt (omit if you use salted butter)
1 cup strong, hot coffee or boiling water
2 and 1/2 cups flour (use half whole wheat if desired; it adds a wonderful nut-like flavor)

In the bottom of a bowl, mix cocoa in a little boiling water to make a thin paste. Add sugar and butter and cream well. Beat in eggs. Stir in milk and vanilla. In separate bowl, stir together flour, soda, and salt. Add to the creamed mixture and stir thoroughly. Pour in hot coffee, and stir or beat batter well. Bake at 350 degrees. Time will depend on the pan you choose. (A 9-by-13 inch pan or two round layer cake pans work well.)

CAREY BURKETT, former assistant to the editor at Sojourners, is now an organic vegetable farmer in Hallettsville, Texas.