I have never been able to make a "scratch cake" in the past. They usually turn out flat and don't rise well, so I figured I'd have to make one from a box mix. I went to the grocery store and critically examined all the ingredients in the brand-name cake mixes. They all had partially-hydrogenated oils from soy, corn, and cottonseed, a lot of strange chemical names, and plain sugar. I don't like putting all those ingredients in my own body, so why would I put them in a four-year old's.
I have also been hearing a lot about GMO foods. Doing a little "research" on my I-pad, I discovered that some of the main foods that are modified are corn, soybeans, rapeseed, sugar beets, and baked goods made from these products. Many people are wary of consuming food that has been altered genetically even though the regulatory agencies have approved them. I for one would prefer eating "natural products." Unfortunately, food manufacturers in this country don't have to label food as genetically modified, so the only way I read that you can be safe is to buy organic products and make things from scratch. Well, there was my dilemma, but I decided to do it anyway.
First, I needed better cake pans that didn't burn the cake, so I went to a "kitchen store" and found some heavy-gauge baking pans that were "pricey," but, hesitantly, I purchased them. I also noticed they had a cake mix for sale that said örganic" that didn't have any undesired ingredients. Since each box cost about $15.00 for a sheet cake and I would need two boxes, I decided to wait and look further. During the next few days I searched some of the new "healthy stores" that sold organic food, but there were no Organic Cake mixes. My next option was to buy some cake flour that had no other ingredients and some organic oils, butter, eggs, etc. and make my cake from "scratch."
I was so very nervous. I remembered all my past failures and figured that if the cake flopped, I would just run to the grocery store and buy one from their bakery. (but to me they are so gross.) My son, who bakes cupcakes perfectly, says he just follows the directions in the recipe and they come out fine. He tests their doneness with a toothpick. Okay, that gave me a little confidence. When the afternoon arrived for baking, I assembled all my baking equipment and carefully laid out all the ingredients on the table in the order of assembly. I very carefully mixed the cane sugar, butter, eggs to a foamy texture and then added the flour mixture and organic vanilla. It smelled and tasted so good. I carefully lined the new cake pans with parchment paper and poured in my batter as evenly as I could and baked them in the preheated oven for about an hour (a little longer than it said.) The toothpick came out clean and the cakes bounced back. Voila--when I turned out the cakes on the rack, they looked so beautiful and smelled even better.
With such success, I quickly made my next two round cake layers with similar results, only this time I made sure they were even by weighing them on a food scale. They were beautiful. Then it was time to frost. I made the frosting with organic butter, and pure cane sugar, organic milk and a little organic peppermint. (I cheated and put in two drops of red #40 dye. A little couldn't hurt, could it?) The frosting was perfect also, but when I went to put the cake together to make a castle, it all fell apart. I had to cut two of the layers to 6 inches and therein was the problem. They weren't cut exactly and the cake looked awful. The layers were also sliding and I had to put on too much frosting. In order to save the cake, I took off the top layer and just wrote Happy Birthday and put on pink sprinkles. It would pass. At the party, the adults all seemed to like the peppermint cake, but ironically the kids all ate the alternative cupcakes made from boxed mix. Oh well. They all survived. When I came home and did a little more research, I discovered that our "Rainbow Grocery" in the City carries a line of boxed organic cake mix, called "Wholesome Chow." I'll have to check it out, but I'm not sure I ever want to make another cake.
Disclaimer: This text is not supposed to be a treatise on research. It is only about my process of discovery.
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