Vanilla, Part 2

So, I went and got the vanilla I was desperate for last night. I followed the recipe to the letter and the end result was just down right pathetic. I am very disappointed in myself. Well, not really. It is just a cake. But I have always done really well in the kitchen (tonight's dinner can atest to that). My mom makes cakes and I feel like I should have inherited that from her. But like a lot of things (her tasteful home decor, her affinity for jewelry, baking), I guess I didn't. I don't even know that I could call my frosting by its proper name. It's more like a buttercream glaze (if such a thing exists). As far as taste goes (that should probably be the main judging factor, but I like pretty food), it's actually not that bad. The cake itself was a little drier than I like, but would be awesome hot under some vanilla ice cream and berries. And the "frosting" was super sweet, but still had a pretty good flavor. All in all, I guess for my first cake (from scratch), it was a good effort. But it is a little more labor intensive than I like. I don't have a stand mixer, so I was holding the mixer for the 15 minutes it took to bring the mix together. I have a feeling that come tomorrow, I will feel like I worked out. At least with "real" food (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), the labor is usually more chopping and dicing, sauteing and roasting. And I actually find all of that to be kind of therapeutic, especially after a long day. At least with cooking, I know that the end result will be something my family is going to love... Most of the time. Sometimes though, even dinner turns out like the cake: a good effort, but not so good end result. Lesson learned: There may be a good reason that Betty Crocker and Duncan Heinz are multi-million dollar companies. They make life simpler. Cooking from scratch sometimes is not. Next time, I'll be glad to reach for that box of cake mix.

No vanilla???

I wanted to make a cake... From scratch. I was feeling a bit adventurous in the kitchen and decided I was going to make a basic vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. My mouth was watering as I thought about it. I looked at the recipe I had (called a "1-2-3-4 cake") and it seemed easy enough. It called for cake flour and real butter. I didn't have either on hand (I usually DO have butter, but just ran out). But I wanted to follow the recipe to letter, so off to Wal-Mart for me. I got the cake flour and the butter, along with some powdered sugar and heavy cream for my buttercream. Glanced at the spice section and thought, "Do I need vanilla?" But I had looked up in the cabinet right before I left the house and saw I had a bottle. I did not, however, check to see how much was in the bottle. Big mistake. I got home from the store and laid out all my ingredients, fully prepared to have a wonderful confection by the end of the night. I reached up in the cabinet to get the vanilla and when I lifted the bottle, it felt empty (and when I checked, sure enough, there wasn't even 1/8 tsp left). I was saddened by this revelation. I looked down at my ingredients and sighed. I guess my cake will wait for tomorrow. But by then, will I even be in the mood to make it? Lesson learned: Don't assume just because there is a bottle in the cabinet, there is anything in it.