To ask for a very simple cake recipe

[TarasHarp55]

Using as few ingredients as possible and without the use of scales. My sister is coming tomorrow, I thought it'd be nice to make a simple cake or buns? I've got flour, sugar, butter, eggs and raisins. But I've no scales.

I've got a bun tray and a loaf tin. Is there a way of measuring it all out without scales? Be most grateful for any ideas.

Google an American recipe that uses cups as a measure?

The simplest recipe I use is 3 eggs and 6oz flour / butter / sugar.

Have you a measuring jug? That might have dry weight on it. Two eggs for 4oz each flour sugar marg.

Or a cup? Use the exact same amount of flour sugar margarine. Two eggs. That might work too.

Cup measurements?? Look for an American recipe.
Baking generally needs some kind of measuring or it tends to go badly!
You’ve got the right ingredients for a Victoria sponge but you’ll need to measure the stuff somehow??

Yeah the rule is usually 2oz of marg, sugar and flour for every egg.

And if you’ve really never made cake before you tube may be your friend.

This^^
If you have a lemon or vanilla essence they will give more flavour too.

Is your flour self-raising or plain? If it’s plain flour, do you have any baking powder or bicarbonate of soda?

1 tbsp is roughly half an ounce, if that helps!
I'd do 8tbsp of everything except eggs, plus two eggs and vanilla/lemon/chocolate for flavour. If you don't have vanilla extract/essence or lemon juice/whole lemons, you could put in some melted chocolate or cocoa powder (replace one tbsp of flour with one of cocoa powder).

A heaped tablespoon is about an ounce.

If you have milk could you make pancakes?

I tend to go for the 3-2-1 recipe (300ml milk, 200g flour, 1 egg) but you could add one egg to a small cup/mug of flour then gradually add milk until it’s a nice consistency. If it’s too thin just say they’re crapes, if they look too pale add another egg etc. Then pop chocolate spread, peanut butter, jam, honey, lemon & sugar (whatever you have & is also yummy) on the table to pick from.

or stack them up yourself and make a ‘pancake cake’

You have the ingredients for a sponge cake recipe. Why not pop next door and ask if they have some food scales you can borrow?
4oz or 100g each of sugar, margarine and self raising flour and 2 eggs will be enough for the bun tin. Add some raisins once mixed. Paper cases will be easiest, maybe next door have some. If you have only plain flour you will need baking powder too. Just follow a recipe for a creamed cake mixture and bake at gas4, 160 fan oven. Good luck.

Look at janes patisserie, her recipes always turn out great

A heaped tablespoon of flour or sugar is 1oz. Butter/ marg is easier to measure by portioning out the block or tub and some are measured out with lines on the container for 1 oz/25g. You could make scones, fairy cakes, a Victoria sponge or cupcakes with these ingredients plus eggs and milk.

I'm not sure what my flour is. It's in a big container. Haven't got a neighbour. I'd like to do a loaf cake really.

If you've got a bit of lemon juice, lime juice or even vinegar and milk, you could add a squirt of one to half a cup of milk, let sit for five mins and add to your cake mix- makes it super soft

use A mug, equal mugs of sugar and butter, then add 2 eggs, then a mug of flour and half a mug of raisins then try baking at 180 for 25mins and see what it looks like

Thanks sounds simple enough. Think I'll give that a try. Thank you everyone for your help.

hi there!

does your flour taste bland or a tittle bit fizzy? If it’s got a slight kick it’s self raising. If not you would need to add about a tsp of baking powder per cup Should do it.

A Cake
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1cup flour
2 eggs
pinch salt
Tsp vanilla essence or other flavouring to taste

1. preheat oven to 180. Rub cake/loaf tin with butter. 2)Cream butter and sugar together with fork and beat until a bit paler. beat in a spoonful of the flour which usually helps mixture to stay together when you add eggs.
2. break eggs in a cup and beat them, then stir them in to the mixture. Add vanilla essence if you want to. If it separates a bit don’t worry, it will be fine in the end.
3. stir in flour and scoop into tin
4. bake at 180. When it has stopped wobbling when poked/has risen/ smells cakey/after about 20 min stick knife blade in. If it has wet stuff sticking to it give it a bit longer and check every 5 min or so. Or you could just take it out and it will be nice and squashy, according to preference.

Or:
having said all the above stages: my partner puts them all in bowl/mixer and beats the out of them, then bakes at 180•
with seems to produce exactly same results, annoyingly.

Variations if above is too boring:

• You could double the quantities and get more cake!
• if you want cupcakes just put it in cupcake tin/cases and check after 10 -15 min at 180
• if you have golden syrup you could add that instead of some of the sugar
• if you would like a chocolate one you could add enough cocoa to make it go dark brown (1/4 - 1/2 cup) and leave out a bit of the flour. You could also add chocolate chips or what have you
• if you like fruity cake you could add raspberries, chunks of apple ( toss them in flour before you add and they are less likely to sink) raisins to the mixture. Or add a layer of apple/pineapple/tinned peach on the bottom of the tin before you put the mixture in
• If you would like a lemony one you could grate in the zest of a lemon and when it’s out of the oven poke it with a fork all over. Then mix the lemon juice with sugar and pour it over before cake cools down.

Weigh the egg(s). Shell on. Then same quantity of butter, sugar, flour.

Weigh the egg(s). Shell on. Then same quantity of butter, sugar, flour.

This! 👆🏼 Never has let me down and you can add a tsp of vanilla extract too for added flavour.

Nigella has a yoghurt cup cake IIRC and you measure using the yoghurt cup itself!

The whole point of the post is she has no scales