Cake recipes for a rubbish baker

[mountaingoatsarehairy]

So I made this cake off another thread - https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/earl_grey_tea_bread_48452

it was delish. And about all I can manage.

any other good ones with the same amount of effort? I don’t mind preplanning.

try it ! Is yummy

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chocolate-cake

This is good and fairly easy to make. You don't need to do the shards

Have you tried any muffin recipes? They usually just involve mixing dry and wet ingredients and then baking, so quite simple.

Beg, borrow or buy a Be-ro book.

An all in one sponge is pretty foolproof.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mary_berrys_perfect_34317

Once you have a basic sponge you can mess around with other flavours. For example add lemon zest to the cake mix and after it's cooled down cover in syrup (lemon juice and sugar heated in microwave and stirred until dissolved, be careful not to burn yourself for this)

Not a cake but crumbles are probably the easiest and most forgiving dessert there is.

Cupcakes are super simple. Basically you use the same amount of butter (or baking spread), caster sugar and flour and then tailor the number of eggs depending how much of the other dry stuff you have e.g. if I use 150g of flour, etc I would use 2 eggs, if 200g I'd use 3 eggs.

You can get a general idea of amounts of other ingredients to use by weighing the eggs (in their shells) and then matching the amount in sugar, flour, butter.

Today I only wanted to make 6 cupcakes to use up icing so I weighed 1 egg and it was about 65g so I weighed out 65g each of flour, baking spread and sugar. Whisk sugar and butter/spread together. Add the egg, ½ teaspoon of vanilla and mix. Add flour, ½ a teaspoon of baking powder and a splash of milk if required and mix.

Put into cases in a cupcake tin and cook for 18-20 minutes.

I wanted to play with a flower nozzle today for the 1st time and used up my spare frosting to do so.

The finished cupcakes

They look great. Was the flower nozzle easy to use?

It was quite easy to use. I watched a tutorial online to see how to move the nozzle around the cake. It's more of a petal nozzle than a flower one. Looks like this:

When I started baking cakes my DD asked my DM to buy me a handheld electric whisk because that's what makes the massive difference to the rise and fluffiness

I have since bought a stand mixer to kneed dough because I bake a lot of bread. Which I also use to cream the sugar and butter to make cakes. You need to do that for about 5 minutes.

My favourite cake recipe is a lemon drizzle cake baked in a loaf tin by Paul Hollywood. I use the basic recipe and add other ingredients for different flavours omitting the lemon

Just stick your simple recipes like a Victoria sponge with whipped cream etc because they're ajways delicious

But without an electric whisk you have no hope of ever baking a decent cake

DD asked my DM to buy one for my birthday at the time. DD was in primary school.

@dementedpixie they look great and you've got an excellent handle on the piping

And if you're adding soft fruit don't add to much because it'll go flat

I added some defrosted frozen berries to a muffin recipe last week and they didn't rise too well but they were devoured by the DC nevertheless but still lesson learnt. Less is more even if you do want to use up the rest of the pack

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/20144/banana-banana-bread/

Easy peasy

Thank you
I also have an electric hand whisk
Dh bought me a nozzle set and wee turn table for mother's day this year so I'm working my way through the nozzles just now. Any excuse to make cakes 😆

This is so simple and delicious, and no icing needed. You do need a decent hand held mixer and take it out of the oven when it still has a bit of wobble.
Https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/chocolate-brownies/

Thanks all.

what was the lemon drizzle loaf tin recipes @RookieMa ?

maybe I just need to get a hand held mixer…..

I’m baking today!!!

Mary Berry's Apple Cake.

You literally cannot mess this up. I'm a rubbish baker, but this one never fails.

www.sainsburysmagazine.co.uk/recipes/baking/ultimate-gooey-chocolate-brownies

Best brownies ever

A hand held mixer is a must! When my DDiL requested my (Mary Berry's) Lemon Drizzle cake, I searched high and low, I was childminding, for her mixer. Took my GDC to the local Asda to buy one (£12), turns out she didn't have one! She does now and I bake most times I'm visiting 😀

They don’t come much easier than this
https://www.newidea.com.au/food/4-ingredient-slow-cooker-christmas-cake/

I'll have to take a photo of it to post for you from his cookbook I have

Here you go
Paul Hollywoods Lemon drizzle cake

Thank you !!!!! Gonna buy a hand whisk today and be fine with it

A hand held mixer is really easy to use and saves creaming by hand butter and sugar.

If I can be bothered I’ll get out my food mixer (huge) but it can be a faff and is heavy.

With cakes, I used to bake a lot as a 11/12 year old and decorate them elaborately too. Practicing really does help and if you get the odd mistake just try again.

I used to make eg basket cake with icing and flowers for my step grandma, heart shaped cake with icing for my nana as her birthday was just after Valentine’s Day, a windmill cake once for grandad, bonfire cake with matchmakers stick in as firewood to butter cream icing. Spent a fortune of DM’s money back then on tins and ingredients and icing nozzles. But we had a cake decorating shop in our local high street, to buy the supplies from (cake tins etc).