I want to be a person who bakes cakes

[PeaMcLean]

I envy people who can just whip a cake together with no effort.

Please can you give me your easiest recipes, preferably just chuck it in and stir it together, if such a thing exists.

I don't have a food processor and find creaming the sugar and butter a real faff, but I hear there are cakes which don't require this. [hopeful]

I also want straightforward ingredients, ie the kind you reallly do find in your cupboard rather than having to go and buy something specially, then you use one drop, and the remains sit there for ever more.

Does such a recipe exist???

Nigella's store cupboard choc orange cake is about the easiest ever to make and taste delicious

Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake
125g unsalted butter
100g good dark chocolate
300g good quality orange marmalade
150g sugar
a pinch of salt
2 large eggs
150g sf flour

Melt butter slowly in heavy-bottom saucepan. When almost melted, add choc pieces, stir and take off heat. Stir with a wooden spoon, until choc has melted. Add marmalade, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir thoroughly (it's okay to leave small visible chunks of marmalade in the batter). Add flour, stir and pour into a buttered and floured 20-22 cm loose bottomed cake tin or 2lb loaf tin. Bake at 180˚C/350.F/Gas 4 oven for 45-50 minutes, until the cake has set (test with a knife or wooden stick). Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack. Once cooled dust with a layer of icing sugar.

so easy!

This is a surefire winner. Not even a mixing bowl needed.
ONE POT CHOC CAKE
250g soft butter
150g dark choc chopped ( or banged very hard on the work surface a few times before you open it!)
250ml strong coffee
300g caster sugar
150g plain flour
100g Sr flour
50g cocoa
2 rggs.

the weighing is the worst bit.
Put butter, choc, sugar and coffee in a suacepan and cook gently until all melted. Stir if you can be bothered.
Allow to cool a little then sift in flours and cocoa and stir in beaten eggs.
Put into greased lined tin about 22cm or small square equivalent.
Bake 180for 35-40 mins.

Makes a rich dark choc cake that keeps brilliantly and is quite fudgey. You only need small pieces. I make in a square tin and cut msall pieces like I would Brownies.

Preheat oven to 170.
Grease 2 sandwich tins. (I always give a good squirting of spray oil, and that is all.)
Weigh 3 eggs.
If your eggs weigh 5 oz weigh the same quantities of the following and put into a big bowl.
SR flour (no need to seive),
Sugar (castor if you have it, granulated is also ok.),
Marg/butter,
A little milk if a bit dry to mix.

That is all.

Muller with electric mixer for ages until smooth and creamy.
Pour into tins and bake for 15-20 mins, or until golden and firm to the touch.

you need a be-ro book. there is very little else you need to know about baking. have a look round the site, i think most of their recipes are on there but for £1.50 its worth buying one.

Well Slubber I have already published it in my own head book so ner :P

Curd would be good though, I didn't think of that. hmmmmm

Yes I second (or third?) the Mary Berry cake recipe books. They're straight-forward and they work. Invest in one of her books and a cake mixer or at least a hand held electric whisk thing

And arse to the wooden spoon, who's got the time or inclination to do that!? Mixer all the way.

I always think the loaf type cakes are the easiest to make as they need less faffing that sponges (sponges can also be fussy buggers when it comes to oven temperature)!

I regularly make a date/walnut/banana cake and a cherry and almond cake which are from a book called 101 Cakes and Bakes which is a BBC GoodFood book - it's a handy little book, small, £4.99, easily flick-throughable.

you only need one of those hand mixers with the two-wand thingies. Lots of recipes say use a food processor which annoys me. Cakes which use ground almonds instead of flour are good because you don't have to worry much about the cake rising as you do sponges. Its a different texture. My very favourite cake to make is Rachel Allens Ameretti & chocolate cake.

What is your own favourite cake peaMclean, maybe we can come up with a sure-fire recipe for that. Then you'd feel all inspired to try it

My favourites?
Well anything chocolate is always a winner.
Lemon cakes are good
Carrot.
Mum used to make a tea loaf which was lovely. A bit like bara brith. which is also good.
Fruit muffins are good.
Victoria sponge with strawberries.
Banana cake is soemthing i fancy doing.
Chocolate brownies. You can never go wrong with a chocolate browny on your plate.

My problem is not that I'm a beginner, it's just that I'm very lazy. Cake is meant to be relaxing. So i'm liking these really basic stir and cook recipes.

going back to lyra's delia victoria sponge cake, it doesn't require a whisk and is DELICIOUS. i made it the other day, am a bit scared of sponge usually.

basically the thing to remember is to leave the butter out for a good while, somewhere rather warm if necessary (i put ours on a plate on a shelf that has a halogen light under it, so it is a hot spot) and then it'll cream really easily.

apart from that, nigella has a good ldc and some great blueberry muffins that i use as a basic recipe for all kinds of soft fruit. it uses butter (can't stand veg oil in cooking, gives me the creeps) from the micro, and genius of genius, a tub of yoghurt. so it's a proper storecupboard recipe. (well, it is if you lob in some lemon rind, cinnamon and raisins rather than soft fruits).

My absolute favourite is a Nigel Slater coffee and walnut cake, it's a bit of a faff if you want super easy but it's bloody lovely. The recipe is here

The joy of baking for me is that I'm doing something which is very maternal that my children will love (and then love me for it) without requiring me to actually interact with them.

Baking with them is entirely different.

Here's a lovely teabrack recipe which I just tried today for the first time, compliments of Rachel Allen. (Can't be bothered going and digging out the book so will try to remember it).

200ml cold strong tea (although you need it warm to start with)
150g muscovado sugar (use soft brown if you don't have muscovado)
50ml whisky
300g mixed fruit (raisins, sultanas, currants, whatever ... I used raisins, sultanas, cranberries & some dried apricot).

Add the sugar to the not quite cold tea and stir to dissolve. (Just reheat the tea if it's cold). Add the whisky and then the dried fruit. Leave to soak overnight.

Next day, preheat oven to 170 degrees. Line a 2lb loaf tin with baking paper.

1 beaten egg
150g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice

Add beaten egg to fruit mixture, then fold in sieved flour, baking powder & mixed spice.

Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 60/70 mins until skewer comes out clean.

Let cool in tin for at least twenty mins. Serve as is or with butter.

It's really moist and lovely and dead easy ... no creaming butter & sugar, not much washing up and really quick to make!

Now, I'd best go and double-check I've posted the correct quantities but I'm sure i have!

My mum used to make fairy cakes, traybakes, sponge cakes and all manner of gorgeous puddings just by stirring the butter and sugar together then adding in the beaten (for about 30 seconds, with a fork) eggs and flour... It wasn't until I did Domestic Science at school that I realised you were meant to do this creaming til it changes colour lark - yes, mum's mixture always looked curdled, but it always came out all right and tasted wonderful.

I've finally got round to trying a cake.

I decided to start in a traditional MN manner with Lemon Drizzle Cake.

It is in the oven. I don't think it's going to win any prizes!

PeaMcLean, I've come to your thread late, but like you I do like making cakes that are just 'bung it all together and bung it in the oven'.

This one is really delicious, and the biggest hassle is juicing and zesting the orange, (and I suppose you could just use orange juice from a carton if you really wanted to ).www.mumsnet.com/Recipes?call=RecipePage&pid=2599&preview=1

That looks good too, thanks.

I'm just getting confused with cake tin sizes. Clearly wasn't using the right one just now with the LDC, though very yummy it is. Just a rather odd shape!