This weekend’s cooking projects from my collection of recipes included more chocolate buttecrunch, more bran muffins, and the subject of this post, plain cake, with the addition of a lemon sauce as an experiment.
I came about to learning to make plain cake from scratch after I attempted to make a New York crumble cake I’d seen being made on a Martha Stewart cooking show. Not only was the cake not as expected — we were expecting mostly cake with a modest but tasty crumble crust, instead of the actual small amount of cake and a sizable crumble crust — the cake did not bake well, and I was very disinclined to try it again. The next day, I looked for a plain cake recipe on the internet and found one, which I adapted to my format.
First, two cups of flour were placed in a mixing bowl:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/01twocupsflouraddedtobowl.resized.jpg)
… to which two teaspoons of baking powder were added:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/02twoteaspoonsbakingpowderaddedtoflourinbowl.resized.jpg)
… as well as a quarter teaspoon of salt:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/03addingquarterteaspoonsalttoflourinbowl.resized.jpg)
The flour, baking powder, and salt were blended with a fork:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/04mixingflourbakingpowderandsaltinbowl.resized.jpg)
The bowl was then put aside until later.
Margarine was picked up on a piece of paper towelling:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/06margarineonpapertoweltosmearonsurfacesofbakingpan.resized.jpg)
… in order to coat the interior surfaces of the baking pan:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/07margarinesmearedoverallsurfacesinbakingpan.resized.jpg)
Then, a bit of flour was put in the pan …
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/09flouraddedtobakingpanforflouring.resized.jpg)
… and spread around to coat the margarine:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/10bakingpanfloured.resized.jpg)
The baking pan was also put aside until later.
In another mixing bowl, a quarter cup of shortening was added:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/11quartercupshorteningaddedtobowl.resized.jpg)
The shortening was creamed with an electric mixer:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/13creamedshortening.resized.jpg)
A cup of sugar was added to the creamed shortening:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/14addingsugartocreamedshortening.resized.jpg)
… and the sugar and shortening were blended:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/15sugarblendedwithshortening.resized.jpg)
An egg was added to the mixing bowl:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/16eggaddedtosugarandshortening.resized.jpg)
… and the ingredients were again blended:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/17eggblendedwithsugrandshortening.resized.jpg)
A teaspoon of vanilla extract was added to the mix:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/18addingateaspoonofvanillatobatter.resized.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/19vanillaaddedtobatter.resized.jpg)
… and again, the ingredients were blended.
About a third of the flour mix prepared earlier, and about a third of a cup of milk, were added to the ingredients:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/21milkandflouraddedtobatter.resized.jpg)
… and completely blended:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/22battermilkandflourmixed.resized.jpg)
The previous two steps were repeated twice until all the milk and flour mix were blended into the batter.
The batter was then transferred to the floured baking pan:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/23cakebattertransferredtobakingpan.resized.jpg)
… and placed in a countertop convection oven preheated to 350F:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/24cakeputinoventobake.resized.jpg)
At this point, I was getting rather thirsty, so I poured myself some iced tea, and a bottle of my homebrew, a Belgian-style brown ale, made with water from filtered, melted ice from the lake at my cottage:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/25beerandicedteapoured.resized.jpg)
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/26medrinkingbeer.resized-1.jpg)
Since my mom suggested that a lemon drizzle be added to the cake, first a few tablespoons of icing sugar were placed in a bowl:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/29icingsugarplacedinabowl.resized.jpg)
… to which half the number of teaspoons of lemon juice were added:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/30lemonjuiceaddedtoicingsugar.resized.jpg)
… and the ingredients were mixed, then put aside for later:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/31mixedlemonsauce.resized.jpg)
Soon, the cake in the oven was puffing up and browning:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/33cakebakinginovenalmostready.resized.jpg)
… and was taken out of the oven after 55 minutes of baking:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/34bakedcakehotoutofoven.resized.jpg)
The cake was pricked multiple times with a thick needle …
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/35prickingcakewithaneedle.resized.jpg)
… to allow for some absorption of the lemon sauce which was poured over the cake with a small plastic scoop:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/36pouringlemonsauceoncake.resized.jpg)
… at which point, the cake looked like follows:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/37wholecakeafterlemondrizzleapplied.resized.jpg)
When cooled, a knife was used to loosen the cake around its edges in the baking pan, and the cake was taken out of the baking pan:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/38wholecakewithpricksfromneedlerakenoutofcakepan.resized.jpg)
A few slices of cake were cut from the cake:
![](https://www.malak.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/40cakeslicedwithlemonsauceonlowerleftcorner.resized.jpg)
And, of course, the cake was yummy! And mom said “Delicious!”
That one looks like a keeper!