Fool Proof White Cake Challenge

Part of the reason we renovated our kitchen was to allow DH and I to actually share the kitchen.  He loves to cook on weekends, and I am in charge of that chore during the week.  Trouble is, I have a very small repertoire of meals I can cook.  So I promised (threatened) to expand my horizons and talents.

To support the cause my darling hubby bought "us" a beautiful Kitchenaid Stand Mixer around Mother's Day.  It remained in the box until the kitchen was finished and then it went into it's little garage until today :) 

Look at that bad girl!  She's so pretty! 

I pulled out all the ingredients needed for this fool proof recipe and got started.  Yes, that's sour cream you see there.  I'm thinking it's a bit weird, at this point too, but we shall see after the taste test.

So I measured carefully and added the dry ingredients.  That part was easy... except the flour made a mess and my laptop was too close to where I was working so I think a bit of flour might now call my keyboard home.  Sigh. 

Then the butter.  I have a full pound softened and ready to use.  The recipe calls for 2/3 cups butter.  I look at the package and there are markings for measurements but not 2/3 cup.   Hmmmm guess I'll have to put it in a measuring bowl then. 

The rest of the mixing goes pretty smoothly.  The finished batter, looks like cake batter from a box, smells like cake, so into the oven they go.  The pans looked a little full and I was worried they would overflow in the oven.  They didn't.  As they cooked, they started to smell like box cake. 

So far, this challenge was pretty easy!  If the taste is good I would do it again from scratch.  One, it costs less, two, it limits the additives in our diet (some of which I have a sensitivity to). 

The icing is home made too.  An old-fashioned butter cream frosting.  That was super easy, especially with my new best friend doing all the work. 

I will update this post after dinner with a finished product picture and taste results.  In the meantime, here's the recipe for you:

No Fail White Cake Mix

·    3 cups all-purpose flour

·    1 tbsp baking powder

·    ½ tsp baking soda

·    2 cups sugar

·    ¾ tsp salt

·    2/3 cup butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces

·    3 large eggs

·    ½ cup full fat sour cream

·    1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

·    1 cup 2% milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two round 9x2-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with a round of parchment paper.

Sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add sugar and salt and mix on low speed until ingredients are well blended, about 2 minutes. Add softened butter and beat on slow speed until the mixture is a sandy, crumbly consistency and everything is well combined.

 

In a separate bowl, whisk eggs until blended. Add sour cream and vanilla whisk until smooth. Add half of the milk and whisk to blend. Gradually pour this mixture into the flour mixture while mixing at low speed for 5-10 seconds. Pour in remaining milk and continue beating at medium speed until the dry ingredients are just incorporated and batter appears smooth. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and mix for another 5 seconds. Do not over mix.

 

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake 30-35 minutes.

Or spoon batter into paper lined muffin tray and bake 15-20 minutes.

Recipe Courtesy of Steven and Chris on CBC

Things I learned:

1. Using my laptop to store and use recipes is not wise.  Either I have to put my laptop further away, or I need to print my recipes for use.
2. Measure the butter while still hard and cut into cubes before softening.  
3. Use the convection feature on my oven for even baking.
4. Find the cake tester and have it ready before the timer goes off :)

*Edit after test taste:

Husband (who has had made-from-scratch cake before) says it's VERY good.  That's a good thing for me because he doesn't use the word "very" with "good" very often. He scored it an 8 out of 10 because he didn't like the plain-ness of the vanilla.

My first impression was that I did not like it at all.  The texture is strange, but then I've only ever had commercial made or box cakes.  As a plain vanilla cake it's a bit boring.  On second taste, it would be yummy if I had a nice Tim Horton's coffee to go along with it.  It would probably be better with chocolate icing, or maybe with some orange zest or served as on the tv show with lots of fresh fruit. 

The texture sort of reminds me of pound cake but not quite.  I think I might have been afraid of over mixing it, and didn't mix it enough.  So all in all, the flavour is good.  Hubby liked it and that's something.  I'll try it again, but next time I will change the icing, and mix the batter a little more, AND I will have coffee ready to have with it.

If you try it, let me know what you think and what you did different, if anything.

The Autumn Wreath

One of my favourite bloggers is Thrifty Decor Chick.  She is a great writer, a talented decorator and a true inspiration.  When I'm searching for DIY decor things, I go to her blog before I even go to Google.  I found this lovely entry when I was looking for inspiration for an inexpensive and easy to store, but big enough to see from the street door wreath.

I never think of the Dollar Store for craft supplies.  I should, but I didn't.  Until I started reading DIY blogs.  I took my dear daughter to guitar lessons and had 30 minutes to kill. Lucky for me, the Dollar Store is right beside the music store.  I was pleasantly surprised to find everything I would need to complete my own autumn wreath. 

This one, was actually quite easy compared to the Christmas ball wreath that I copied from a retail display.  Here's how it went:

I had a left over piece of black foam core that I uncovered when I finally finished clearing, cleaning and organizing my craft room. 

I used a cake plate to trace the inner circle. Then I tied a string to a pen and pinned it to the center of the inner circle. I stretched it out and traced a circle to make the outer ring. Then I cut it with a sharp knife.  Don't stress over trying to make it perfect.  No one will ever see it. 

The supplies I picked up from my new favourite craft supply store needed to be cut apart and sorted.  I borrowed DH's wire cutters but I will have to get my own.

I used my trusty hot glue gun to glue everything down.  The trick here was to not fuss about it. Just stick it down.  I had 3 shades of orange/red and 1 pile of green/brown.  I used the biggest orange ones first, then filled in randomly with the others.  It was so difficult to be random!  I thought it looked like a hot mess!  But I propped it up on my peg board, stepped back and looked at it from a distance.  It's so much different when you're not looking at your project from 2 feet away.  Then I placed the green leaves where they needed to go to break up some of the orange, without looking to contrived. 

I tried placing the "berries" on too, but they just didn't look right.  I've never seen berries on a maple tree so I decided to leave them off. (They were part of the wire garland thing I bought at the Dollar Store).  Besides that, berries seem more winter to me than autumn. 

So I stepped back and looked at it a few times and placed the sunflowers on the way they go traditionally.  That 2 here, 1 there asymetrical placement. I liked it, but I didn't love it.  I was trying to not take it all too seriously.  I wanted it to be random, not perfect.  I also didn't want it to look like a DIY project but I didn't want it to look like a factory made wreath either.  It's SO hard to not fuss over it.  I just kept reminding myself that if it was horrible, it was ONLY $10 spent.  So I left it for a bit and cooked dinner.  I came back to it and tried a bit of ribbon. It was too much.  Then I remembered I had some rafia.  I first tried weaving it all around.  Yuk.  Tried a bow, too predictable.  While I was fussing with the rafia though, a few strands fell on the table, and were lying just under the wreath. What a wonderful accident.  It was just the little pop of something it needed.  So I glued it down, added the ribbon for hanging, and Voila!  My autumn wreath!

Not bad for $10.71

Social Networking IRL

I was invited to attend a "tweet up".  I'm new to the Twitter world and had no idea what a tweet up was.  But I was intriqued.  Plus, for many years, I worked in a very social industry and since "retiring" I have been quite isolated - by choice.  So really, how hard could it be to walk in to a public place and join a group of strangers? I mean, gosh, I did that for more than 5 years in my previous vocation.  Well it was harder than I thought. 

The back story here, is that I was shy as a child.  No strike that.  I wasn't shy.  I actually was the exact opposite of shy (whatever that is).  Some would say desparate for attention.  However, what I really wanted to be, was invisible.  Being invisible, meant no rejection, no abandonment, no heartache.  But it also meant, no life.

When I became a mother, I didn't want my child to be introverted or shy.  Early on she showed me that she had the desire to be known and get to know others. I taught her how to make uncomfortable situations comfortable.  I taught her how to put others at ease. I taught her how to be a good friend.  She was an easy student.  When she was 2 I left (got fired from) my job as a law clerk.  For the next 8 years I was mostly a stay at home mother.  I loved it, but I was more invisible in this role, than I had ever been in my life before.  The internet provided some respite from the isolation.  By day I was a fantastic mom and by night, I was an online social butterfly.  Then I found this little franchise business that was a ladies fitness center pretending to be a social club... or maybe it was the other way around.  Anyway...

So for the next 2 years, I spent several hours a few days a week in the center of the "circuit" entertaining ("coaching") the ladies ("members").  Now I was truly the center of attention. I was a star!  I had found my calling!  I'm a leo after all.  So when the opportunity to buy one came up I leapt at it.  The next 3 years were day and night work.  Even when I was home, I was thinking, planning, marketing, praying, eating, drinking, sleeping "that place I'm not allowed to name by confidentiality agreement".  In the end, a dispute with the landlord left me no choice but to close the doors.  It often feels like a failure, but there are so many lessons learned, and positives that came out of it.  I still struggle with that, but I spent the better part of the past year licking my wounds and making peace with it. 

I have spent a lot of time in my own head this past year.  Looking for the silver lining.  Hanging on to the good parts.  Drowning out the bad.  I've also avoided seeing people and going places.  I was afraid to run in to someone who knew me.  Someone who might say something nasty, or hold me accountable for what couldn't be helped.  But with the aniversary of the closing quickly approaching, I realized that it's been a year since then, I did the very best I could, I touched a lot of lives, many touched my life!  I gave away so much of myself and sacrificed a lot to make it succeed, including time with my family. 

During this past summer we gutted (and I mean gut-ted) our main floor.  I LOVE my new kitchen.  I mean just look at it!  

 

We went from this, 

to THIS!

From this,

TO THIS!

Who wouldn't love that kitchen? 

And that brings me to the point of this rambling blog.  I am SO happy to be at home, cooking, cleaning, mothering, crafting, learning, growing.  I joke that I'm living the June Cleaver life.  But what's wrong with that?  I have enjoyed every minute of my days at home with my daughter.  I also enjoyed the 5 (post-baby) years I worked outside the home.  In that other itty bitty ugly kitchen, I wasn't inspired to do much.  So I did what was needed.  In my new beautiful kitchen, I am inspired. I want to cook, and bake, and experiment.  I want to present my family with dinner every night.  I am proud of my home.  I enjoy cleaning it (ok, not really, but it's got to be done and I may as well pretend to like it).  I enjoy making sure my husband knows I appreciate the hard work he does to provide us with all the opportunities he does.  I love being available to my daughter for everything she needs.  I am really happy as I am, but is it enough?  I think it's enough for me and I guess that's all that really matters.  But I attended my first social gathering in over a year today, and of course I have to make it a challenge, by making it a group of strangers and virtual friends. 

Having been out of the social scene for so long it was easy to say yes to the invite, but oh so hard to follow through.  As I'm driving to the location today, I'm wondering why I'm putting myself through this. But I stuck to it, and I went.  As my darling daughter says "I can do this".  I walk in, find the group, immediately see some faces I know (phew) and some very friendly people introduce themselves and make me feel instantly welcome.  So it was simply a social gathering, but all of the women I met handed me a business card and had some kind of business.  And then came the question "so what do you do?".  Argh.  What DO I do?  I don't actually DO anything. Yesterday, I was thrilled with that.  Tonight, I'm questioning if that's "enough".  Now, don't get me wrong.  No one made me feel that way, but me.  Everyone was gracious and friendly.  No one appeared to judge me.  But, the question instantly filled me with guilt over my "failed" business and lack of drive in my current days. 

I had a great day today.  I met some very nice people and enjoyed getting to know them.  I will go to others.  But I'm going to have to come to terms with how I view the role I've chosen in this life and I'm left wondering: what is it that makes me question my place in the world, when I'm happy with my homemaker life?