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Basic "Birthday cake" recipe that doesn't use a stand mixer?


jrshaul

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A friend of mine would appreciate a nice cake recipe to make with her kids, and I've been using joepastry.com's recipes for so long that I'm at a loss without low-gluten flourand  kitchenaid. If someone could nominate a basic "birthday cake" recipe that can be made with a wooden spoon and a whisk, I'd appreciate it - the basic 1-2-3-4 isn't really sweet enough for many peoples' tastes these days. Bonus points if it's amenable to the addition of flavorings like ginger or instant coffee.

Edited by jrshaul (log)
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I've made most of the basic cakes in The Best Recipe, using just a hand mixer/various stirring gadgets (when I've been visiting friends with very minimally equipped kitchens). The results have routinely been good to exceptional, and I like to experiment with flavours, so at one point or another, I've added more or less anything you can think of (sometimes in significant quantities) to these things. I make the devil's food cake most often (pretty much everyone I know wants it for their birthday), and at least once made it using just a standard fork and tablespoon. Keep in mind that creaming, then whipping a butter sugar+mixture gets old fast (you'll probably want a lower working surface than usual), so a recipe like a hot milk cake may be the way to go: it uses melted butter (or a chiffon cake, which uses oil).

 

ETA There's a decent chance of finding this book on sale/at a library, but PM if that doesn't work out, and you want a recipe.

Michaela, aka "Mjx"
Manager, eG Forums
mscioscia@egstaff.org

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A birthday cake for me isnt  just a plain cake, it has frosting and it is the frosting that makes the cake  sweet.

I have made lots of cakes  with out machines and  it just a little bit harder works.  Here is a simple and yummy cake, you can make it round too, but i cant remember how  big it became.

 

Basic chocolate cake.

225 gram butter

200 ml milk

5 eggs

450 ml sugar

1 ½ tablespoon vanilla

125 ml unsweetened cocoa powder

3 teaspoon baking powder

600 ml flour.

 

Turn the oven on to 175 C. Grease a  30x40 cm square tin and dust with a little flour  or cover it with baking paper.  Melt the butter. Whisk the eggs and sugar  with a whisk or a fork until light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla.  Sift in the  flour and baking powder. Whisk the butter with cocoa powder and then add to the batter and then the milk.  Stir until smooth, you can use a spoon for this. Pour into the tin and bake for 20 min in the middle of the oven.

 

Cool on a rack and when cold smear with a lot of frosting and add  chocolate candies and sprinkles.

 

 

The original frosting is with  coffee, I can try to find it for you but I prefer this

 

Edited by CatPoet (log)

Cheese is you friend, Cheese will take care of you, Cheese will never betray you, But blue mold will kill me.

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I've always used an easy old Betty Crocker recipe that my grandmother used -- usually as a sheet cake with broiled icing or a nice buttercream.

 

5/8 cup butter

1-7/8 cups sugar

2 eggs

3 cups cake flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1-1/4 cup milk

1-1/2 tsp vanilla

 

Cream butter, then cream in sugar.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Sift dry ingredients and fold them into the egg mixture, alternating with the milk.  Spoon batter into 13x9 prepared pan or two 9" layer pans.  Bake in preheated 350 oven for 30-35 minutes for layers, 35-40 for sheet cake. 

 

It's easier to make this cake with a stand mixer, but my grandmother always did hers by hand, using just a big old spoon.  Endless variations to flavorings are possible, but if you add anything acidic, add a 1/2 tsp baking soda. 

 

One of the Betty Crocker variations on this cake is to take half the batter and tint it red, adding 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp cloves and 1/8 tsp nutmeg to the red, then swirl the red and white batters together in the pan.  A kid would enjoy that, I think. 

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You could use any cake recipe for a traditional "mud" cake which is made similarly to brownies. The butter is melted so no creaming is necessary and I think a wooden spoon is the only utensil needed (and a rubber spatula). I would think you could add any type of flavoring. You can google all kinds of recipes.

Best of luck!

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You can make any cake without a stand or hand mixer if you're willing to put in the elbow grease. The only real benefits to the electric mixers are speed and saving some wear and tear on the arm.

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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I ended up horribly bastardizing a recipe I knew from my mother. (Sorry, guys - they wanted a traditional white cake, and your recipes had a lot less sugar.) It worked okay - but maybe you could help me make it work better?
 

1.5 cups butter

3 cups sugar

3 cups AP flour.

5 eggs.

1/2C buttermilk

1/2C whole milk

2t baking powder

1/4t salt
3t vanilla 

 

Cream butter and sugar using electric eggbeater. Beat in eggs, one by one. Beat in dry ingredients, alternating with milk; add flavoring. Divide between 3 cake pans and bake at 350F until fork comes out clean. 

 

 

The recipe worked pretty well - it's a cake recipe I'd used ages back with reasonable success. However, I did have a few bugaboos. The bottoms were nearly burnt before it set (possibly due to the oven,) and they weren't especially fluffy. 

Would this be a reasonable candidate for possibly reducing the temperature a bit and whipping the whole eggs? It's not like we're not using the eggbeater already...

You can make any cake without a stand or hand mixer if you're willing to put in the elbow grease. The only real benefits to the electric mixers are speed and saving some wear and tear on the arm.

 

When you weigh seventy pounds, this can be a bit problematic...

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jrshaul,

 

I used to make cakes with nothing but a whisk when I was younger, and before I was birthday gifted with a hand-held Sunbeam mixer in the late 80's that I still use to this day. I got this because I made a lot of the family's BD cakes, and happened to mention I didn't have an electric mixer.

 

It's absolutely possible to make great cakes without any electrical equipment at all, after all they were made many, many centuries before lots of us had electricity, but if you have a hand-held, it's even very easy.

 

You don't need a special recipe, just a whisk and some effort, or a hand mixer (much cheaper than a stand) works just fine.

> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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I ended up horribly bastardizing a recipe I knew from my mother. (Sorry, guys - they wanted a traditional white cake, and your recipes had a lot less sugar.) It worked okay - but maybe you could help me make it work better?

 

1.5 cups butter

3 cups sugar

3 cups AP flour.

5 eggs.

1/2C buttermilk

1/2C whole milk

2t baking powder

1/4t salt

3t vanilla 

 

Cream butter and sugar using electric eggbeater. Beat in eggs, one by one. Beat in dry ingredients, alternating with milk; add flavoring. Divide between 3 cake pans and bake at 350F until fork comes out clean. 

 

 

The recipe worked pretty well - it's a cake recipe I'd used ages back with reasonable success. However, I did have a few bugaboos. The bottoms were nearly burnt before it set (possibly due to the oven,) and they weren't especially fluffy. 

Would this be a reasonable candidate for possibly reducing the temperature a bit and whipping the whole eggs? It's not like we're not using the eggbeater already...

 

When you weigh seventy pounds, this can be a bit problematic...

 

Mmmkay jrshaul,

 

For one thing, the very, very high sugar content of the recipe will make it more likely to burn, but for goodness sakes, would make it cloying even before frosting or icing or glaze.

 

I'm sorry to say this, and don't mean to be disrespectful in any way at all, especially since you said it's from your, I'm sure revered mom.  but that recipe is bound to fail.

 

Just sayin'.  :smile:

 

Again, any good cake recipe will work with a whisk or, an electric hand mixer.

> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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If you want to make  a cake sweet, super sweet it is easy.

Take one of these  normal sugar recipe of white cake, follow that and get a perfect cake.  Now to make it sweet enough for you,  soak the sponge in simple syrup and then a layer of  dulce de leche between the cakes,  Also when you make the butter cream to smoother the cake, add 1 tablespoon dulce de leche and use sweetened condensed milk instead of milk, this will make the cake sweet.

 

Or make a pavlova instead  for the birthday, because birthday cake can be anything you lke.

 

I find cakes of today too sweet by the way.

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Cheese is you friend, Cheese will take care of you, Cheese will never betray you, But blue mold will kill me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

 

For one thing, the very, very high sugar content of the recipe will make it more likely to burn, but for goodness sakes, would make it cloying even before frosting or icing or glaze.

 

I'm sorry to say this, and don't mean to be disrespectful in any way at all, especially since you said it's from your, I'm sure revered mom.  but that recipe is bound to fail.

 

 

You'd be correct in your assertation that it burns terrifyingly, frighteningly easily - a stove that runs 25F over is gonna get pretty brown. However, the cake is a known kid-pleaser, no syrup or glaze required.

 

It's also one of the few cakes I know that can be made without cake flour or anything particularly futzy. 

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But the frosting or glaze is what makes a  normal cake a birthday cake.

Cheese is you friend, Cheese will take care of you, Cheese will never betray you, But blue mold will kill me.

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Well if you just wanted a sweet cake that is kids friendly  with no glaze or nothing, then just say it.  My daughter isnt used to high sugared stuff, she find this cake too sweet so it might hit the spot for  those kids.

 

 Kladdkaka:

 

100 grams butter

2 eggs

300 ml sugar

150 ml flour

½ tablespoon  vanilla

4 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tablespoon water or orange juice or  booze ( for adults)  or sweetened condensed milk ( this give a toffee town to the cake.

 

Take a bowl, turn the oven to 150C, grab a 9 inch round  spring pan, grease the side and leave the paper in the bottom.   Melt the butter and add the cocoa  to it, stir until combined. In the  bowl  whisk sugar and egg  until combined, use a wooden spoon.  Add the  vanilla, flour and liquid and stir again.  Now add the cocoa/ butter and stir until glossy and smooth,  Pour into the tin.  Bake  for  30 min.  Remove the cake, it should wobble. Leave to cool down and then pop it in to the fridge for at least  8 hours to set.  Done, sweet cake  that can be eaten  with out any frosting.

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Cheese is you friend, Cheese will take care of you, Cheese will never betray you, But blue mold will kill me.

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