IT’S A PIECE OF CAKE TO BAKE A PRETTY CAKEMOSTLY, THE AUTHOR WANTED CAKE.

Cooking with Children

Cooking with children ages 2 and up can have a variety of unexpected benefits, besides just being fun and a way involving your child in a daily life where you may find them constantly hanging onto the back of your shirt when you’re making dinner. It teaches them to follow directions and work together, improves their math and measuring skills, and teaches them new words in a highly sensory environment. It’s also an exercise in hygiene and safety, besides being a learning experience about nutrition.

Some Personal Experience

My mother did not teach me to cook (this may be for the better)! I wanted to help her cook, because children usually do, but I was at least sixteen before I cooked scrambled eggs. Once I moved out I had to start cooking, mostly baking elaborate desserts for parties, on my own. It’s messy and fun and an activity where you are encouraged to dig your (clean) hands into the dough. Baking is a rewarding and relaxing experience and I often bake with the neighborhood children. They’re excited to create something useful, something edible, something they can take back to their homes and say, “I made this! Isn’t it yummy?”

Cooking by the Book

Being absorbed in children’s shows thanks to childcare, I of course must direct to you Lazy Town’s song “Cooking by the Book” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYrkQL1bX4A

So like I said, I wanted cake.But even though I’ve made lots of

other things, I’ve never baked a cake!

How do you get cake? You Google

how to make cake.

Let’s bake a 6-layer rainbow cake!I cannot see why not.

Thanks, Martha Stewart!

Okay, so we’ve got ingredients…

Vegetable shortening

3 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/3 cups sugar

5 large egg whites, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups milk, room temperature

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple gel food coloring

Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream (http://www.marthastewart.com/256687/lemony-swiss-meringue-buttercream)

And a recipe…

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brush six 9-inch-round cake pans (or as many 9-inch cake pans as you have, reusing them as necessary) with shortening. Line bottom of each cake pan with parchment paper; brush again and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar. Slowly add egg whites and mix until well combined. Add vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Add flour mixture and milk in two alternating additions, beginning with the flour and ending with the milk. Mix until well combined.

Divide batter evenly between six medium bowls. Add enough of each color of food coloring to each bowl, whisking, until desired shade is reached. Transfer each color to an individual cake pan. Transfer to oven and bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean, about 15 minutes (working in batches if necessary).

Remove cakes from oven and transfer to a wire rack; let cool for 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto a wire rack; re-invert and let cool completely.

Using a serrated knife, trim tops of cakes to make level. Place four strips of parchment paper around perimeter of a serving plate or lazy Susan. Place the purple layer on the cake plate. Spread a scant 1 cup buttercream filling over the first layer with a small offset spatula so it extends just beyond edges. Repeat process with blue, green, yellow, and orange layers.

Place the remaining red layer on top, bottom-side up. Gently sweep away any loose crumbs with a pastry brush. Using an offset spatula, cover the top and sides with a thin layer of frosting (also use any of the excess frosting visible between the layers). Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes.

Using an offset spatula, cover cake again with remaining frosting.

…and a recipe for the recipe? =(

Ingredients

For the Filling and Crumb Coat

9 large egg whites

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure lemon extract

For the Frosting

5 large egg whites

1 cup sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure lemon extract

Directions

Make the filling and crumb coat: Cook egg whites and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly until sugar is completely dissolved. Transfer to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment; mix on high speed until mixture is room temperature. With the mixer on medium-low, add butter, one piece at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Remove whisk attachment and switch to paddle attachment. Increase speed to high and beat until buttercream comes together, about 5 minutes; beat in lemon extract.

Make the frosting: In a clean saucepan and bowl of an electric mixer, repeat process in step 1.

SHOPPING LIST

Vegetable shortening

24 eggs

Whole milk

Gel food coloring

6 9” cake pans

Offset spatula? Small…and large…?

What is a pastry brush?

Lemon extract

8 sticks unsalted butter

Parchment paper

A lazy Susan.

Some more wire racks.

A hug.

Please do not make me do this.

This is not funny, Martha Stewart.

If I had a small child to help me this might be okay.

But I doubt it.

I went shopping.Marcus carries in my 36 eggs in the rain. “I brought in your eggs,” he says proudly, and then drops them all. “I’ll get you some more eggs,” he says proudly. I salvage 24 of them, just enough, but never mentally recover.

All right!Do we have all of our ingredients and materials? Are we ready? YES WE ARE.

Thanatos helps me bake.So does my brother!

Did you know you have to do origami to bake a cake?Grease cake pan. Line bottom of round cake pan with square paper. Grease again. Why?

LICK THE MIXERS.And the bowl. All the bowls. Lick everything.

What is a medium bowl?IS IT A BUTTER BOWL?

Batter!THE PRETTIEST BATTER. I just knew this was going to go perfectly!

Okay.Now it’s a five-layer cake.

Right.I guess it’s a four-layer cake!

Lemon meringue filling!THIS turned out right.

Mix? For five solid minutes?MARCUS CAN DO THAT. I’m going to sit in a chair and wonder why the icing is not getting any thicker.

“Put the green layer on.”“It’ll just have a hole in it,” Marcus says. “Just stick it back together and put it on! Stick that part…there…” I stick it here instead. I was never good at puzzles. “You do not see things the same way EVERYONE ELSE does,” Marcus says, baffled. It strikes me as so funny that I start sobbing with laughter and as I curl up beside the couch, Marcus shouts, “COME BACK. WHAT’S FUNNY?”

It’s pajama time.With 30 minutes left until I can ice the monstrosity I created…

WHY IS MY ICING DRIPPY?IS THIS EVEN EDIBLE? “The recipe says to lightly brush crumbs away.” “I think this cake has…transcended…the recipe,” Marcus says.

In a fit of spite and the desire to own my failures…I put sugar pearls on it anyway. Marcus put a ruler to it: “On this side it’s…3 ½” high.” “ARE YOU IMPLYING IT’S DIFFERENT HEIGHTS ON ALL SIDES?” “YES, because on THIS side it’s 2 ½” high.” “Oh.”

I made some mistakes.The cake batter didn’t rise high enough, giving the cakes a pancakey consistency. The meringue was good but the icing was clearly too beautiful to live and had the consistency of water. As for the missing layers, I threw them in the trash and went to bed.

In conclusion, it is not a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake.

It is in fact extremely difficult to bake an ugly one.