Learn to Cook Cakes plus Cake Decorating Ideas

Baking cakes experience

I have to look back to many years ago to when I was about six years old when I told my mom I wanted to learn to cook cakes. She was, obviously, quite amused that I had even thought about cooking cakes and probably even more amused because she was by no means a great cake maker (sorry mom) her cakes always sank or were burned or undercooked. She made fabulous pates, soups, meals and desserts, but she was definitely no baker. She was a busy mom with four kids to care for, I was the second with my brother two years older and my two sisters two and four years younger, so getting the time to teach me to bake was not going to be easy.

Early learning

I had actually started my career as a cake maker two years before this, when my brother and I decided to make a banana cake as a surprise for mom and dad one Sunday morning. He was six and I was four and as neither of us could read a recipe properly, the cake was a disaster. There were flour, eggs and baking utensils everywhere and raw cake mixture in baking tins, looking very dubious, waiting to be cooked. I seem to remember that mom and dad were not amused, they talked long and hard about the waste of food and the dangers of a hot oven.

Fairy cakes recipe

4 oz Butter
4oz Caster sugar
2 eggs
5oz self raising flour
2 tablespoons milk

Heat the oven to 180° before starting and line a 12-hole bun tin with paper cases, or grease thoroughly. Get out your baking equipment and put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix a slow speed until everything is combined then increase the speed and beat until the mixture turns much paler. Spoon mixture into the paper cases, smooth over the tops and bake for 25 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack to cool.

Simple cake recipe

This was the first simple recipe that mom taught me and they worked like a dream. I tried chocolate cupcakes the next time adding a little sieved cocoa to the cake mix and covering them with melted chocolate mixed with a little butter. The next cake I was taught to make was a fat free sponge which could also be a jelly roll cake.

Sponge cake recipe

4oz Sugar
4 eggs
3oz self raising flour

Heat the oven to 180° before starting to make the cake and grease a flat baking tray or jelly roll tin and line with greaseproof or silicone paper. Break the eggs into a large bowl and add the sugar, whisk until the mixture is a pale gold color and thick enough to leave a trail on the surface when the whisk is lifted out. This takes a while so don’t rush it. Gently fold in the sieved flour with a metal tablespoon using a cut and turn action. Gently pour into the lined tin and smooth into the corners, put into the oven being careful not to bang the door or the tin as you do it. Bake for twenty minutes until the sponge is firm to the touch and golden brown in color.

Finishing decoration

Turn out onto a clean tea towel on a wire rack. Allow to cool before decorating butiIf it is to be a jelly roll then roll up with the lining paper while still warm, unroll and leave to cool. When completely cold peel off the lining paper. This can be used as a party cake, filled with strawberries and fresh cream. Sponge can be decorated with colored icing and the kids will love their favorite characters represented in their cake shapes. Cake shops are great places but if you learn to cook cakes yourself then cake shops can be a thing of the past.