Confectioneries ~ by Veronica Bone

Hi everyone! Today I decided that I wanted to make a cake (I may or may not have had a little additional urging from my roommate for “ confectioneries”) and wanted to share this process with you.  I decided to make a cake mainly because I didn't have brownie or cookie mix and because every once in a while I like to decorate cakes. However, as much as I enjoy decorating cakes I don’t particularly like eating them. This is probably because growing up my mother was constantly making and decorating cakes for fun or for her cake decorating classes. As a result of this we had cake in my house every few weeks and if my mom couldn't give them away we had to eat them. As the old proverb goes you can "have too much of a good thing".  I'm nowhere near as good as my mother when it comes to baking or decorating but I still find the entire process fun and relaxing.

So to start you will need: 1 box of cake mix, or if you have the time and ingredients you can always make your cake from scratch (I had none of the above so boxed cake mix it was), 3 eggs, 1 cup of water, and 1/3 of a cup of vegetable oil, bowl to mix in, and your cake pan (I used two round 8” pans). Now would also be a great time to start pre-heating your oven to the correct temperature. When I was younger I was constantly forgetting to heat the oven while I was getting the batter together and always had to wait longer. There was once I forgot all together and but the pans in a cold oven. This particular cake mix called for a temperature of 350⁰.

After you have everything you can go ahead and combine the cake mix, eggs, water and oil into the bowl.

If you have a blender on hand, either an electric blender or a hand held one, you can use those or if you don’t happen to have one a fork works just fine. Mix all the ingredients until the mixture is a smooth consistency. If you’re working with a beater you should be able to get rid of all the little lumps from the cake mix but if you’re working with a fork you may not be able to completely.

After you’ve got your mixture ready it’s time to pour it into the pans! Now depending on what kind of pan you’re using you may have to spray them with non-stick cooking spray or line the bottom with parchment paper. The pan’s I used were non-stick material so I decided not to.  As you pour the batter into the pans remember it WILL rise so you need to leave room in the pan or it will make a giant mess all over your oven (trust me I’ve had to clean up the mess a time or two when I forgot). Also, if you’re using two pans like I did remember that you want to try and split the batter as equally as possible. 

After you’ve got your batter into your pan it’s time for it to go in the oven. Now how long it is in the oven will depend on the type of pan you used. My 8” pans were in the oven for 35 minutes. 

While I was waiting for my cakes to cook I pulled out the ingredients to make cream cheese frosting. Because let’s admit it homemade frosting is so much better than the stuff from a can. For the frosting I needed 3 8oz packages of cream cheese (at room temperature), I used the Philadelphia brand but any type can be used, ¾ of a cup of butter (at room temperature), powdered sugar (you’re going to end up using around 3 cups but that can be changed based on how sweet you want the frosting), and 3tsp of vanilla extract.  

Combine the sugar, cream cheese, butter and vanilla and blend it until it’s nice and fluffy. For this you will need a blender of some sort. I used a hand held blender and slowly added ingredients.  When you’ve added everything and got it to be proper consistency feel free to do a “taste test” (since you know you’re going to do one anyway) and make any adjustments that need to be made. The first time I tasted my frosting it tasted like whipped cream cheese and I had to add more vanilla and sugar.

At this point the cakes should be about done, remember to do a “toothpick test” to make sure, so you can pull them out of the oven and set them on a rack too cool. Remember to let the cakes cool completely BEFORE you try and remove them from the pans or you’re liable to accidently tear them trying to get them out of the pan. 

Once you’re cakes are cool you can go ahead and frost them. Now how you go about doing this is totally up to you depending on how you like your cakes frosted and what kind of cake you made. I started by frosting the top of one cake and then stacking the other one on top of it. From there I started by frosting the top of the cake then moved on to frosting the sides. 

As you frost your cake try and get an even layer and cover up all the cake.  

I ended up having a lot of icing left over so I decided that instead of a plain white cake I’d have some fun and decorate it (that and I had just bought new piping tips and who doesn’t like playing with new toys?). Now if you decide to decorate your cake you can make your frosting what ever colors you would like, and if you divide it into separate containers you can do multiple colors, but in honor of Relay for Life I made my frosting purple using generic food coloring. Relay for Life is important to me mainly because my father works at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center which is a non-for profit research center in Seattle. As a result of this my family has always been involved with supporting cancer research and I remember as a kid participating in the Relay for Life walk held at my high school.

It took a few tries to get a purple I thought was dark enough. 

You can decorate using frosting in many different ways; I chose to use piping bags and tips. After attaching the tip to the bag and loading the bag with frosting you’re ready to start decorating! My final design looked like this:

I really like taking the time to bake because it reminds me of being home and my family. Being so far away for long periods of time I like to engage in any little act that reminds me of my family and makes me feel closer to them.