I’ve been thinking back on my first cake — well, I think it was my first — could’ve been my second.  I was making a cake for my mother’s birthday — so, June.  I made my first cake in June.  I cannot recall the year — probably I was nine years old.  I made a cake from a boxed mix and I added blue food colouring along with the eggs and water.  Maybe some oil.  It would have been Wesson Oil, I think.  I baked the cake in an angel food cake pan and set the timer so I’d be sure to not fail by over or under baking the cake.

I didn’t over-bake it.  I didn’t under-bake it. I didn’t have any breezes in the kitchen — nor did I slam any doors or make any sudden moves that would cause the cake to fall.  True to form, in that I cannot do things I’ve not seen done before, I removed the cake from the oven and immediately inverted it on a bottle – on the counter away from any drafts.  I had seen my mother do this with her beautiful angel food cakes.

The baked contents of the pan — the blue contents — instantly dropped onto the counter.  I suddenly was faced with a dilemma:  Uh-Oh!  What do I do now?  I’ve never seen this part before.

Well, I’ve thought of that little incident from time to time over the years.  When I take a cake from the oven, and after it’s cooled a bit, I invert it on a rack.  Because I always grease and flour or spray the cake pans and line them with parchment and because I wait a bit for cooling, I don’t have problems with cake falling all over the place or bits of cake staying in the pan.

I’m not sure why I baked that cake in the angelfood cake pan in the first place.  Maybe I thought it was just the pan to use.  I had seen my mother use that pan.  And I sure don’t know why I coloured it blue — maybe I thought it would resemble some sort of summer pool or something beach-like — I don’t know.  But I do know that the technique I used that day to form it into a dome on a plate is a technique I just might need sometime — and if I do, I’ll know how it’s done.  And I know that day, when it was all said and done, the frosting covered a multitude of sins problems.  I use this technique today.  On cakes and other things.

I don’t have my A Bella Cake site ready yet, but I’ll be adding photos of cakes there. I’ll link to it when it’s up and running. I have a cake I’m dreaming up right now — a wedding cake for an October wedding. It’s not an autumn themed wedding… so, no need to try and come up with the majestic hues of autumn, but maybe more difficult for me will be to make this cake look as beautiful as the one I’ve dreamed of making. I’ll show you some photos when it’s made. The bride is a precious friend and I want her cake to be a blessing to her. I so wish I had had more skill and more experience when I made her sister’s wedding cake a few years ago — it was very, very important to me to make that one special, too — but I’m not so pleased with the outcome. Maybe I can make another cake for her someday. An elaborate anniversary or birthday cake or something.

Anyway… have a look at Marshmallow Fondant — It’s really fun!

—pamela