perfect 7 minute cake from scratch

Every time I read Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen, I want to make cake.

So today, we did.

Well, I mean, first we called my aunt, the Cake Whisperer. There is always cake at her house, always a bit different, always delicious. “Would you like some cake?” she says when you arrive. It’s awesome. “Give me the cake download,” I said on the phone. “We’ve been reading Sendak again.”

Turns out the secret is in her cuisinart-fu. Carroll mixes a cake in not more than seven minutes using her food processor. She’s timed it. “You can mix butter and sugar all you like,” she says, “but once you put the eggs in, you’re minutes away from cake disaster.”

Well. We can’t have that.

Here’s how she does it:

Carroll’s Perfect Seven-Minute Basic Cake

Put into a sifter (but don’t sift yet)

1 3/4 cup flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

In the food processor cream:

1 stick of butter

1 cup of sugar

Add 2 eggs, one at a time, and mix briefly after each egg.

Measure out 1 cup of milk (it can be sour milk, or buttermilk, if you have any). Pour 1/3 of the milk into the processor. Next sift directly into the processor 1/3 or so of the flour mixture. Mix. Pour in another 1/3 of the milk and sift in another 1/3 of the flour mixture. Mix. Pour in the rest of your milk and sift in the rest of the flour mixture. Mix.

Add flavorings, such as vanilla, last.

Pour batter into a buttered cake pan and bake for 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees.

All that shouldn’t take more than seven minutes. Once, I was talking to Carroll on the phone as she made pancakes and mixed up a cake at the same time. She has mad skills.

Look at this:

Moist, yellow, sweet, fluffy….

For icing, we made Honey Milk Icing and smeared it around on the top. Here’s how:

Throw into the (washed) processor, 1/2 stick of butter, 1/8 cup of honey, 1/2 cup of nonfat powdered milk, a splash of vanilla and enough water to make it the consistency you like. Woosh and presto. Icing.

Luc says, “Is icing colder than frosting? Because ice is colder than frost…?”

Once you get the basic cake down, you start tweaking. Adding raisins and walnuts (at the end) and cinnimon and spices (sift them in with the flour) will give you a nice spice cake. Add some applesauce and you can cut down on the butter and still come out moist. Instead of icing, a nice orange glaze (orange juice and honey with a bit of warm water) is nice, or melted chocolate drizzled over the top is grand. Putting some whole wheat and dried fruit in, and lessening the sugar, and you get a heartier version that’s great for breakfast. I could go on and on.

I wonder how many hundreds of cakes Carroll has made? She can do it blindfolded, I swear.

With cake so easy to make, why did those boxed cake mixes ever get popular? Maybe the mixing was harder when they didn’t have cuisinarts? Whatever, all I know is, Thanks to Mickey, we have cake every morning!

Well, not really. We usually have toast. But for the next few days anyway, its cake and fresh goat milk. I’m not hearing anyone complaining….