And it is. Baking a cake I mean. It's not a masterpiece and you cannot do much wrong. The great thing about cake is you can keep it simple with only a few ingredients (that way you can even call it "vegan' which sounds cool and more interesting than "a cake for the poor").
The classic cake (three pounders) is baked by using the same amount of ingredients if it comes to butter, sugar, flour, and eggs.
My grandmother was very precisely if it comes to ingredients and used scales. With scales, I started too but I do not care about a gram. At the time the cake was invented (and bread) people just gave it a try and did what felt good. You can see what it looks like and taste the dough. Experiences or (change of taste) tells you how much you need. With me, it is not as much sugar. This means I'll never make the original cake but it doesn't mean mine doesn't taste. For longer, it was the lack of ingredients that made me not bake a cake. Eggs for example. Quest what? You can perfectly bake a tasty cake by not using eggs.
Butter, real butter not margarine, is expensive. For longer, I didn't like a cake baked with real butter, the cake delivered by the bakery. It smells different and if it's cold the cake feels hard.
These days I bake a cake with:
Sunflower oil (125 ml)
Sugar (250 grams)
Flour (300 grams)
Baking powder (coffee spoon)
A bit salt
Water
Eggs I only use if they are available (at most 4).
Instead of oil, I can use real butter (250 grams)
Oven temperature: 150°C - 180°C (mine only has heath at the bottom)
Baking time: 40 -75 minutes
How to make the dough:
Stir oil with sugar, add (eggs one by one) sugar, salt, flour, and baking flour to it. If the dough is too thick you add some water.
Do you want to add some extra taste?
Extra or a different taste you will create if you change the ingredients.
Butter instead of oil
Vanilla sugar
Add fruit: 3 bananas or peaches, raisons, or mango.
Add lemon zest or lemon juice.
Use 4-6 tablespoon cocoa (the real one not the Nesquick fake chocolate powder.)
Cut the cake in layers and add marmalade or whipped cream.
I am a lazy cook which means I use baking powder in my mold. Instead, you can use butter and rub it all over the inside of your mold. Next, you put flour on it. Not too much just that it sticks in a thin layer to the butter. This helps to get the cake out of the mold.
Do not open the oven during the first 15-20 minutes. The cake "catches a cold". The draft will make it fall together.
How do you know your cake is ready?
It depends on the temperature of your oven and no oven is the same.
150°C is good for about one hour.
You can put a wooden stick in the middle of the cake and see if nothing sticks to it. If that's the case your cake is ready.
It depends on your personal taste and the (extra) ingredients of how the cake tastes if it's better to consume it cold or warm. You can eat it during your tea or coffee break or if you like have it for breakfast too.
A slice of cake tastes great with fruit, ice cream, marmalade, whipped cream, or just the way it is and it's easier made than bread.
Looks so delicious. 😍