Baking in the remodel

The events of this post happened about two months ago...oh well :)

So two months ago we were in August, and the kitchen remodel was in a similar state as it is now. That seems sad--we are making progress, just had a little hitch that I'll get into in another post. My friend Kristin's birthday was July 31, and my friend Laura's birthday was August 5. (You can read their blog here.) To celebrate, Kristin's husband, Mike, decided to have a little party for the two of them.

One day he handed me the August edition of Rachael Ray's magazine and showed me several fun birthday cake ideas. Kristin liked one in particular, but there were a few others she thought were pretty cool, too. I told him I'd make three of them: one that looked like pancakes, one where the cake is baked inside ice cream cones and one that was a rainbow-colored cake. Each was pretty easy and used a box mix, and two of the three were smaller looking so I figured it would be fun to have options. Now remember, I have no sink in my kitchen and no counters. I did have a working oven, though, so I assured Mike everything would be fine.

Fast forward to August 9, the day before the party. I got a call from Laura's husband, Caleb, asking if I might be able to pick up a cake he ordered from a bakery in Easthampton. At this point, I was unaware that anyone else was bringing dessert. He said it was a cake that he and Laura had tried and loved and that it would feed 20 people. I'm really glad Caleb called me because I knew we wouldn't have 20 people at the party, meaning I didn't need to bake three different cakes in addition to the one he ordered.

On to August 10. I decided to go with the pancake cake since that was the one Kristin really liked. Here is a picture from the magazine of the finished product:

I gathered all of my ingredients together on an IKEA cabinet that we were using in the living room.

You need a yellow cake mix, whatever the cake mix calls for, powdered sugar, water and sprinkles. I then got my set-up ready on the stove. Remember...no counters. (I didn't end up using my big mixer--it was easier to do my hand.)

I melted butter in my pan, had my cake mix ready in the bowl and then got to work. You pour the cake batter in your pan a little at a time the same way you would to make pancakes. Now I like Rachael Ray, but I will say I feel like the recipe lied a little. The cooking time given was about 8-9 minutes on the first side, then a few more on the other. I'm pretty sure I only needed about 2 minutes on the first side, then about 15 seconds on the other. Just cook them like you would pancakes--wait for the bubbles before you flip. It is a little trickier to flip cake batter as opposed to pancake batter, but if you work at it, it is possible I promise! (Andrew benefited from my mistakes, though!) Here are some cooking pics:

Once you make a stack, you can then make the icing drizzle for the top. The recipe said to mix powdered sugar together with water, then drizzle on the stack. I read on another blog that you could also use milk or orange juice. So I headed to the bathroom--my source of water--and made the topping, drizzled it and added sprinkles. Here's the finished cake--the icing doesn't look as thick as the one in the magazine, but it worked!

At this point I got really worried. The cake didn't look so great to me, I thought it would get too soggy since the party was in another hour, on and on. Andrew said it tasted good, but I wasn't convinced. I finished it up anyway and hoped for the best. I broke a wooden skewer in half, cut out a triangle of card stock, wrote happy birthday on the card stock, then taped the flag to the skewer. Voila! Who needs candles?

Turns out, the cake was great and everyone loved it. It definitely took more work than I anticipated--mainly because I was running through my house looking for better spatulas to flip with or trying to find a ladle for the batter, etc. Cooking and baking is definitely harder when your supplies are spread throughout your home.

One last note: The batter lasted me forever. I read on another blog that someone got 9 pancakes out of their batter. I got about 16! I made 7 or 8 for Kristin and Laura's party, then made the rest for Andrew and our house guest, Aaron. I made several of the pancakes, then I think just made a bowl of the icing for them to dip it in.