Ever since my new cooker arrived nearly a month ago, I’ve been putting off that fateful moment when I would make my first kate-flour yellow butter cake in one of its ovens. What if it didn’t work? What if the cake pitted, collapsed and otherwise wimped out? What if … how horrible, but … what if … my old cooker was better ….?
There, I’ve said it, the thought that has been haunting me.
There would be no going back. M, T, the cat and I waved goodbye to our old cooker last week. We couldn’t just install it somewhere in the corner of the garage for those special, ‘butter cake’ moments.
Oh, the agonies.
So, you see, for me this isn’t just ‘yet-another-photo-of-one-of-those-cakes’. This afternoon, M and I (with a little ‘help’ from T 😉 ) baked a miracle no less wonderful to us than our first-ever successes with kate flour.
Phew!!
amerrierworld.com 
Jeannette
/ February 11, 2009That looks good, Kate! What size tin did you use? Even using my American cake flour which A brought back for me, I don’t seem to get much depth to my cakes using Rose’s recipes. Last week I made the Pound cake with lemon and poppyseeds and although it tasted really good it didn’t look like a loaf cake. It was quite shallow, I think I might try it in a smaller tin next time even though I’m sure Rose’s measurements are the same as our 2lb loaf tins. Perhaps I’ll try a 1 lb tin next.
amerrierworld
/ February 11, 2009I used a 9x 1 1/2″ round cake pan for this cake (halving the recipe in The Cake Bible as I was making only 1 layer). It didn’t rise quite as high as the same cake does using cake flour, but height isn’t everything 😉 . It’s been a while since I made any of the pound cakes, but I do remember measuring the volume of my loaf pans with water rather than relying on their ‘poundage’. Did you notice how far your batter was from the top of your loaf tin (and was it 1/2″ from the top, as Rose describes for that recipe?)?
Dad
/ February 12, 2009Congratulations Kate.
The first, and major, hurdle is over – it now has to pass the ‘Yerma Test’.
It won’t be long before she’s down there sampling your achievements.
I hope there was enough ‘Kate Cake’ to go around L, M, T and O (and Mowgli).
Luvnhugs, Dad.
Chef Sandwich
/ February 12, 2009Dear Kate,
That cake really does look delicious. Wish I could bake like that. Desserts and me are just not meant to be I fear. If it’s any consolation my cooker has just gone to the great oven scrapyard in the sky. And I’ve got a delicious looking cooking chicken in the fridge just ready for the roasting. Oh well.
Love the blog and keep up the good work,
Lennie
amerrierworld
/ February 12, 2009Fortunately for us, O and the cat don’t like cake, Dad 😉 .
You now have the perfect excuse to get the cooker you’ve always wanted, Lennie (at least, it was something along those lines that I used to persuade O that we really did need a range induction cooker in our newly-refurbished kitchen!). And who knows, you might get one that bakes cakes, too 😉 .
Lucy
/ February 14, 2009Well, I thought you convinced O that it would be ‘safer for the kids’ being induction an’ all…
Enjoy the half-term,
luvnhugs, Lucy xx
amerrierworld
/ February 14, 2009Ah yes, those arguments were the icing on the cake 😉
Happy half-term to you, too.
xx
Melinda
/ February 17, 2009The Kate-flour cake test passed beautifully! Yipee.
Did you really think it wouldn’t work?
amerrierworld
/ February 17, 2009I never expect anything to work, Melinda! I never know when I might have offended the kitchen fairies (given the regularity with which I seem to manage to upset two other little fairy princesses without knowing why, the idea that things are fickle seems quite reasonable to me 😉 ).
Janice
/ February 27, 2009Hi Kate – thought I’d pop past your blog. Well done on getting your kitchen finished. I’m sure all your blog readers have also heaved a sigh of relief that your new cooker is up to standard! What would we do without your Kake flour experiments! That cake looks as delicious as ever.
Keep up the good work. Best wishes. Janice
amerrierworld
/ February 27, 2009Hi Janice – it’s good to hear from you again 🙂 .
Our new kitchen is wonderful! My father-in-law has just finished painting it today (thank you!), so it really does look more like a proper family room now rather than a building site. I still can’t quite get over my new cooker – it has to be the best bit of our whole house renovations 😉 .