Masuk Free Press

I would say I have a decent knowledge of the baking scene: cookies, brownies, the easy stuff. So naturally, I assumed the cake was just a small step up, right?  Nope. What I thought would be a simple, one-day task for a journalism piece turned out to be an ego-crushing disaster.

The goal? To determine whether making a cake from scratch was worth the effort compared to the quick and easy box cake. Whether it’s a birthday party, a celebration, or just feeling like eating cake, is making cake from scratch the option? Or is selecting the more convenient boxed way out just as good? 

Day one began with a trip to the store. I retrieved everything needed for the cake from scratch: flour, sugar, butter. It was smooth sailing until the recipe website decided to refresh itself, leaving me with a spinning circle. I picked my ingredients based on my memory. 

But no real worries yet. I returned home with the ingredients and realized the measurements were in ounces and required a food scale. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a food scale lying around. I converted the whole recipe into more fitting measurements, then began the process. 

At 4:50 p.m., I began the prep. I mixed the wet ingredients and the dry ingredients. My ego was still thriving. I’d yet to see any mistakes. At this point I was wondering, does baking just come easily to me? Why is this not difficult at all? 

However, the prep took longer than anticipated due to the mixing process. It was time to bake the cake at 335°F. 

While my cake was baking, I decided to make buttercream from scratch. It took a considerable amount of butter and mixing. The buttercream was one of the only things that made me proud of this experiment. The frosting was light, fluffy and tasty until I decided to follow the recipe’s advice to use purple dye to cancel the yellows.

Lacking the proper ingredients once more, I used red and blue dye to make purple. Did it make my buttercream lighter? Nope, it turned it a shade of purple. So now I was stuck with this lavender-esque color. Not what I wanted, but it was still tasty.

After waiting 15 minutes over the recommended time and using the “toothpick method”   (stabbing the cake with a toothpick until it comes out clean) several times on my cake, it was ready to be taken out of the pan.

The website claimed this was light, airy and a crowd favorite. When I took it out and examined the cake, I was greeted with a dry, crusty and not very appetizing cake. 

Feeling like a professional baker, I decided to cut off the crust in hopes of revealing a soft, fluffy layer. I cut the cake in two box shapes and shaved off the crusts. I was a little happier with this outcome, until my ultimate mistake.

I didn’t realize this error until after, but due to my impatience. I decided to slather my cake with lavender buttercream.  

The result of this broke my ego and humbled me very much. My final product was an uneven, double-layered, lavender buttercream cake that was pooling oil around it due to my poor choice in choosing not to wait. In hopes of salvaging this cake, I miserably added a smiley face to hide its unattractive appearance. 

To add on top of the injury to my ego, the majority of my feedback from my friends or relatives was:  “What the sigma is that?” or “That looks disgusting!”  

My end time was 7:15 p.m. I was surrounded by a mountain of dishes and a countertop covered with stray ingredients. Was I about to ruin my ego once more and bake my second experiment? Nope. That was a problem for tomorrow.

Day two was short and sweet. I poured in the box mix, water, oil and eggs into my mixing bowl. Then I stirred until the ingredients were fully incorporated. Count of dishes used? Only two: my measuring cup and the mixing bowl. My prep time took approximately 5 minutes. I put in the cake and it took an hour to finish. The cake came out spongy, airy and delicious. 

Overestimating my skills again, I cut off the crust and began decorating it with premade icing. As I spread my icing onto the cake, the cake went along with it. The icing didn’t stick and almost made my cake crumble into large pieces. I gave up and ended up with a barely frosted uni-layered cake with pieces falling off. 

The cake tasted decent but was less rewarding compared to the scratch cake.

Both experiments ruined my self-esteem. The overall experience made me grateful that we live in modern times where women who can’t work well in the kitchen are socially acceptable. 

The final verdict? If you’re someone with intro level baking skills and having trouble deciding between a scratch cake or a box cake? My advice: skip both. Go to your local bakery and buy a well-decorated cake instead of attempting something like my disaster cakes. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.