Caaake

I made a cake. It wasn't spectacularly successful, but as my first cake ever, I'm quite pleased. Ignorance still beats a steady retreat before me :)

It was very lemony, and quite moist, as I desired to err on the side of :) I think the dough was a bit too liquid. And the microwave-meltable chocolate icing had a tendency to become scorched, it needs more stirring.

But I hope to try again. Thanks to sonicdrift for an easy but general recipe, it's exactly the sort of thing I find most helpful.

Caaaaake

Of course, I make cakes exactly the same way I do everything else, which may be a bit of an anathema to cooks. Obviously, ideally, you get a lot of experience following other people's recipes, and then learn from experience what you can alter to produce good effects.

I'd much rather read a lot of recipes, abstract and extract the common factors to what I want, and tune something simple but acceptable to that. It's why I always need a little run-up, but why it often works better than you might expect.

But I have to be careful not to go over the top.

Me: Excuse me, I have a variety of products comprising the properties of "being made out of lemons" and "weighing at least 200g", can you tell me in which aisle(s) I would find products comprising the symmetric difference[1] of those with the properties of a cake?
Tesco Clerk: Try the baking aisle.
Me: What about macroscopic catalysts?
Tesco Clerk: The kitchen gadget section had whisks, processors, etc.
Me: Thank you very much.

[1] That's not silly in *every* respect. To make a cake rise you need to mix a non-toxic alkali and acid to make carbon dioxide; so the amount of lemon may possibly affect the amount baking powder you want to have had in your flour.

Could you cook a simple cake?

In the spirit of scientific enquiry:

I make a cake every month or more often
I make a cake a couple of times a year
I've occasionally made a cake
I learnt when I was younger, but couldn't remember how now
My parents (or similar) taught me.
I was taught at school.
I was supposedly taught at school, but it didn't really help
I said I could, but actually they don't turn out very well
Brown cow
Lemons

(Raw results)