Perfect Cakes

As I've mentioned before, I have been bringing treats for my sunday school class every Sunday. I am much happier with the idea that the kids "earn" their treats in some way, so I took your mom's advice and have been asking them to memorize some historical dates in church history. I loved the idea when she first mentioned it, but I felt a greater urgency when one of my kids talked about the pioneers crossing the plains as though it happened about the same time as World War II.

Let's just give that a moment...

WOW.

So I naturally asked the hubby to help me construct a first list of dates to memorize. He was a natural choice because he has a bizarre recall of all kinds of dates--want to know when The Sixth Sense or Batman Returns was released? He can tell you. Bizarre.

Included in our list was the restoration of the aaronic priesthood to Joseph Smith on May 15, 1929. The kids recognized that the anniversary would be the following Sunday and suggested that we simply must have a party, and I had to agree. Saturday evening I recalled the plan for said party and came to the conclusion that nothing is more party appropriate than a cake. The conclusion was helped along by the fact that this would not require a trip to the store because my food storage may not be perfect, but I ALWAYS have a variety of cake mixes on hand. They are fabulous. You can make cakes, cookies, and I just learned this weekend that you can apparently make baked cake doughnuts. I think I may try it out for our Family Home Evening tonight and let you know.

So I decided on a Funfetti cake with pink frosting and sprinkles to create that party mood with very little effort from me. :) As I was mixing the cake, Dave wondered if there was a way to keep the cake from having the tall dome in the middle that my cakes always have. You guys have probably already figured out how to fix this problem, but I had not. I told him that I had heard in a cooking class that you can wrap the pan in wet cloths but that I had never tried it. The reason cakes dome in the middle is because they cook from the outside in, giving the middle more time to rise than the sides. While I mixed, David googled how to make a cake that rises evenly. Apparently you can buy cake strips to go around your pan, but he found a method for homemade cake strips. You take wet paper towels, cover them in tinfoil and wrap them around the pan. Well, I was dubious but tried it.

I WILL NEVER GO BACK.

The cake rose perfectly evenly, and the sides are just as soft and moist as the middle. ALL MIDDLE, LADIES! It was awesome. Here's how I did it. I pulled out a piece of tinfoil that would go halfway around my 9x13 pan. I cut it down the middle long ways and folded the pieces together to make a long piece that would go all the way around my pan. I took a strip of paper towels, wet them without ringing them out, and laid them in the middle of the tinfoil. I folded the tinfoil in half, pressed together, and wrapped it around the pan with the open edge facing up so the water wouldn't run out. Bake as usual, or better than usual.