Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like This.

I've over-committed.
I'm exhausted.
I've so much to do, like bake a cake I promised for our family's monthly birthday get together tomorrow.
All week I've fantasied the cake I would bake and decorate for the occasion.
Perhaps a flourless Chocolate Torte...gluten free, layered, then topped with chocolate ganache.
Or maybe a Citrus Hazelnut Cake drenched with a fruit-of-the-forest syrup.
At the very least, I expected  I'd bake my becoming-a- trade-mark Black Forest Brownie cake.
Regrettably, I don't have the stamina for any of the above mentioned cakes.
Sometimes it just has to be a plain, no fuss, cake with predictable butter frosting.
In my early days of wife-dom and motherhood, time-poor  and pre-gluten-free days, my favourite cake to bake was the One Stage Foundation Cake. This cake recipe was easily adapted to make at least six other versions of easily sliced, (when baked in a loaf tin), freezable cakes or deserts.
The beauty of this recipe is that it's as simple as dumping all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and beating until a thick, smooth, creamy batter is achieved (two or three minutes) and then baking for around thirty minutes. And voila, a cake.

So that's what's in my oven at the moment.

Here is The Recipe.

One Stage Foundation Cake.

125g margarine or butter (I only ever use butter)
2 x 60g eggs
75ml milk (substitute with soy, lactose free, nut or any other milk you wish)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
125g (1/2cup) caster sugar
185g (1 1/2 cups) self raising flour, sieved (I never bother)  ( I have successfully used Orgran brand of self-raising gluten free flour for gluten free cake).

Method

Place all ingredients in given order in a mixing bowl and beat well with a wooden spoon until smooth (2-3 minutes) or with an electric mixer until evenly combined (2 minutes).  Use cake mixture as desired.

Bake in a preheated oven (190oC) for30 minutes.

Here are some variations:

Chocolate Cake

Replace two tablespoons of flour with two tablespoons of cocoa (powdered).

Sultana Cake

Add two tablespoons of sultanas and some mixed spice to the ingredients before mixing.

Tea Cake

Add a teaspoon of mixed spice to the ingredients before mixing.  While the cake is still hot out of the oven spread some butter over the top of the cake and sprinkle with a mixture of caster sugar and mixed spice (or cinnamon sugar).

Cherry and Walnut Cake

Add 1/4 of a cup each glace cherries and walnuts to the ingredients before mixing.

Apple Cake

Add a can of pie apples (425g) and a teaspoon of cinnamon to the ingredients before mixing.  This cake may take a little longer to bake.  Finish off the top as for the tea cake.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Grease a ring tin well and place well drained pineapple rings (from a can) around the bottom of the tin.  Place a red glace cherry in the centre of each pineapple ring.  Sprinkle with brown sugar if you wish (this gives you a nice caramelised top).  Pour cake batter over and bake as a above.  Serve cake upside down as a desert.  Hot and with cream.

Hopefully I'll post some photos tomorrow.

Remember it's okay to give yourself permission to scale back on expectations of yourself every now and then!