Well, here is it, one of the famous cake recipes. This is not THE four-ingredient cake I've been talking about--I'm still messing about with the proportions--but this is simple enough, and no, you don't need anything special like an egg beater, or Pam cooking spray, or much of anything to make this simple and satisfying cake. It's moist, it's tasty, it tends to be solid but not dry and horrible. I don't care much for frosting on cakes, so I like to make this up in any of the flavors listed below, and eat it hot out of the oven, or toast slices for tea.
Recipe: Take that microwave rice cooker that came with your microwave and use the bowl. If you don't have one, any good-sized microwaveable plastic bowl will do. Melt 1/2 cup butter in the microwave under low power. After it has melted, let it cool FOR AT LEAST THREE MINUTES before dumping in other ingredients. If you don't wait for it to cook, your cake will be heavy and dry. Ugh. When it's fairly cool, slosh it around the inside of the bowl. Voila, you have just eliminated the need to grease and flour a pan. Stir in one cup of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla (or brandy, or Kirsch, or what have you) and beat for a minute or two by hand. Stir in two raw eggs (white and yolks) and mix well. Now add 1/2 cup milk, mixing in very well. Add about 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 cups flour, and 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder. Mix gently. If you want to add flaked coconut, or chocolate chips, or nuts, stir them in very gently. Don't over mix. Once you stop sampling the batter, shove into the microwave, reset the power for "high" and nuke for five minutes. The top will be not-quite-done in one or two small places (about the size of a nickel) if you're using the usual cheap Chinese microwave. That's ok. It finishes cooking for a few minutes after coming out of the microwave, and if there are any gummy spots on the top, you can wipe them off with a knife. Try to let it cool a bit before tucking in. I can mix this up in five minutes flat--including the mandatory three-minute cooling period--and when the scent of the cooking cake wafts through the house, the dogs come running and wait expectantly by the kitchen floor, desperate for their share.
You can add so many things to this to change the flavor: for example, use the locally produced Red Sugar with Ginger (brown sugar with ginger to us) to make a simple Gingerbread (I'd add some cinnamon and cloves, too, and maybe some of those Cointreau-soaked raisins I keep in the fridge, but that's just me.)
Melt two squares of chocolate with the butter for a lovely chocolate cake, or replace three tablespoons of the flour with cocoa. You can make this a Coca-Cola cake by using the cocoa as directed above and also replacing the milk with an equal amount (1/2 cup) of Coke. I'm not fond of Coca-Cola Cake, which usually has marshmallows strewn across the top before baking, but I have a friend who likes it and who so far hasn't noticed that I spike the batter with a bit of cold coffee and Kahlua to give it a bit of oomph. Yesterday's cake (I make only one a month, thank you) featured genuine Angel Flake coconut from US. It was lovely, moist, dense, flavorful, and not a bit stale or "off" 36 hours after it was made. It makes a great little cake for someone's birthday and if you keep it in the microwaveable bowl, it's easy to transport too.
If you're one of those people that can only "make" canned frosting, quit reading now. Send me your recipes, and let me see if I can come up with a Beijing solution.
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