Short and VERY Sweet Giveaway - With Love From Me to You!

  

Time's Up!  I'll have the winner posted in a little bit!

Be happy - one of you will benefit from my oversight!

Yes!

Because of my scatterbrained approach to things, one of you - one very lucky one of you - will be the recipient of this:

Yes!  Really!

Why?

Because I didn't respond to my featured selection in time.  I don't even remember seeing the email advising me it was time to respond, but that means nothing.

So anyway, one day a couple of weeks ago, much to my surprise, this book arrived. 

It's still in the plastic wrap, folks.  I haven't touched it.  Well, I haven't touched the actual book - I've touched the plastic.  It's surprisingly hard to see the pages when it's wrapped in plastic - not sure if you've ever considered that.

But anyway, I have Ms. Beranbaum's Cake Bibie, and also her Bread Bible and her Pie and Pastry Bible.  And I thought...do I really need another one?  And while one part of me shouted "YES!  YOU DO!" the rest of me said...no.

And I could have contacted the book club and said I'd screwed up and could they pleeeeeeeease take it back.

But I didn't.  Again with the scatterbrainedness.  Plus there's the procrastination gene with which I am afflicted.

So there it sat.  Unwrapped...unused...unloved.

And so I'm giving it away.

All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment in this post telling me.......about the first cake you ever made.  If you remember it.  Or the first cake you REMEMBER making.  Or, if you haven't made a cake yet, ever, then why not????  What's wrong with you????  It's just cake!!!

Sorry. 

Haven't had enough coffee yet.  (With eggnog today instead of milk.  Festive, I know.)

Okay, so that's all you need to do to enter.

And so that you can get this SOON, whoever you are, the deadline for entry is going to be.........................................(i'm thinking and looking at the calendar).....................................................Tomorrow - Tuesday, December 15th, 2009, at 10:00 in the morning, eastern standard time.  That's a little over twenty-four hours from now.

Ready?

Enter!

Comments

[Jane M]

Without a doubt I made the Settlement Cookbook recipe called THE QUICK COCOA CAKE which I STILL make for any birthday, or special occassion. It's truly the best chocolate cake E-V-E-R!

[Allison]

Hmmm...the first cake I remember making is one I made with my mom. It was Devil's Food from a box with homemade cocoa buttercream frosting. The first from scratch would probably have been Italian Cream Cake, our traditional Christmas cake.

[djnvj]

The very first cake I can remember baking was a yellow box mix with chocolate icing for my parents 18th wedding anniversay... that would have made me about 13... I remember this one, because my sweet mom took pictures and acted so proud. Truth is, the cake was lopsided and messy... but even a box mix I'm certain it was good.

I love cake, especially birthday cake. My son will bribe me with birthday cake when he wants something... he'll say "I've got birthday cake for you if ... " I love it!! even though there has rarely been birthday cake with his bribes.

[Marthe]

The first cake I made was a dutch apple cake from a box.....

[tiffany]

When I was a little kid, I would bake with my mom, helping to put in ingredients and running the mixmaster. I always got to lick the beaters too!

[Maureen]

OH what a grand book. I am sure that it has all sorts of recipes for all sorts of delicious goodies. It would be a treasure.

[Corrie Fahl]

I decided, out of the blue, to have a dinner party for my 16th birthday, which clearly included making a ridiculous cake. I made layers of chocolate genoise, soaked cherries in brandy overnight (thanks mom!), drained the brandy off and made chocolate sauce with it, made fresh whipped cream and then layered the whole mess and poured the chocolate sauce over so the sponge would soak it up. It was so rich and full of brandy that when I froze the leftovers, I could eat it the cake frozen with no problem.

[Sarah Holmes]

I made a homemade sheet cake as one of my first cakes that wasn't from a box. It was so good!

[Shelly]

When I was eight years old, I had an Easy Bake Oven that I was allowed to use unsupervised! All by myself! I didn't have any of the Easy Bake boxed mixes, but instead an itty-bitty cookbook tailored to Easy Bake quantities. So, my first little cakes, cooked in the EB with its 100 watt lightbulb were made from scratch. They included improbable quantities like 2T flour and 1tsp sugar and a pinch of baking powder. But it was total heaven to say I'd made them myself.

Sssssh ...don't tell my eight year old daughter, but her Nana got her one for Christmas this year. I can't wait to see her work with it!

[twitter.com/Feeba]

Hm... the first cake I have a really good memory of making was devil's food cockaigne from The Joy of Cooking. I think I first made it when I was 14. It used to be my favorite chocolate cake and I loved the way the recipe was written. Instead of a list of ingredients and a paragraph of directions, it was all mixed together. I liked to experiment with frosting flavors, but I wasn't a very good decorator, and I often got frustrated. Once, after failing to make a good-looking lattice on the sides, I scrawled "Ugly Cake" on the top.

[Kassy]

Hmm, I think the first cake I ever made was a black forest cake. If I recall correctly I made it for my dogs birthday (of course he didn't actually get to eat it!) :)

[femmelasoleil.wordpress.com]

I imagine the first cake I ever made was probably yellow cake and from a box with chocolate frosting from a can. (Ew!)

I can say the BEST homemade cake I've ever made (and according to my family the best they've ever had) is Oreo cookie cheesecake with dark chocolate raspberry cheesecake coming in close second. All my cheesecakes are made in a springform pan and are baked. Thankfully they don't need much in the way of decorating, but sometimes I'll do a chocolate drizzle over the top of the Oreo cookie cake and a raspberry syrup over the top of the raspberry chocolate. Depending on how creative I feel sometimes I'll add a little center decoration with either oreos or raspberries and crumbled dark chocolate or almonds.

[scotsmom]

Growing up I spent a lot of time with my Nana.
Three months of the year, we lived in the PA. Poconos.
We didn't make cakes because we had abundant supplies of berries, and other fruits.
My first cake experience was actually a home ec test.
Each 'baker' had a buddy and the test was to make a batch of chocolate cupcakes.
We were so proud, they looked beautiful. When Mrs. DeSwienitz came over for the taste,
we waited expectantly. The look on her face said everything. "What did you girls do"? She asked.
The recipe was a perfect one, our vision was not. Instead of a t. of salt we used a T.!
Needless to say Nancy & I flunked the test but the measuring error will last a lifetime.
Every time I measure, I'm back in that classroom.

[ScottN]

The first (and only - not counting boxed cake mix) real cake I've tried to make was a red velvet cake for Christmas a couple years ago. Everything went really well until the part where it was supposed to rise during baking. I still really don't know what happened, all I know is I wound up with a flat, tasteless cake that still needed to be layered together and frosted. The worst part, aside from the flatness and flavorless-ness was that it was to be put out for a holiday party! Everyone was quite polite about my creation, but we all knew better.

I haven't tried making another cake of any sort yet. Partly out of fear that I would wind up eating the remnants of another cake. I have moved on to things like tassies, cookies, pies and crisps with great success. But a cake would be a great achievement.

[Jen - The Alien Spouse]

Apparently when I was maybe 4 or 5, I don't remember this but Mum swears it happened, I was the only child at my playschool who was able to list the ingredients in a cake.

When I was a bit older I was given a simple kid's cookery book, and I made a basic sponge from that every now and then. I tended to experiment with different flavourings, so sometimes they were delicious and other times frankly disgusting!

The cake I remember most vividly was a plain sponge, and I'd left it on the table to cool. When I glanced over, I was horrified to see one of our cats (I think it was Foster) was licking the top of it. I shooed him away, and then calmly sliced the top quarter inch off and just frosted it with butter cream. My Mum commented on how when I was younger I would have burst in to tears inconsolably, but apparently 10 was the age when I started to get a little more zen about such incidents.

[sarah]

the first cake i remember making was a french vanilla cake for my mother in law. from a box of course, with canned icing. boo.

[Renee Paddock]

The first cake I ever made was a recipe from a community type cookbook for an easy chocolate cake. I was about 10 years old and had not ever made something you had to measure ingredients for.
So...Where it called for 2t of baking powder I interpreted that as 2T. Nobody ate that cake.

[Megan B.]

The first cake I ever made as with my brother when we were kids for my mom's birthday. It as not a masterpiece.

[Megan]

Ooh, another contest!
The first cake i remember making was out of a box and it was yellow cake with chocolate frosting (my favorite). The first cake i ever made from scratch, after i received a stand mixer, was.. yellow cake with chocolate frosting. :)

[Tracey]

Fun giveaway!! I can't believe you're not keeping the book for yourself :) The first cake I ever made was definitely from a box but I can't remember much else about it. I probably made it with my grandmother.

[Heidi]

The first one I remember baking was for the Christmas I was five. My grandmother had a tree shaped pan which we filled with boxed mix, baked and then frosted with green-tinted icing. The highlight came when I was allowed to decorate it with candy and sprinkles. I remember being disappointed that I wasn't allowed to use real tinsel. My family still does this every year and a few years ago, I started the same tradition for my children. This is the first year one of them (my four year old) will be allowed to decorate it. Fortunately, he has no idea what tinsel is.

[Erin Valerie]

I don't remember the first cake I ever made, it was probably a boxed variety. But, I do remember the first cake I ever attempted to make from scratch. It was for my husband's 29th birthday and it was supposed to be yellow cake with lemon filling and chocolate frosting. Martha Stewart's recipe, obtained from the internet. Well, I had several problems...first of all, I was trying to be 'healthy' and used whole wheat flour instead of cake flour..ugh...it tasted like, well, wheat bread. Then, the lemon filling just wouldn't gel, no matter how much corn starch I used. I had the wrong sort of applicators and icing for the writing on the top, so it looked really ugly. The only good things about that cake were the chocolate frosting (sort of hard to mess up when it's just butter and powdered sugar and cocoa), and the crystal cake stand I bought. I have not attempted to make a cake from scratch since...

[Kristin Y]

I think the first cake I ever made was a Wacky Cake with my mom. It was all made in the pan it is baked in and you have three wells and I remember one has vinegar in it. I remember it being my favorite cake.

[Katie]

Pineapple upside down cake from yellow cake mix and canned pineapples. I am the worlds klassiest lady.

[Pamela M]

My first attempt at a cake was a Boston cream pie. The boxed mix I tried made one thin round cake layer that I couldn't torte; so I looked up a recipe to make a homemade cake layer, thinking it couldn't be that hard. BIG mistake. The homemade layer was so dense that it ruined the cake as a whole. I was so embarrassed.

[Sarah]

The first cake I remember making was a birthday cake for my little sister. I can't remember the flavor. My favorite cake to make, however, is wacky cake or crazy cake. They're the same just two different names.

[Beth]

The firsr cake I tried to make was when I was about 6. My friend decided we should make a cake from Peg Brackens I Hate to Cook Book.
We mixed up the ingredients and put it in the oven. I remember that it didn't taste very good. I know now that we messed up. Maybe because we didn't have whiskey!! But we tried.
By the way It was called HootenHoller Whisky Cake.

[Lucy]

Great give-away!

My first cake was one that I made in home economics class, a coffee cake with a cinnamon crumb topping. I then made at home and it was a big hit, so much so that I made it over and over for awhile because of the requests for it. That cake was the start of my love of baking. ;-)

[Scott B.]

A chocolate cake in my sister's easy bake oven. Yum!

[Robin]

My first cake wAs a coca-cola cake (aka Texas brownies). It is still one of my favorite cakes and always gets rave reviews. When I was at my parents for Thanksgiving I pulled out the old cookbook to make one. I had to laugh. On the page with the recipe was all kinds of splatters of ingredients split over the years. That has to say something about how many times I made this cake!

[judith]

We won't count all the mud cakes (like mud pies) or little cakes I made in the Easy Bake Oven when I was a kid, but I do remember making a cake that was auctioned off for charity. I was in the 7th grade and in Rainbow Girls. My cake had a rainbow on it, go figure! It raised close to $300!

[Megan]

My very first "real" cake was an almond butter cake for my little nephew's birthday. I've always wished I could be creative when it came to decorating cakes, but that is not my area of expertise! Thankfully my then boyfriend (now he is my husband) could help me out with the decorating. We made a large Curious George face on the top and side of the cake. The nephew loved it! I loved the recipe because it was so moist and dense and have used that recipe for all my special occasions.

[Toxobread.wordpress.com]

My first successful cake was a sour cream coffeecake, but I have to say that I went all out and made a Guinness Stout chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting last month - am working on my fear of chemical leavening agents!
- Jackie

[ikkinlala]

The first cake I remember helping my mom bake was carrot cake with cream cheese icing, and it was for my dad's birthday.

[KatBradshaw]

The first cake I remember making on my own was a pig-cake, for my sister's 2nd birthday - I would have been 8. I even cut up marshmallows for flowers :)

[Amy Peavy]

I'm sure one of my first cakes was a funfetti cake with funfetti frosting... hehehe : ) delicious. I miss those days...

[Judy]

I'm pretty sure the first cake I ever made was from a mix - and I probably messed it up!! I've come a long way baby!! (Oh and I made plenty when I was pregnant - used to eat one (a whole one!!) before my husband got home from work -then had to make another to cover my tracks - yes - totally true and added up to EIGHTY POUNDS over the course of the pregnancy!!!)