13/100: Par for the cake!
My dad turned 60 this past month! To celebrate, my brothers and I arranged a surprise family trip for him (with the helpful nudging and planning of our friend Jiahong!). My brother Ben recently had an adorable baby boy named Winston who is still a bit young to fly, so it was a no brainer for me and my twin Eric and his wife Kyria to meet up in Seattle where Ben, Tristan, and Win live. Additionally, they have a beautiful house that feels like home and in which they are absolutely wonderful hosts. As I said, no brainer!
Eric and Kyria and I got into Seattle before my dad (who had absolutely no idea we would be there) and we started scheming: how do we surprise him? We settled on "let's just sit in the house and pretend like it's totally normal that we're in Seattle." Joke was on us, however because when my dad walked through the door he simply said: "oh, hey." Even though he swears he was surprised and had absolutely no idea, he's got the play it cool face down pat. I've learned my lesson: next time I surprise anyone I am absolutely jumping out from behind a coach! Maybe noisemakers could invoke some more surprise, too (haha).
Nevertheless, this bake was very special because I got to bake with my whole family! During the brainstorm process we decided to make a vanilla cake. However, it would not just be any old vanilla cake. It was going to be an Ellen-patented "cool cake." What's a cool cake? Well, since high school I have had the penchant to make cakes that had cool 3D designs. They have run the gamut from a graduation hat, a water polo ball, a mini cooper, a frog, a totoro, and countless others. For most of these projects, my partner in crime has been my dad, so it only made sense to continue the tradition. As my dad is an avid golfer, we decided to ring in his 60 years with a golf ball cake. So, we picked up the ingredients from the store and started baking!
Turns out cakes are pretty ingredient minimalist. Full disclaimer: we used boxed frosting. While creaming butter by hand is feasible, I draw the hand-mixing line at frosting. I'm sure people not eating chunks of unincorporated frosting butter around the world are thanking me! My dad got to creaming the butter and sugar and I mixed together all of the dry ingredients. Then we subsequently alternated adding dry ingredients and buttermilk to the wet ingredients. We transferred the batter to a springform cake pan and I performed the most important part of any bake: the batter test. This was fun, because the house was full of people including a couple of Ben's friends and everyone took a taste of cake batter. The verdict: absolutely delicious. I liked that foreshadowing.
I did not cook the cake in the advised manner: 2 eight inch rounds, so I was a little nervous whether the entire cake would cook through before the top burned. Nevertheless double the cooking time later (~65 minutes) the cake was done and it looked golden brown and delicious! I wonder at what point the top WILL burn before the inside can cook. My brother Ben and I actually had this debate in which I said that the top will absolutely burn if you were to cook the cake in a semi-circle type of pan. Due to the success of this bake, I'm actually curious to see how a semi circle would have done!
How did we land on the topic of a semi-circle? Well, because we wanted to make a golf ball, eventually we were going to need to get the cake into semi-circle form. To avoid any burned-top cakes we chose to bake the cake in a cylindrical slice shape, but then the challenge became carving the cylinder to become more rounded. Luckily for us we'd been around that block before with the water polo ball cake, so that was a cinch. We carved a rounded shape and moved on to the real hard part.
Question: How do you create golf ball like indentations in a cake?
Answer: You don't!
Online you'll find that many people have great success making golf ball indents, but my dad and I had no such luck. Any time we would indent the frosting (with a measuring cup, end of a cooking utensil, you name it we tried it) the frosting would follow our utensil making raised frosting rather than indented frosting. Clearly the frosting needed to be harder, but how did other people do it? Either they: 1) created indents in the physical cake, 2) somehow created harder frosting, 3) used fondant. It was too late to make indents in the cake, harder frosting probably wasn't going to happen with this boxed frosting, so we pushed forward and innovated with what we had. After all, doesn't most invention come from lack of something?
(A quick aside: I listened to this really cool podcast that talked about the five things you need to move a project forward: permission, skill, motivation, clarity, resources. They mentioned, however, that sometimes if you are a little bit short in resources you may actually perform better. For example, if you are a photographer and you take out all 50 of your lenses with you on a photo excursion your attention may be short and unfocused. You'll be thinking more "what lens is right for this shot" rather than "how can I get a great shot with what I have." As I reflect on this cake experience, I realized that not having the perfect tool (or full resources) did not stand in the way of having a great cake and experience with the family, which means the project was still a success. Often perfectionism causes us to miss the goal of the project for details that do not pertain to the project's actual success. Talk to me or check out the podcast to learn more!)
What did we create? Well, we decided to make ball circles to mock the look of indentations. My dad is very good at precise drawing and extreme attention to physical detail, so he took the helm for this part of cake making:
And what did we have??
All of us sat around the table eating cake and enjoying family time. My brothers were adamant that this was the best thing I had ever baked in the history of all my baking, so I think that means this recipe checks out! I highly recommend this recipe as it was quite easy and very flexible (the baking time was malleable for different sizes). It was really nice to be with family. We are all quirky and love our puns. We were deciding what to name this blog and I came up with "out of the (golf) ball park" and building on that idea Eric came up with "par for the cake." It's nice when people can jump on your train of thought, and often I think that's what the feeling of family is. It has been so wonderful to become closer and jump on more thought trains with Kyria and Tristan, too! When they're not rolling their eyes at our puns ;).
Now, a special little side note. My brother Ben would love for you to know that he too is the best baker. What did he bake, you ask?
Cakes in a pan! What do you think: do you cook or bake pancakes? Our family probably spent a solid 30 minutes determining what the definition of baking is (it's not just something that raises, as some things that are baked have no rising agent. Do all baked things have to have flour? Does it have to go in the oven? Just a few of the thinking points). You be the judge ;)
Thanks for reading, and thanks again for a wonderful trip, Ben and Tristan!
Eric and Kyria and I got into Seattle before my dad (who had absolutely no idea we would be there) and we started scheming: how do we surprise him? We settled on "let's just sit in the house and pretend like it's totally normal that we're in Seattle." Joke was on us, however because when my dad walked through the door he simply said: "oh, hey." Even though he swears he was surprised and had absolutely no idea, he's got the play it cool face down pat. I've learned my lesson: next time I surprise anyone I am absolutely jumping out from behind a coach! Maybe noisemakers could invoke some more surprise, too (haha).
Nevertheless, this bake was very special because I got to bake with my whole family! During the brainstorm process we decided to make a vanilla cake. However, it would not just be any old vanilla cake. It was going to be an Ellen-patented "cool cake." What's a cool cake? Well, since high school I have had the penchant to make cakes that had cool 3D designs. They have run the gamut from a graduation hat, a water polo ball, a mini cooper, a frog, a totoro, and countless others. For most of these projects, my partner in crime has been my dad, so it only made sense to continue the tradition. As my dad is an avid golfer, we decided to ring in his 60 years with a golf ball cake. So, we picked up the ingredients from the store and started baking!
Turns out cakes are pretty ingredient minimalist. Full disclaimer: we used boxed frosting. While creaming butter by hand is feasible, I draw the hand-mixing line at frosting. I'm sure people not eating chunks of unincorporated frosting butter around the world are thanking me! My dad got to creaming the butter and sugar and I mixed together all of the dry ingredients. Then we subsequently alternated adding dry ingredients and buttermilk to the wet ingredients. We transferred the batter to a springform cake pan and I performed the most important part of any bake: the batter test. This was fun, because the house was full of people including a couple of Ben's friends and everyone took a taste of cake batter. The verdict: absolutely delicious. I liked that foreshadowing.
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| Dad creaming butter and sugar |
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| The ingredients are combined and in the cake tin! |
How did we land on the topic of a semi-circle? Well, because we wanted to make a golf ball, eventually we were going to need to get the cake into semi-circle form. To avoid any burned-top cakes we chose to bake the cake in a cylindrical slice shape, but then the challenge became carving the cylinder to become more rounded. Luckily for us we'd been around that block before with the water polo ball cake, so that was a cinch. We carved a rounded shape and moved on to the real hard part.
Question: How do you create golf ball like indentations in a cake?
Answer: You don't!
Online you'll find that many people have great success making golf ball indents, but my dad and I had no such luck. Any time we would indent the frosting (with a measuring cup, end of a cooking utensil, you name it we tried it) the frosting would follow our utensil making raised frosting rather than indented frosting. Clearly the frosting needed to be harder, but how did other people do it? Either they: 1) created indents in the physical cake, 2) somehow created harder frosting, 3) used fondant. It was too late to make indents in the cake, harder frosting probably wasn't going to happen with this boxed frosting, so we pushed forward and innovated with what we had. After all, doesn't most invention come from lack of something?
(A quick aside: I listened to this really cool podcast that talked about the five things you need to move a project forward: permission, skill, motivation, clarity, resources. They mentioned, however, that sometimes if you are a little bit short in resources you may actually perform better. For example, if you are a photographer and you take out all 50 of your lenses with you on a photo excursion your attention may be short and unfocused. You'll be thinking more "what lens is right for this shot" rather than "how can I get a great shot with what I have." As I reflect on this cake experience, I realized that not having the perfect tool (or full resources) did not stand in the way of having a great cake and experience with the family, which means the project was still a success. Often perfectionism causes us to miss the goal of the project for details that do not pertain to the project's actual success. Talk to me or check out the podcast to learn more!)
What did we create? Well, we decided to make ball circles to mock the look of indentations. My dad is very good at precise drawing and extreme attention to physical detail, so he took the helm for this part of cake making:
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| Reminds me of the song: "where's it going to go from here" |
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| A golf ball cake! Can you see it? |
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| Our skeptic faces from self timer photos! |
Now, a special little side note. My brother Ben would love for you to know that he too is the best baker. What did he bake, you ask?
Cakes in a pan! What do you think: do you cook or bake pancakes? Our family probably spent a solid 30 minutes determining what the definition of baking is (it's not just something that raises, as some things that are baked have no rising agent. Do all baked things have to have flour? Does it have to go in the oven? Just a few of the thinking points). You be the judge ;)
Thanks for reading, and thanks again for a wonderful trip, Ben and Tristan!
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