Lazy Cake in the Bread Machine

Toward the end of a full summer of yard sales I found the most satisfying buy of the year. On one final last stop one weekend, I sauntered around the back of a trailer they had on the backside of the yard. In the back corner of the trailer bed was a bread machine. I said an “oh wouldn’t that be nice” to myself as I always do when I see something I know I can’t get, and moved on.

We were about to go when I got into a conversation with the woman who lived there. Casually, I asked about the bread machine, knowing my 7 dollars wouldn’t be enough. Oh, three dollars, she said, and I said, WHAT?!

She said it was her mother’s, she had used it a couple of times and then there it sat, and to tell the truth, she’d be happy to be rid of it, so three dollars was just fine. I took it and ran!

There was no manual, but I Googled the name of the machine and downloaded one, and the twins woke up from their nap to the smell of fresh warm bread!

And it does cake too!

So for AJ’s birthday, I made cake in the bread machine! I had read in the manual that it could be done, so I decided to try it (I did a test cake the week before the party just to be safe). Here’s what I did with a basic box of cake mix:

1. Insert all of the wet ingredients listed on the box.
2. Then the contents of cake mix.
3. Set it to cake/quick bread setting.
4. Press START.

That’s all! It does the mixing and baking, perfectly! Less than 2 hours later we had fresh warm cake, right out of the “oven”. I forgot to take pictures of Audrey Anna’s cake, so here’s the same thing I did with a marble cake this afternoon.

It’s messier with the marble cake because I had to catch it in the mixing cycle to do the marble effect. Normally you’d just pour the ingredients and let it go.

I pull the pan out of the machine and turn it upside down on the cutting board.

Which then gives me this. There’s a big hole in the middle where the mixer was but that’s okay.

Then I cut the cake up into cubes like brownie squares. I cut down the middle and then cut those two pieces in half.

Then I turn the cake and do it again and I get this…

These are good size for my husband and me to have a single piece of cake, they’re not too big and not too small. For the kids I cut each of these pieces in half again to make squares. Skipping the frosting is just fine for us. I just like to have a little cake with my coffee sometimes, and the kids like a piece after dinner for dessert.

The girls loved it at the birthday party, and I have to say, it was SO nice just tossing a paper towel and not cleaning up spoons and forks, bowls, ice cream scoop, etc.

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