Starting from scratch
As all dignified chefs know, great chocolate cakes come from the ovens of Europe, where real chocolate—not the waxy U.S. perversion known as ""Hershey's""—marries decadence with divinity.
However, my kitchen overlooks the alley of Ian's Pizza, 319 N. Frances St.—hardly the setting for exquisite baking, and a far yodel from the Swiss Alps. But from the perspective of an average cake-craving, time-crunched student, cake from a box provides a quick chocolate fix. No need to bother with spatulas and actual chocolate, right?
Wrong—at least from the perspective of European pastry snobs and this aspiring Martha Stewart. But that question prompted a debate over the Pillsbury palates of average cake consumers: Is it possible to discern boxed cake from homemade cake, and if so, which one do UW-Madison students prefer?
With faith in the taste buds of the commons, I set out to prove that powder in a plastic pouch could never show up a cake from scratch. Surely, I felt, my homemade cake would wean idle palates from Doughboy dependency.
Before fastening my apron, however, I took to the aisles of local confectionary shops. Finding local chocolate insufferable, I phoned my mother and obliged her to FedEx a fine specimen. Finally, I secured quality chocolate, free-range chicken eggs, dutch-process cocoa and dark roast coffee beans (to percolate the key ingredient) for a modest $25. As far as the tab, I would feed gruel to any oaf who would pinch pennies over a slice of divinity.
One hour before my challenger arrived, I commenced my confection: First, I ground and brewed the coffee, then steeped the baking chocolate.
Next, I sifted the dry ingredients—dashing in essential spices omitted by the careless recipe author. I incorporated each egg individually, poured in vanilla and slowly drizzled in the buttermilk and the coffee-chocolate blend (mindful not to cook the eggs or scald the milk)!
Meanwhile, the challenger barged through the door, located a bowl, snipped a hole in the sack of cake dust and emptied it into the bowl with an undignified poof. After dumping in some questionable tap water, generic oil and eggs, the competitor slopped the grainy batter into the pan and it slid into the oven next to layer one of my velvety, nearly black batter.
I then moved onto the chocolate ganache phase, using a dutch oven to gently meld the cream and chocolate for a glossy glaze. Miss Betty Crocker slouched on the futon and idly stirred her chemical and preservative, artificially flavored, lard-based ""chocolate icing.""
After a hearty scoff, I peeked into the oven and the aroma of chocolate swiftly filled the room. The confection arched slightly in the center and felt springy to the touch. After slipping on baking mitts, I removed the pan and placed it on the cooling rack.
Once the cake cooled to room temperature, I frosted it with hearty dollops of ganache icing. Moments later, my competitor slathered her cake with blithe swipes of the spatula.
Let Betty
Crocker work
By Brittany Schoepp
The Daily Cardinal
Although Martha Stewart may know more about baking and homemaking with her very own line at K-Mart, I set out to prove that a college student can still make a tasty cake. It's cheap and easy for even those with the most rudimentary culinary skills.
Hell, I can hardly make toast.
After 7:45 a.m. class, followed by more class, work and homework, the absolute last thing I feel like doing at a day's end is cooking. But there's nothing like fresh chocolate cake right out of the oven, and sometimes I feel like that is the only thing I need after a long day.
On the day of the cake bake, I got home, sat on the couch to rest after a long day and watched my opponent slave away in the kitchen. Eventually, my chocolate craving got the best of me, and I began my cake.
I mixed water, vegetable oil, three eggs and the Pillsbury ""Moist Supreme"" chocolate cake mix in a mixer for approximately two minutes. I then poured my cake batter into a pan. I was in and out of the kitchen in approximately seven minutes. Making my cake was, in fact, a piece of cake.
Depending on what kind of a pan you use, baking times will vary. Cupcakes only take approximately 20 minutes, but they can be a pain to pour individually. Most other cake shapes take approximately 30 minutes. I used a heart-shaped pan, because I love cake! This pan took approximately 30 minutes.
The baking time was short, but I could still manage to get a reading assignment done. And since I'm falling behind in my classes because of all the cake making I do on Friday nights (right...), it was time well spent.
After taking out my cake, I was supposed to let it cool before frosting. Being the busy college student I am, I completely ignored this guideline and whipped on my frosting. It seemed to work fine, and as I cut the cake it was warm and gooey. Perfect.
The best part? I hardly spent any money at all. The cake mix was $1.69 and the frosting was $1.59. It was even cheaper when I used my key-card at the grocery store. A bottle of generic vegetable oil cost $2.15, and now I have it in case I need it. And as for the eggs, I stole three from my roommate when she wasn't looking.
I do not condone roommate-on-roommate crime, but she drank my milk with her cake!
The results
With the cooking over and a mountain of dishes as proof, we sliced into our cakes and arranged them on platters for the true test: the taste test.
The taste test between the homemade gateau-chocolat and the Pillsbury equivalent (aka. Moist Supreme Chocolate Cake) produced interesting results: Some taste testers evoked the lexicon of wine connoisseurs to describe the samples. Others simply ""mmm'd"" and ""ooooo'd.""
We found that for our taste-testers, females preferred the homemade cake. Perhaps their extra X chromosome detects genuine chocolate cake. As for the men, Betty Crocker and her commercialized cohorts seem to satisfy their sweet tooths.
Below, we present the judges' reviews in their own words.
The men
""This [homemade] one is like super chocolate, and this [mix] one is chocolate."" —male 1
""You have to really like chocolate to want this [homemade cake]. You have to be female to basically love this. It's the chocolate-iest cake ever."" —male 2
""This [mix] one seems like a cake and this [homemade] one tastes like fudge."" —male 3
""I prefer the fluffier [mix] kind, because it's not like I'm getting injected with chocolate."" —male 4
""I think this [homemade cake] is too rich. I feel like a countryside boy going to the city for the first time, I feel overwhelmed. And this is like a good friend that you could sit by the fire with and chat."" —male 5
""This [homemade] one's just too rich. There's something too chocolately, maybe bittersweet chocolate. This [homemade cake] is like death by chocolate, that [mix cake] is like chocolate cake."" —male 5
""The filling part is very rich with different flavors, I guess... chocolately flavors. This [mix] one is all right, but this [homemade] one is amazing. This is more appealing to me, this darker... can I be done now?"" —male 6
The ladies
""It [the homemade cake] was rich, very chocolatey, moist, a fuller body, aged a bit, actually a bit of berry flavored aftertaste."" —female 1
""This [homemade] one, I could eat the whole cake."" —female 2
""Clearly you're [someone who preferred mix cake] not a chocolate connoisseur, because I'm like, let me close my eyes and feel it."" —female 3
""Whoever made this [homemade cake] wins. Did you guys use dark chocolate for the frosting? It tasted more like real chocolate, this other [mix] one is more manufactured."" —female 4
