I shall come to what the picture above is all about in a minute, but first…
My son’s homework this week was to choose an event that has happened in recent history (post-World War II), and represent it in any way he would like. He chose the first moon landing as his event, and after some discussion, we decided to represent it through the medium of cake. We made a round cake for the moon. Unfortunately my son left me in charge of adding just a little bit of blue food colouring to the frosting to give it a tinge of colour, but I put too much in, so we tried to disguise it by covering it in a lot of moon dust. We then made a rocket by baking a cake in a loaf tin, trimming the ends to make a point and using the trimmed bits to make the tail, and my son decorated it rather well I would say. This was the result:
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Now I shall explain the picture at the top of this post. Sometimes we like to make things from scratch, sometimes we like to buy ready made things, and sometimes we want to do something that falls between the two. That’s what this is. For a while I’ve had this idea of taking a can of cherry pie filling…
And a packet cake mix…
And mixing them together…
So that’s what I did last night. I also added 3 tablespoons of custard powder, just to see if the custard taste would come through. I put it into a rectagle dish, lined (not very neatly!) with baking parchment…
You can’t really tell from the photo, but the batter was a rather vivid purple! I then baked it at 180C / 350F for about 25 minutes. After cooling it, I attempted to cut it into cake bars…
I’m afraid they were rather stodgy. They were a bit undercooked, but more significantly, I think they would need two packets of that cake mix to one can of pie filling. I liked the taste though, and the custard flavour did come through, so I shall attempt this again sometime with adjustments. See, I’m willing to share my cooking failures as well as my successes!
UPDATE: I put the cut up cake bars back into the oven for another 10 minutes, and they were much better!
Do you have any quick and easy half-homemade recipes you like to do?
Sugarness...recipes from me to you 
my sister has a recipe she gave me for dump cake–in which you use a cake mix, cherry pie filling and pineapple–I will dig it out and send it to you
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Ooh that sounds perfect, thank you!
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“we decided to represent it through the medium of cake”—Just as it should be…
Yum!
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It really was the only choice wasn’t it.
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Dump Cake
1 20 0z can crushed pineapple with juice undrained
1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
1 pkg classic yellow cake mix
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 13 x 9 inch pan
2. Dump pineapple with juice into pan. Spread evenly. Dump in pie filling. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over cherry layer. Sprinkle pecans over cake mix. Dot with butter.
4. Bake 50 minutes or until top is lightly browned. Serve warm or at room temperature
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I’ve seen a simpler version of this before which is just canned peaches with the cake mix and butter put on top. This one sounds good, more of a cobbler than a cake I guess. I might try this, thank you!
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you are welcome
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Any moon, rocket or cherry stodge cake left? – all looks good to me, and I’m starvin’!
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Cherry stodge cakes nearly all gone now! Can’t think where…
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Peanut Butter and white chocolate cookies – So nice and naturally gluten free! All you need is :
250g peanut butter
100g caster sugar
100g light brown sugar
1 egg
1tsp baking powder
50g white chocolate
Mix peanut butter and sugars together, then add the egg and baking powder. Then divide the mix into around 16 balls, evenly spaced, then flatten a bit, add chunks of white chocolate on top, then bake for 8-12 mins at 180 degrees. Simples, yummy and suitable for coeliacs! 🙂
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These peanut butter and white chocolate cookies look great! I’ll have to try them!
Is white chocolate gluten free, or is that just a taste choice?
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Taste choice, but generally white chocolate is GF. However, if you can’t have gluten/wheat, then def check before using. Same for the peanut butter. 🙂
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Thanks for this. Those cookies DO sound good. I can’t quite imagine how they turn out, which means I shall have to try them! I don’t know if you noticed that the orange almond cake recipe I put up in my last post was gluten free too.
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They turn out pretty yummy, they’re not really hard like a normal cookie, they’re like really chewy. So tasty though. Ah cool, I’ll check it out! 🙂
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They still look good. I like the moon landing work, we never had to do anything like this when I was at school. I feel like I missed out 🙂
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Well it’s never too late to make a moon and rocket cake as the old saying goes! 😉
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I’ve been baking this morning. Nothing grand as a moon and rocket cake, but home made stuff tastes great 🙂
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I love the moon landing cake. Quite original idea! What did your son’s class think of it? Did he bring any of it home, at all? 😉
I don’t think I’d trust myself to throw some baking together. Cooking – a stew, curry, soup, or whatever – is one thing; baking is a different chemistry beast. Looks like you’ve got a decent handle on it, though. Consistency-wise, maybe a reduction in the pie filling? Just to make them less gooey? Hmm. They still *look* pretty yummy, though. 😀
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He brought home a little pile of crumbs on the tray, the bulk of it had all been eaten by the class!
Yes, baking is quite difficult to experiment with, it either works or it doesn’t! I don’t do a lot of baking experimentation, but sometimes it’s fun.
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