Drumroll Please.....

And the winner is.....wait for it....Date Cake!

So my darling wife got home from work, and it was time to draw from the box of cake names; to refresh the memory see the photo below

The slips of paper were all mixed up, and she drew out the name Date Cake (on page 38) for those of you who may have the book and want to play along with me.  If you want to play, but don't have the book, the night before I make the cake, I will give the recipe here which will be in italics my own commentary will not be in italics.

So without further ado, here is the subject of our conversation here.

Cake Batter
1 Cup (5 oz/155g) Chopped Dates
1/3 Cup (1 1/2 oz/45g) Chopped Walnuts
1/2 Cup (3 oz/90g) Brown Sugar (packed firm)
2 Eggs, beaten
1/2 Cup (4 oz/125g) Butter, melted
2 tsp. Light Corn Syrup
3/4 Cup (3 oz/90g) Self-rising Flour
3/4 Cup (3 1/2 oz/100g) Whole Wheat Self-rising Flour
1/4 Cup (2 fluid oz / 60ml) milk

Icing
4oz (125g) Cream Cheese
6 tsp. (1 oz/30g) Butter
1 Cup (6 oz/185g) Confectioners (powdered) Sugar
Walnut halves for decoration

First of all, before I get into the actual preparation of the cake here....I know some of you like myself may be scratching their heads about the measurements presented from the book.  Cups is standard US measurements, ounces is weight, and grams is metric conversion used all over the world except for the US, Burma and Liberia....and I know from cooking, that 1 Cup is equal to 8 oz.  And 8 oz is equal to 226.8g.  So why the discrepancies?

According to some professional bakers I know of, one should always use metric when measuring for baking.  It's the most accurate. But in this recipe, take for example the Brown Sugar (packed) it calls for 1/2 cup (3oz/90g) which doesn't make sense.  1/2 Cup of packed brown sugar weighs 1.5 oz or 45g according to allrecipes.com.  Now this is easy to test, and I did.  I took a 1/2 Cup measuring cup, firmly packed brown sugar into it to the rim, leveled it off, and weighed it.  Using a bowl on my scale, I hit the tare function which discounted the weight of the bowl.  So the sugar weighed 110g or 3 1/2 oz.

What's the old saying, don't believe everything you read....especially on the internet!

Perhaps this recipe isn't that far off.  A bit here and there in grams, but if I follow the Cups or Grams,  it should come out fine.

Now, I looked through my pantry, and see I have everything here except for the Self-Rising Flours!  Hating to buy anything I can make myself, a quick search of the aforementioned internet shows 1 Cup All Purpose Flour + 1 1/4 tsp Baking Powder and 1/4 tsp Salt.  Seems straight forward enough.  Though I did see that when making your own Whole Wheat Self-rising Flour, use Whole Wheat Pastry Flour instead of All-Purpose.  Luckily, I have all that here at home.  No trip to the grocery store for this cake!

Okay, now for the directions on how to make this cake:

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C/Gas 4) close enough, I remember from math classes, that 350 F is 176.7 C, but 180 is more likely to show up on an oven so 180C it is.

Butter up an 8 inch (20 cm) springform cake pan and line with parchment or waxed paper.  
Houston, we have a problem....I don't have an 8 inch spring form pan!  Mine is 9 inches, and yes, size does matter here.  Using a 9 inch pan will make for a thinner or flatter cake and could impact cooking times as it will be less dense.  I also don't want to try changing up the recipe to add ingredients to make up for the larger spring form pan.  So I will use an 8 inch cake pan, not spring form seeing as how I'm going to parchment the bottom anyways, I'll just add a parchment ring around the edge.
Back to the action then....
In a large bowl, combine all the cake ingredients and mix until combined.  Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center mass comes out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes before removing the sides of the pan. Whoops!  Not using a spring form pan here (if you are; follow the instructions) as I'm not, I will cool the cake on a wire rack for 30 - 45 minutes before trying to remove from the pan.
For the icing: Combine all icing ingredients and mix until smooth.  Spread over the top of the cooled cake (I'm guessing here, but I'm going to let this cool completely.  Not just the 10 or 30 minutes for removal of the sides, what we're talking about here is like 2 - 3 hours for it to cool completely) and then decorate with the walnuts.

All in all, a pretty straight forward cake, just sorting out the details makes it go smoother in the end.  So now that I have a game plan, know I have all the ingredients...tomorrow I bake!  As for the music.  Hmmm with dates, I'm thinking David Bowie /Aladdin Sane.  The song Panic in Detroit (a favorite of mine) was the B-side to Knock on Wood in 1974....tell me truthfully, who remembers that song?

So until tomorrow, when I will bake the cake, taste test the cake, and report on the whole process.

Night all.