Ever since I first started cooking, I have generally viewed cake baking the way I would, say, rewiring a light fixture: something that is best left to trained professionals if you want it done right. That is, until now.

I have a daughter who is turning four in just over a week, and (much to my gender-neutral-or-bust parenting chagrin) she would love nothing more than a pink birthday cake with pink sprinkles -- but as much I would like to just go out and order the pink cake of her dreams, she is one of those kids who are extremely sensitive to artificial food colorings. (Seriously, half a stick of gum can rocket my generally good-natured kid into screaming, face-clawing fits. A slice of pink-frosted cake...? I can't even imagine.)

Finding all-natural food coloring and sparkling sugar was easy enough -- but a cake to put them on? Not quite as easy.

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With this in mind, I recently picked up a copy of One Cake, One Hundred Desserts: Learn One Foolproof Cake Recipe and Make One Hundred Desserts by Greg Case and Keri Fisher, and decided to bake a test cake.

Now, I don't want to spill the beans on the one cake recipe -- the focus of the entire cookbook -- but see if you can follow along.

As you can see, the ingredients were flour, sugar, milk, vanilla, baking powder, butter, three eggs, and three yolks -- all of which combine to make (I have since learned) a hot milk sponge cake.

I preheated my oven. I greased and floured a standard nine-inch cake pan with Baker's Joy, pictured above. (Not pictured: me almost wiping out on my kitchen floor because I sprayed said pan in the middle of the kitchen instead of over the sink like any thinking person would do.) I combined the flour and baking powder into one bowl and put the eggs and sugar in another.

I beat the eggs, yolks, and sugar for the prescribed amount of time, during which they tripled in volume. (Not being a baker and therefore unaccustomed to this sight, this part was really kind of cool. So cool, in fact, I had to take a photo of it.) I added the flour, a little at a time, until it was all in there, then added the hot milk/butter/vanilla.

Then I filled the nine-inch pan.

That looks awfully full, doesn't it? Still, I went ahead and put it in the oven. Thirty minutes later:

Maybe this was my fault for not reading the introduction thoroughly enough, but come on: if you're writing an entire cookbook based largely on one cake recipe that requires a 9" by 2" cake pan -- and, by your own admission, most cake pans are 9" by 1.5" -- then your titular "foolproof" recipe should say as much. Preferably in bold type, kinda like I just did there. See how that gets your attention?

I trimmed the overflow edges off and cut into it.

Now, see how it's got bigger holes on the top and smaller ones on the bottom -- that part is actually my fault for not using an oven thermometer and evidently my oven runs a little hot.

However, despite the overflow and the uneven crumb, this cake turned out to be exceptional. It was just moist enough without being damp and very clean and neutral tasting -- the perfect backdrop for frosting.

Next week: I put my newfound cake knowledge to use and make frosting -- pink frosting -- for the first time. Yikes.

As always, if you want to read more from me, visit me at gezellig-girl.com