Ok peeps! I really really want to bake a cake and use some of the ideas that I've read about in the past few weeks. Trouble is, the budget is VERY low for experiemental baking! So, does anyone have any ideas as to a type of a cake I can bake that will be inexpensive or not use a lot of ingredients?

Thanks!

Jennifer

AAre you wanting to perfect a recipe or practice decorating techniques? If you just want to work on decorating techniques, you could just start with a box cake. If you want to work on a recipe, maybe start with a basic chocolate? White cake can be challenging, oddly enough. But I found the chocolate cake on the Joy of Baking site to be easy and relatively inexpensive since it uses ingredients most bakers already have on hand.

Also, if you want to just work on technique, try a cake dummy.  You can practice and then wipe the icing off and start all over with something else.
 

Well, I want to do a cake and a fondant recipie. I chose a cake that I like the look of as an inspiration, but I really want to get started on creating my recipies and I guess I need a base recipie to follow. I could start with a box mix and then use fondant and create the cake I want. But, I also don't want to get into the habit of using box mix...

When I was trying to work out how to write on the near-vertical side of a naked Bundt pound cake, without sags or runs, I hit on using the heels of a loaf of bread as practice surfaces: cheap, expendable, and fairly close in texture and absorbancy to the actual surface to be written on.

I have all my recipes on my blog. All created myself over the years. Not sure if this works for you as ideas but you can check it out. I also have a fondant recipe that is very popular on my blog. 

You can try and see if this works for you. But my recipes are not cheap. I believe in good quality rich cakes, I don't skim on ingredients. So if price is an issue then may be not..

But here's the link to the recipe page.

thttp://veenaartofcakes.blogspot.co.il/p/recipes.html

AHave a look at The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and/or her website www.realbakingwithrose.com if you want a strong foundation in understanding the ins and outs of baking. I can't say that her approach will be inexpensive, however, as many of her cakes require ingredients the average person doesn't have on hand. But there are definitely some good basic cake recipes she offers. Also try Martha Stewart's recipes; a lot of people are happy with her red velvet, for example. Again, Joy of Baking is a good resource too. It's a little hard to be super specific on an inexpensive recipe since everyone's idea of expensive vs. inexpensive can vary.

Thanks everyone! I agree with using quality ingredients...so perhaps baking on a budget is not going to work this week!  But, I'm so excited to try something...I might make some fondant and try and sculpt some figures.

David's 4 egg yellow cake. It is very simple...I add a little extra milk for moisture. But it has few ingredients and you probably already have most on hand. I'm not fond of yellow cake but others I have made it for say its good  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/four-egg-yellow-cake/