When I was thinking about what to put in this month's recipe column, I drew a blank until I thought of doing something that I've never done alone as a single guy. I made a cake.

Here's you grocery list.

• Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Spice Cake Mix
• Eggs
• Crisco Vegetable Oil - This is the golden liquid
• Crisco Shortening - This is the white grease
• Flour
• Betty Crocker Vanilla Whipped Deluxe Frosting
• Milk
• The secret ingredient - See below

Supplies

• Cooking pan 9x 13 or a couple smaller square pans. These should be about a couple inches deep
• A big mixing bowl, almost big enough to hold a basket ball
• A measuring cup
• A blender, or a fork if you don't mind a lot of stirring
• Serving tray - your pizza cooking sheet will do just fine
• Wooden toothpicks
• Oven mitts
• Butter knife to spread the frosting

Start by turning on the oven to 350 degrees. They call this preheating the oven; I call it not taking chances with the back of the box. It says turn it on, so I turn it on.

Now, dump the contents of the box, three eggs, one and a third cup of water, and a third cup of Crisco cooking oil into the big mixing bowl and stir, stir, stir, stir.

Now the secret ingredient: Add in a single package of cherry Kool-Aid. Just a single pack has enough (probably more than enough) to really change the flavor and turn the mix quite red.

Now you need to get the pan. Scoop out some of the Crisco shortening onto your fingers and smear it all over the bottom and sides of the pan. Next, pull out some flour between your thumb and fingers and sprinkle some flour on top of the shortening. This makes it much easier to take the cake out when it's done.

Now, just pour the batter into the pans, filling them about three quarters of the way. I had two pans and put too much in the first one and the second one was only about a half inch thick. It doesn't matter. Once you stack them together and cover it all with frosting, who cares; it still eats the same.

Now just put them in the oven and go watch your favorite sit-com. After about thirty five minutes, take one of the wooden tooth picks and stick it into the cake. Then throw the toothpick against the wall, and if it sticks, the cake is not done. If the toothpick comes out without any cake goo, then it is done.

When it's done, take it out and dump it out onto your pizza tray. If you have two, go ahead and stack them now. When I got to this point, I found that I didn't have a serving tray. I had cooked a frozen pizza for lunch so I just scraped off most of the burnt cheese.

Now here's the hard part. Do nothing. You need to let them cool. I didn't let them cool enough and when I started putting on the whipped frosting, the frosting started melting and turned into quite a damn mess. I finally got it covered pretty well and put it in the refrigerator. If you let it cool for about twenty minutes before putting on the frosting, it should be just fine.

Spread on the frosting. It's not hard, it's pretty much like spreading peanut butter. The whipped frosting is very gentle. If you prefer the thicker icing, be gentle or you'll be serving icing with crumbs in it.

I first fell in love with spice cake when I discovered Duncan Hines spice cup cakes in the vending machine at work. These things seemed so morally superior to everything else in the food-o-mat that I couldn't believe they only cost the same as the pitiful Ho-Ho or Suzi-Q (Not to malign those wonderful foods, of course. I've eaten plenty of Suzis and Hos). Now, about the Kool-Aid. You might not want to be so adventuresome your first time out and just leave out the secret ingredient. Or, you might want to try mixing and matching the cake and Kool-Aid flavors. Plain chocolate cake with orange Kool-Aid might work. I'd avoid the Hawaiian fruit punch flavored carrot cake, but that's just me.

Try serving your cake before, or preferably instead of, a regular meal. One of the advantages of being a single guy in the nineties is, if you want cake for supper, then damn it, have some cake.

Suggested beverage: Oh, just have a glass of milk.

Chow.

:^D