After swapping wives, surviving the jungle, losing 300 pounds and raising sextuplets, reality shows are finally onto something useful: cakes.

Problem is, even a plump bartered aboriginal wife named Marie Antoinette would have trouble baking the sculpturesque fondant-clad skyscrapers featured on "Cake Boss," "Ace of Cakes," "The Ultimate Cake-Off" or "Amazing Wedding Cakes." And in the works on the Food Network is "Cupcakes Take the Cake."

The love of cake renewed by these shows should be nurtured, especially in the South where a woman's worth was long measured by the loft of her layers and the swirl of her frosting.

Reputations rose and fell on Lady Baltimore and Lane cakes, fresh coconut or caramel-coated yellow layers -- all made with farm-churned butter and hen-house eggs. A rich, dense pound cake was part of every bride's dowry.

Then Betty Crocker made us lazy.

Now, "No time to bake" is the wail.

Still, people make time for what's important: golf, French manicures, "Law and Order" reruns. Why not baking?

Professionals offer ideas and encouragement:

Fear of failure ranks high, agrees Fiona McKenzie, baking instructor at Sandhills Community College and proprietor of Sweet Fi's Cakes.

"Baking's not brain surgery," she says. "Nobody's going to die. A (cake) disaster makes a great story."

Disaster isn't the desired outcome, however. Neither is spending $10 for a supermarket layer cake made from commercial mixes -- or succumbing to Duncan Hines.

"It's so easy to make a cake from scratch," McKenzie says.

First, find a recipe that works. Cake recipes from celebrity chef cookbooks have not always been tested, McKenzie warns.

Other recipes assume far too much knowledge. McKenzie recommends Martha Stewart and recipes from the better food magazines.

An experienced home baker stands by recipes from Christopher Kimball, author and founder of Cook's Illustrated magazine, who tests and tweaks exhaustively. Kimball's recipes work.

Furthermore, McKenzie notes, since baking is a science, tools should be properly calibrated. "There could be a difference between your one cup and mine," she says.

Some recipes convert dry measures to ounces, a more exact method requiring a small kitchen scale. Select measuring spoons and cups from a reputable manufacturer; dollar-store varieties may be way off. McKenzie recommends buying heavy cake pans, a zester for peeling citrus skin and a long, narrow Microplane grater -- excellent for citrus.

Start with a one-bowl chocolate cake using oil and cocoa (see box for recipe); progress to yellow layers that require creaming butter to incorporate air. "Don't rush this," McKenzie says. "Turn on the mixer and go do the ironing."

Whichever you choose, she says she believes that, "Guests feel loved that you spent the time and energy baking a cake."

Shirley Vaughan grew up in a European family that baked extensively. "I had my own little rolling pin," she recalls.

Now she bakes professionally from her Southern Pines home kitchen (a popular cottage industry nationwide) and, of course, for her family. Vaughan's business, Shirley's Specialty Cakes, grew out of a craft-store class she took for fun. Recently she celebrated a baking milestone: her son Emerson's first birthday cake.

Vaughan doesn't have a problem with commercial mixes, although she recognizes their puffiness and "distinct taste." She was able to modify a Barefoot Contessa recipe for basic vanilla layers suitable for any frosting.

"People are sentimental -- they remember that one special cake," says Southern Pines baker Wendy Dodson.

Dodson absorbed the basics from her grandmother, the frills from a Wilton decorating course. In addition to a full-time job, she bakes wedding and special-occasion cakes.

Dodson's greatest challenge was the bride who wanted tiny individual wedding cakes for 135 guests. After that, Dodson found baking her own wedding cake was, well, a piece of cake.

Today's special occasion cakes are not just dessert, but coded in color and style to the event, Dodson observes. Her advice to shaky bakers: Taste matters more than outlandish appearance. Identify and master a few good recipes.

Finding a yellow layer with just the right texture (in a Craig Claiborne Southern cookbook) took 10 years. Now she plays around with the flavorings, sometimes using coconut milk for the liquid, other times buttermilk.

Anne Byrn represents the loyal opposition. Byrn, former Atlanta Journal food editor, made her reputation as The Cake Mix Doctor. Her TV appearances, Web site and books (most recently "The Cake Mix Doctor Returns") promote adapting mixes for many occasions -- even a wedding. One favorite adds melted white chocolate, fresh lemon juice and extra eggs to a mix, then frosting the layers with cream cheese and more white chocolate.

Byrn, during a phone conversation from her home in Nashville, calls TV cake shows "food theatrics." But anything that inspires the younger generation to cook at home has merit.

Byrn describes her recipes as lending a different perspective to homemade.

"People still bake from scratch, but they don't always have luck," she says. "You have to follow directions carefully and know ingredients."

Flour, for instance: White Lily works better for cakes than for cookies. Cake flour has a lighter consistency. Buttermilk promotes tenderness. Pure extracts and fruit juice mask the chemical aftertaste of some mixes.

Byrn always finishes layers with homemade frostings.

She feels the stigma associated with cake mixes is lessening. "I've noticed a shift," she says. "We're all more comfortable cooking and baking with what works for our lives."

In other words, a cake mix plus extra effort trumps $10 at the supermarket. As it happens, cake is an historical marker -- from ancient Egyptian baked goods sweetened with dried fruit to celebratory Roman cakes containing honey and, during World War II, "war" cake made without rationed butter, eggs or milk. Fruit cake, once prized, is now maligned. Cakes define regions: king cake during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, New York cheesecake and seven-layer cake, Texas sheet cake and gooey butter cake, a Missouri native.

Dozens of technologies and gadgets, many frivolous, tempt the baker. Television elevates cake to an art form. But nothing has changed the appeal of a thick wedge of fresh layer cake accompanied by cold milk, hot coffee, champagne or, at the very least, a kiss for the baker.

Contact Deborah Salomon at debsalomon@hotmail.com.