But Wait! There Was Cake!

You know I took the day off for my birthday.  Whenever I have the opportunity to do so, you can count on it.  Every employer should allow their employees to have their birthday off, without having to use a vacation or sick day.  Your very own personal national holiday.  I had to use vacation hours, but it was worth it.

I spent a good portion of the day in the kitchen baking cookies and crackers for an order that was due the following day.  I decorated my birthday cake and now looking through my photo feed, realize I only took one photo.  The birthday was also the beginning of a mini-heat wave out here and before noon it was already flirting with the 90 degree mark.  Hot weather and buttercream don't mix all that well.  My goal was to decorate the cake before the frosting had a chance to melt.

Happily, I didn't have to worry about cooking on my birthday.  I had a surprise lunch date with my favourite person and went out to dinner with two very special friends.  There was birthday chocolate ice cream and an old fashioned involved.  It was a good day.  And the baked goods were a total hit that Friday.

All this to tell you that I made a mini orange cake with vanilla buttercream.  I had these little square cake molds that I bought a couple of years ago and finally decided to use.  Originally, the cake was going to be a little tower of squares.  Larger 4 inch squares topped with 2 inch squares.  Turns out they reminded me too much of a wedding cake.  Nixed that idea.  So, the cake was a little 2-layer square.  It was a little wonky even after trimming the layers.  There were also 10 cupcakes since the recipe makes enough for 2 8-inch layers.  This was also one of the rare occasions where I didn't wander (too much) from the original recipe.  It was fabulous.  Just the right amount of orange flavour.  It was light.  It was Springy.  Covered in vanilla buttercream, it was just lovely.

Orange Birthday Cake with Vanilla Buttercream
From Bunny's Warm Oven
Makes 2 8-inch layers or 12-14 cupcakes

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups superfine sugar (also known as bakers' sugar)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup orange juice, preferably fresh squeezed (mine was a combination of navel, blood orange, and cara cara)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tbsp grated orange zest

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour or line cake pans, or line muffin pan with cupcake liners.  In a small bowl, combine milk, oil, orange juice, and eggs.  Mix well and set aside.

In a large bowl, add flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.  Mix until combined.  Make a well in the center and add liquid mixture.  Stir until thoroughly mixed.  Pour batter into pans or muffin tins (about 2/3 full) and bake for 30-35 minutes (for cakes) or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  For cupcakes, start checking around 20-25 minutes.  Let cool in pan before removing.

Vanilla Buttercream
Adapted from Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

3 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp half and half

Cream sugar and butter until smooth, add vanilla and mix.  Add half and half until desired consistency is found.

An aerial view to hide the wonkiness

Enjoying cake for decades.

A Birthday Without A Cake...

On the Reading List at the moment is 'Talking with My Mouth Full:  Crab Cakes, Bundt Cakes, and Other Kitchen Stories,' by NPR Food Commentator Bonny Wolf.  I didn't know who she was when I checked it out from the library,  but I'm enjoying the book immensely.  Bonny writes in a very easy-going way.  The book is full of anecdotes from her life and is filled with lots of great recipes.  More importantly, they are recipes she's culled from friends and family over the years, so they're unfussy and fall into the 'tried and true' category.  I ordered a copy of the book, so I'll have the recipes close at hand whenever I need them.

What caught my attention the other day was an essay entitled, "Let Them Eat Cake," where she talked about the birthday cakes her friends have made for the their children, year after year, from the times they were little to the not-so-little age of their early adult years.  She writes about the fancy cake she had on her fifth birthday, the cake her mom made that had a doll coming out from the top and the cake looked like a tiered skirt of frilly ruffles.  I remember having one like that myself, probably from my fourth or fifth birthday, and somewhere there's a photo of me in the kitchen, standing next to the table, and looking happily at that cake.

Over the past couple of years, I've taken it into my own hands to have a cake on my birthday.    In 2010, I made lavender cupcakes with a lilac-tinted lemon buttercream, each topped with a single blueberry.  Yes, they look like breasts.  Don't ask me what I was thinking, but I wanted embellishment.  Any kind of psychological insight aside, they were delicious.  Last year, I opted for cupcakes again, this time strawberry with a pink-tinted vanilla buttercream.  They were frilly and girly and I ate too many of them.  May Day arrived this year and I ended up with not one, but two birthday cakes.  My co-workers surprised me with a cake at work.  Red Velvet with melted chocolate artfully strewn across the expanse of bakery buttercream.  Thick white ruffles of icing lining the perimeter.  Remember the bakery cakes from when you were little, the cakes with huge buttercream rosettes?  I was the one gathering more than just those that came with my piece.  That was me again on Monday (since I was off yesterday), with loads of buttercream heaped on my plate.  The sugar rush and crash that day was palpable.

Despite the surprise birthday cake, I still had plans for my own-baked version.  With a load of lemons from a co-workers tree, I made lemon curd.  And because I have a thing for lavender in baked goods, I once again opted for a lavender cake.  So 2012 became the year of the Lavender Cake with Lemon Curd Filling.  A single layer, sliced in two with a thick layer of curd, and lightly dusted with confectioners' sugar.  For the past couple of days, I've had the privilege of having cake multiple times in one day.  (If this doesn't get me back to the gym, I don't know what will!)  The lavender cake is perfect with coffee in the morning and the red velvet makes a great mid-afternoon forkful treat.

As Bonny Wolf so truthfully writes at the end of the essay, 'A birthday without a cake is like a wedding without a bride.'  Wise words...so remember, friends don't let friends have a birthday go by without cake.

Lavender Cake with Lemon Curd Filling
Makes one 8-inch layer cake
(Adapted from a recipe on Everything Lavender.com)

For cake:

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon culinary lavender
4 tablespoons half and half


Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cake pan with parchment or grease and flour the pan.  In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time and mix until incorporated.  Add remaining ingredients and mix until combined.  Pour batter into cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before tranferring to wire rack. Let cake cool completely before slicing.  

Spread lemon curd in a thick layer on bottom portion of cake.  Carefully place top layer back on and dust with confectioners' sugar.  


For lemon curd:
Makes about 1 1/2-2 cups
(From FineCooking.com--the easiest recipe I've come across for lemon curd)

6 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time and mix well.  Add egg yolks.  Add lemon juice and mix well.  It will look curdled because of the lemon juice, but it's okay.  Heat mixture over low heat in a saucepan until it looks smooth.  Increase heat to medium, cook until mixture thickens, stirring constantly (about 15 minutes).  Do not let mixture boil.  Mixture should easily coat a wooden spoon and leave a clean path when you run your finger through it.  

Remove from heat and mix in lemon zest.  Transfer curd to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing plastic on top of curd so a skin doesn't form.  Chill in refrigerator.  Curd will thicken.  You can make this the day before.  Covered tightly, it will last for about a week.  

From the co-workers

Lavender Cake with Lemon Curd Filling

Birthday 2010:  Lavender Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

Birthday 2011:  Strawberry Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream