My Birthday Feast!

Well, it has happened… I’m another year older and apparently, wiser? mmm… I have had a lovely day thanks for my friends and family. It culminated with a delicious Asian inspired feast and a Peach-Vanilla Pie… We started with Vietnamese Vegetarian Spring Rolls followed by Singapore Chili Shrimp and Chicken A La Nueces De La India. For dessert, they put candles on top of my Peach-Vanilla Pie made with Tartine’s Flaky Pie Crust.  Thank you for making this birthday wonderful!

Filed under Flour, Peanut, Thyme, Tomatos, Vanilla, peach | Comments (2)

Happy 4th! Berry Pavlova!

Happy 4th of July! I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday! Juan and I had a cook out with some friends last night- burgers, amazing mac & cheese, caprese quinoa salad, and a berry pavlova for dessert! It was a really fun evening! Excuse me- leftover mac & cheese is calling me… Happy holiday!

Filed under Vanilla | Comment (0)

Cake Holiday…

A guest blogger… my mother…two delicious cakes… read on…

Recently, Ginny was home for a few days. So of course, I baked a cake! I have a long history of cake baking . As one of a family of twelve, it was often someone’s birthday and I loved making the cake. I even baked my own birthday cake as it ensured I got what I wanted!! Sunday dinner was always a big feast as well so a cake was usually featured.

For a number of years I would bake birthday cakes for my coworkers. Many times my children would be excited about a cake that they could smell baking only to learn it wasn’t for them. My coworkers are the one’s who dubbed many days “cake holidays” as they would even search out obscure days (e.g. Botswana Liberation Day) as a day that “needed” a cake.

So, for Ginny I baked the standard yellow cake that is my favorite. Dinette cake from Betty Crocker. I doubled the recipe and used vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract. The chocolate icing is the Hershey’s Lickety Split recipe. I decided to split the layers and make four layers so the icing recipe should be increased by half. My family always used hot coffee instead of milk which gives the icing a mocha flavor. You can also melt a square of baking chocolate to replace part of the cocoa which gives the icing a fudge-like consistency.

HERSHEY’S LICKETY-SPLIT FROSTING
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
¾ cup Hershey’s cocoa
1/8 tsp salt
6 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup butter,softened

Note: If you ever visit the South and see chocolate cake featured on the menu, a yellow cake with chocolate icing is what you will get!

Resa came home for Memorial Day weekend and we baked a cake together. It is a coconut cake from Cooking Light and it was amazing!

Filed under Cake, Chocolate, Flour, Vanilla | Comment (1)