Hello, blog! I know - it's been too long and where have I been? I have no excuses but can only make the promise that once this school year has ended and I'm a RETIRED music teacher and head of the fine arts department, I will spend more time writing up all my culinary adventures.
Not that I haven't cooked since December; just that I've not bothered to chronicle the few new dishes sprinkled between all the same old Stoops acceptable food fare. Tonight is different, however. While dinner might have looked familiar, I did dare to veer away from accepted tradition by making Tim a HOMEMADE birthday cake with icing that did NOT come out of a can.
My recipe came from Smitten Kitchen and was called, very appropriately, "perfect birthday cake" - or something like that. The icing, also from Deb's files, was a simple buttercream frosting. Very easy to make. Very good to eat.
How hard can a cake be? When I cook something from Smitten Kitchen, I think I always have an expectation that the recipe is going to be incredibly involved and difficult, but more than worth the work when it's time to actually eat whatever delicacy she's sharing with her vast, adoring audience. But, a cake is a cake and this one went together easily.
During the whole process of mixing up the cake, I never took one taste. (I know...Gordon Ramsey would be calling me a stupid donkey about now.) I did take a few licks of the frosting - first because I thought it seemed too stiff and then because I wanted to cut the powdered sugar taste a bit with another dash of vanilla.
So, now we're at the dinner table, candles lit, Firstborn Son waiting to make a birthday wish and blow out said candles and me suddenly wondering if this cake is going to taste good or even be edible.
Final analysis: the cake tasted like the quintessential birthday cake of every child's dreams. The icing was yummy. And I loved both.
Final Funny Fact: I'm probably the only human on earth who has to SECRETLY bake a cake and then hope it tastes close enough to storebought for my oddball menfolk to like it. Both Martin and Tim ate every bit of their pieces so I guess I pulled off spending lots of time and effort to make a homemade cake so that it could double for something straight from a box and can.
