My #$%^&* Birthday Cake

Well, today is my birthday. Tomorrow my family will celebrate my special day with a lunch at Mom and Dad's. I, of course, volunteered to make my own cake since I AM the proud owner of a new KitchenAid mixer. It is now 8:42 pm and the cake is out of the oven. LOOK! My little friend Betsy helped me create this disaster. Never in all my attempts at baking have I/we fallen so short of the goal. JM's Dad's cake at least just fell off the plate. Mine fell off the plate and oozed magma all over the counter. I wish you could have seen it when I first flipped the pan over on the cake plate. For approximately 17.38 seconds it was a beautiful cake. Betsy says I need a cake tester. I think I need a man in my life who can bake - to hell with the tester. Does anyone want a slightly used KitchenAid mixer? By the way, I WAS somewhat distracted by the eggs that were coming to room temp (see below - note my birthday portrait in the tea kettle). Perhaps I should stick to photography! And, finally, Note To Self: One should never make one's own birthday cake...

America's Problems

There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure....

Dwight David Eisenhower

Elvis' Favorite Pound Cake

• • 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for buttering
    pan
  • 3 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) plus
    additional for dusting
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 7 large eggs, at room temperature 30 minutes
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • Special equipment: a 10-inch tube pan (4 1/2 inches deep; not with a
    removable bottom) or a 10-inch bundt pan (3 1/4 inches deep; 3-qt capacity)

  Put oven rack in middle position, but do not preheat oven.
  Generously
  butter pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess flour.
  Sift together
  sifted flour (3 cups) and salt into a bowl. Repeat sifting into another bowl
  (flour will have been sifted 3 times total).
  Beat together butter (2 sticks)
  and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale
  and fluffy, about 5 minutes in a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment or 6
  to 8 minutes with a handheld mixer. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after
  each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add half of flour,
  then all of cream, then remaining flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape
  down side of bowl, then beat at medium-high speed 5 minutes. Batter will become
  creamier and satiny.
  Spoon batter into pan and rap pan against work surface
  once or twice to eliminate air bubbles. Place pan in (cold) oven and turn oven
  temperature to 350°F. Bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in
  middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs adhering, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Cool cake
  in pan on a rack 30 minutes. Run a thin knife around inner and outer edges of
  cake, then invert rack over pan and invert cake onto rack to cool
  completely. (from Epicurious.com)

If it's good enough for the King, it's good enough for my birthday. Cross your fingers!

If I were a rich man,Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.

Is this not the most beautiful cookware you have ever seen in your whole entire life? It certainly is to me, so, if I were into coveting, I would covet this stuff! If I had a man with a million dollars (or a million men with a dollar), I would be the oh so proud owner of this very set. Guess I better find that man....

For those of you with money, it is Ruffoni Hammered Stainless Steel from Williams Sonoma. If you buy it, may I come over and visit it?

Adorable - Must Share

You know how you get all those forwarded emails and you delete most of them with just cursory notice? Well today I received one that is so precious that I had to share. The topic is Identity Theft. I have no idea who composed or photographed these shots. If I did know, I would certainly give credit and thank them for sharing somthing so sweet and beautiful! Enjoy!

Life Changes - Passages - Should I Write a Book?

• OK - It's already been written.

• Anyway, I love this picture for so many reasons. First of all, I am the adorable young child looking at the camera. The other child is my much older sister. We are standing over with my aunt who prepared this lovely dinner. (Notice there is no place for us children at the table. I'm guessing we had already eaten or were being sent to eat in the kitchen.) My mother is the one looking at the camera and Dad is beside her. Across the table are my cousin and his girlfriend. My uncle took the picture. I remember eating with Mom's or Dad's family all the time. We didn't have to have a holiday or special occasion, we just did it.

• The china on the table belonged to my paternal grandmother - more about her later - maybe next post. I digress... Back to passages - my sister is now packing this very china up to be handed down to my great niece, her granddaughter, who is now the age my sister was in this picture. I love the way we do that here in the South.. My great niece already needs a china cabinet and she's not even ten years old yet. What a very lucky little girl! (This china came from her great, great grandmother!)

• I love the watch chain you see on Dad's pants. His pocket watches are very special to us!

• I love the color of the walls in my Aunt's dining room. I love the drapes. Note the battenburg table cloth - I must have inherited that gene from her. I remember that house and all the good times I had there. This was a cooking Auntie. She would let us watch and help and I know I learned a lot from her.

• I love my family. They are rich blessings in my life. So we pack up the china and turn another page in the family history book. I love this story...

In Search of: THE PERFECT POUND CAKE

I may not have it in me to make the perfect pound cake but I haven't given up yet. As I have talked to great cooks, here are some of the suggestions I have gotten:

1. Start with a cold oven.
2. Start with a preheated oven.
3. Use only unsalted butter.
4. Any butter will do. Don't use margarine.
5. Margarine will do.
6. Start with all ingredients at room temp.
7. It doesn't matter what temp the eggs are.
8. Spray the pan.
9. Never use spray in the pan. Always grease and flour the pan.
10. Only use an old tube pan. Never use a bundt pan.
11. Only use a bundt pan - the cheaper, the better.
12. Use only cake flour.
13. Use only plain flour.
14. Don't over-beat the batter. Just beat it until it looks right.
15. Beat the hell out of the batter.
16. Undercook it just a bit to get the "sad streak."
17. Never undercook your cake. You will get that nasty sad streak.
18. Don't walk in the kitchen while the cake is baking.
19. Don't open the oven door while the cake is baking.
20. Nothing really matters but how much LOVE you put in the cake.
    

Great cooks use terms like "looks right" and "little bit." They use definites like always and never. They know when it "smells done."

I think I should now keep trying and quit asking. Then one day when I have found my way to do it just the way I want it, I'm going to find me someone who just bought a new KitchenAid mixer and confuse the hell out of 'em!