Being a confirmed bachelor the only way there will be Birthday Cake is if I make it myself. Luckily I enjoy baking and consider doing it from scratch the only possible way to go. There are no unimportant steps in the baking of a cake--you ignore any one of them at your peril. Take oiling and flouring the ten-inch tube pan--I was sure I'd completed the process correctly; then there's letting the cake set after it's baked--I followed the directions to wait 10 minutes but apparently that wasn't long enough. Oh Well! Icing will cover a multitude of sins. Cake one is a lemon pound cake; cake two is still in the oven as I write here--a carrot cake. This kind of baking makes eggs disappear quickly. After both have thoroughly cooled I will then mix lemon butter frosting--nothing but freshly grated lemon peel and squeezed lemon juice will do--anything else just doesn't taste right.
Lemon Pound Cake
Carrot Cake
Again I'm showing my age. I remember when vanilla extract was only slightly cheaper than real vanilla; now the real thing is $ 100.00 per gallon or $ 17.00 for 6 oz. I can also remember when opening a new container didn't involve fighting one's way through the security shield. But then I also remember when those spices were delivered by the Watkins Man who happened to be a cousin and after conducting business he stayed for dinner having strategically arranged his arrival for that event. Dinner, of course, on the farm, was at noon. And I also remember when licking the beaters and cleaning the bowl was not considered a risky act--but then we had our own hens in those days and the stricture that one use day-old eggs in baking meant something.
Cake number two is done; I turned off the oven and out of form will allow it to sit there for the remaining three minutes though smell, touch, and shrinking away from the sides of the pan would seem to indicate doneness. My word processor doesn't recognize that word; but then it's never baked a cake. The next step is grating and juicing that lemon but there's loads of time for that as the cakes must completely cool before I attempt icing them. I plan to slice up both cakes before taking them in to work tomorrow so I'll get out the camera and document my efforts before I start cutting them up. It's all finished now but the dish-washing but I believe I'll allow them to soak until I've made the icing and do it all at one time.
Picked up my mail and got cream for tomorrow's coffee making. The tomatoes on sale at RABA are green, I got the regularly priced ones. Picked up some canned olives--"may contain pit fragments"--either they are or aren't; I'd have thought. Doesn't look like the new Mediterranean Restaurant across the way will be serving this side of September at the rate they're going. Picked up someone's Direct Cash stub from the floor on my way--$ 1.75 to withdraw 20--not this little lamb--sounds like fleecing to me.
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