Bake Us a Half-Birthday Cake?

It’s about 4:00 am in the morning – my daughter is in labor and the midwives are taking a short nap. Her gentle moans and my excitement make it impossible for me to sleep so I decide to make a birthday cake. (I use my trusty harvest gold Kitchen Aid mixer given to me by my sister over 30 years ago.)

Evelyn George’s Birthday Cake
1-1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar & 1 cup white sugar
4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
2 tsp. baking soda AND baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1 can crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Mix vegetable oil with brown & white sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In another bowl sift together both flours, salt, soda & baking powder. Gradually add flour mixture to oil/egg mixture. Fold in carrots, drained pineapple and raisins. You can bake this as a sheet cake or in 9″ rounds. Grease & flour pans. I use parchment as this cake is very moist and can stick. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour.
Lemon Frosting
8 ounces softened cream cheese
1/4 cup softened unsalted butter
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1-2 tsp. vanilla
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1 cup finely chopped walnuts, toasted
Combine cream cheese and butter – whip until light and fluffy. Add sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat until blended. Add vanilla and lemon rind. Frost cake. For a layer cake, I press walnuts around the outside edge of the cake, leaving the top an open canvas for candles and a greeting.

Here’s what I do for a birthday cake. Go to a bakery. Find a simple, white frosted two-layer cake. Buy it. Take home and put on Grandma’s beautiful cake plate that has held homemade cakes for 50 years. Put already purchased fresh fruit in way too much liqueur of your choice. I use B&B. Soak fruit for as many hours and you have before person with birthday arrives.
Right before serving, drizzle 6-7 tablespoons of juice/liqueur over top of white frosting. Artfully drizzled is best. Big ceremony with candles. Cut cake, slather with drunken fruit and whipped cream if you remember to do it. Accept compliments on homemade cake. Happy birthday. No bras.

I like making this vanilla layer cake
http://coconutlime.blogspot.com/2008/04/vanilla-bean-layer-cake.html

For a sister-blog, how about a real family-style birthday cake like Cbiffon Cake!
I vote for Chocolate Chiffon Cake (cake goddess Rose Levy Berenbaum’s from the Cake Bible is THE best!) topped with 7 minute frosting and chocolate shavings.

This brought back happy memories of my mother “famous” chocolate cake that family friends often requested she make for birthdays. It was a Duncan Hines chcocolate cake from a box with buttercream frosting–the recipe, I believe, came the Bakers Chocolate box or a clip from a magazine. It was so delicious and I can still see my mothers placing the cake on a paper doily with piece of wax paper around the bottom so she could frost messily and then pull the wax paper out and have the cake on the doily. As my mother got busier her with her career and my sister became a teeen, it was my sister who would have to make “Joan Shaw’s famous chocolate cake” for family friends’ when they make the request. Of course, when I was little, all I wanted was a “fancy” cake from a bakery, but there is no better memory tan my mother frosting a cake….ah, i can see her melting the chocolate in a double boiler, which seemed like serious business. Thank you mom. Thank you sis.