Friday, May 19, 2006

Birthdays and Cake, the perfect pair



You know how some times in life things just go the way they should? It's not always the up hill battle that you often prepare yourself for. That was how we became friends with Jill and Dan. They are amazing and funny and they love our children. They are the kind of friends that when they come in the door they take off thier shoes, hug everyone, including the dogs (that vie for thier attention so bad it's not even funny), and get right down on the floor, ready and excited to play. Out come the super hero figures and the buckets of dinosaurs and the pads of paper and the endless rainbows of markers. There is a lot of "Hey look at this!" and " Watch this, do I have it right?". And there is not a thing that goes unlooked at, there is not a question that gets ignored. We are amazingly lucky, and we know it.

Last week it was Jill's Birthday, but she was out of town. So last night, I made a little cake, stitched a few gifts and enjoyed the time with them.


White Chocolate Pound Cake (ours is topped with strawberry whip)
  • 2 tablespoons white sugar
  • 8 oz. white chocolate ((baking squares)
  • 1 cup butter
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 5 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup sour cream
(if you are going to top it with chocolate the following is needed)
  • 1 oz. semisweet chocolate
  • 4 oz. white chocolate, melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (175 degrees C). Grease one 10 inch bundt pan. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of white sugar in the bundt pan.

Chop four squares of the white chocolate, set aside. Melt the remaining four. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and 2 cups of the sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in extracts and the melted white chocolate.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda; add to the creamed mixture alternately with the sour cream. Beat just until combined.

Pour 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with 1/2 of the chopped white chocolate. Repeat. Pour remaining batter on top.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 60 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. If you are topping the cake with chocolate follow the next step: Melt chocolate in the top of two double boilers or in bowls in the microwave. Stir until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes then remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack completely.

Strawberry Whip -

1 Cup chopped strawberries
1 Cup sugar
1 egg white

Place all ingredients in bowl and mix on high until forms stiff peaks.

As for the fun gifts, she recived a few random things, much like herself! And I could kick myself for not taking pics of most of them. Among those things were these:

It's a Mop Top, a benders version of a British Punk Rocker, gotta love it!

And she is big fan of Superheros. So a custom cape was in order:

It was so much fun making this! My poor sewing machine, it's getting a serious workout lately! Thanks for reading!

1 Comments:

Blogger Miss Bliss said...

Hey Momma! I love the name! Fantastic! Is your house open? Cause if it is Boots and I will be right over! You are too sweet and I don't deserve the praise. And as for the cooking, it's all ingrained in my DNA, look who my mother was! Like I had a choice!

8:16 AM  

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