It was Friday night of a long week, one of those weeks when most of the family is exhausted, emotionally exhausted. In our house dinner is what brings us all back to center. The one problem I run into with batch cooking is the lost element of surprise. We know what is coming. The night called for something more. We needed to welcome summer, even though it was raining for the fifth straight day. So I went to work. I was inspired after reading this and went at it. I used my favorite white cake recipe, nice and basic:
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 cup milk
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
- In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven.
Then I went to coloring the separate cakes, as written. I used a small bowl instead of a four inch cookie
/biscuit cutter and got to stacking!
I layered with cream cheese frosting because it is my daughter’s favorite, recipe here:
16 oz cream cheese, softened
16 oz unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla
16 oz confectionery sugar
Beat cream cheese and butter, slowly add vanilla and then mix in sugar. Mix until smooth!
As I stacked my daughter kept questioning the weird colors and the height of my cake. I was stacking while some of the layers were warm, a bit worried about having a collapse, but thankfully cool nights kept everything upright. I frosted the cake and set it in the refrigerator. Just another cake sitting around until Sunday, after dinner I took the cake out, threw a sparkler in and voila!
The look on their faces when I served the first piece was priceless. It was the perfect surprise, and welcome to July!
