Creamy Butter Pound Cake with Lemon Butter Cream Frosting

I love butter cakes and I have been baking butter cakes since my high school days.  I have tried so many different recipes and I thought I finally found my ultimate moist butter cake recipe until I ate this cake. 

My daughter baked and decorated this cake for me all by herself for my birthday, which we celebrated last week.  This was actually her first attempt in baking a butter cake and decorating the cake  as well.  To me this was an excellent attempt and an  amazing piece of work.  She had taken so many details taken into account.   The cake looks so classy,  colors well chosen and I love the pink crumb coat that she put in.  Gives the cake a very beautiful contrast when the cake is sliced.  

Most of the recipes I have posted on my blog and recipes that I have tried are food that I love a lot or that my family loves a lot.  I know that my daughter loves me a lot because she baked a cake for her that she herself hates to eat!  I love you too babe and you are simply too AMAZING!

Candles by no means reflect my age

Beautiful pink crumb coating adding a nice contrast to 

Ingredients

3/4  cups unsalted butter
1 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 °F or 180°C.
2.  Grease and flour a 8" cake pan.  
3.  Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and continue to cream well
     for 5-10 minutes. 
4.  Next add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
5.  Sift flour with baking powder and salt.  
6.  Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
7.  Lastly add in the vanilla extract and continue to beat until just mixed.
8.  Pour cake batter into the greased cake pan and gently tap the cake pan on a kitchen 
      counter to remove any excess  air bubbles.
9.  Bake for about 40 minutes or until the cake is done.  When the cake is done, invert the 
      cake onto a cooling rack. 
10. Decorate the cake with lemon butter cream frosting (recipe below) when the cake is      
      completely cooled. 

Lemon Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter
3 cups confectioners sugar or icing sugar, sifted
3 tablespoon lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
2-3 tablespoons cream

Directions

1.  In an electric mixer,cream the butter until fluffy.
2.  Change the mixer speed to low and gently add in the confectioners sugar a little at a time 
     and cream well.
3.  If the frosting gets a little too difficult to mix, add in the cream a tablespoon at a time 
      until you reach a medium firm consistency.  

I Forgot AGAIN

The roses I got this morning for our wedding anniversary

This morning my husband surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of red roses.  I thought it was for my birthday but then my birthday is not until end of the month. Before he could say another word, I said "OMG I forgot AGAIN".  Every year without fail I would forget our wedding anniversary and every year without fail he would remember our wedding anniversary and will send me flowers or buy me flowers, get me a gift and even arrange a wonderful dinner for the both of us.  The first few years of our marriage, I  used to do similar things but when I had my babies, motherhood caught up with me I guess. But then it is no excuse to forget our wedding anniversary.  Last year I made a wow to remember our anniversary and to wish him before he did. So I put a reminder on my phone and first thing in the morning, I wished him "Happy Anniversary Darling. Ha ha I beat you to it this year." He just smiled and said "It's not today honey, our anniversary is tomorrow!"  

This year since our anniversary is one day before Deepavali and I was busy with the preparations, I completely forgot all about our anniversary.   It is so sweet of him to remember our anniversary year after year.  Love you Babe........Happy Anniversary to you too.

Pizookie or Giant Cookie Cake

This week we celebrated my middle child's 16th birthday.  I asked him earlier in the week what kind of birthday cake he would like.  His favorite has always been cheese cake and I made strawberry cheese cake for his 15th birthday.  So I thought he would want a cheese cake this year too.  In fact I had already bought a big block of cream cheese and it was sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be baked.  But he said he wanted a 'pizookie'.  I said 'what'!  "I never heard of such a thing before". I thought he meant some kind a gadget or something and then my daughter said "Mom, it's a pizza cookie... pizookie,...get it". I was like huh....okay so what is it actually. My daughter said "it's just a giant cookie" and my son said "that's what I said" and I replied "why didn't you say so, I'm sure I can do it".  And I did do it.  I just used Mrs. Fields Blue Ribbon Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and formed the cookie dough into a 12" round cookie.

First I lined my baking tray with parchment paper and I placed my "Kaiser Stainless Steel Adjustable Cake Ring" over the parchment paper and adjusted the cake ring to form a 12" circle.   I spread the cookie dough to cover the base of the cake ring.  The rest is as per the directions for the chocolate chip cookie recipe.   I did bake the pizookie for an extra 5 minutes than what was required in the recipe though.

Of all my years of baking and decorating birthday cakes for my kids, husband and family, this was by far most the easiest and fastest birthday cake to make!

What we had for lunch yesterday....

Yesterday all my kids were at home since schools were closed due to the hazy conditions.  I love it when all my kids are at home so I couldn't complain much about the haze!  This also means that I get some extra days of leave in the week and I don’t have to get up early in the morning, prepare their lunches, rush them off to school and them rushing out to pick them up in the mad traffic jam.  The kids tend to wake up late in the mornings so I get a good two hours of ME time. Anyways I decided to make Korean Dakganjeong, Seaweed Tamagoyaki with Do Chua-Vietnamese pickled daikon and carrots, served with steamed short grain rice for their lunch yesterday and they loved it.  Recipe to follow soon.

Celebrating My Daughter's Teen Birthday

We moved back to our house around mid September. So I have been pretty busy unpacking the boxes, checking for damages done to our shipment and worst of all finding places to put all our stuff away.  Our house is like 80% ready so I was able to spend a bit more time on my daughter's birthday cake.  I know that she likes her cake to be very special so I made a six layer salted caramel chocolate cake. The cake was of course a chocolate cake layered with salted caramel and chocolate frosting and topped with chocolate ganache.  I decorated the cake with fondant roses.  This was my first time making fondant roses and it wasn't really that bad. Thanks to this boy on Youtube who shared a very simple way of making fondant roses without any tools. Here is the link to his Youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjyEU6fxixQ. 

Removing the fondant roses from the cake

My Youngest Turns 8

 Mav watching TV while mom was busy with the cake and party

Yes. Eight is a big number for him. Last week we celebrated my youngest's eight birthday.  He was very excited about this day and he wanted a strawberry cake with Oreo and it had to look something like the cake I had once done for my second son, about 4 or 5 years ago. I was quite surprised that he could remember something that I had made almost 5 years ago. 

When my second son was 12 (I think), I made an Arsenal edible image cake. I designed the Arsenal edible image and got it printed out from one of the cake supply store.  This time I did not have time to design or order the edible image. So I opted out for some football figurines with the goal posts that I got from Bake With Yen.   

With really no plan in my mind I just went to the store and bought some Betty Crocker Strawberry cake mix, some Oreo biscuits and some cream cheese. This time though I wasn't going to cut out and save the Box Tops which were printed on the Betty Crocker cake box. 

The cake was of course a strawberry flavored cake with cream cheese frosting, topped with whipped cream and piping jelly and adorned with Oreo biscuits.  We planned a small party for him in our serviced apartment but since there was no cake mixer but just a hand whisk and an oven (thank God for that), I managed to come up with this cake for him.  My hands got the long deserved work out.

Happy 8th Birthday Mav...We love you so much.. :)