Fresh Ginger Cake

It’s my birthday and most people have cake on their birthdays, right? I also discovered that today is National Gingerbread Day. So my birthday cake is what you see in the photo: a ginger CAKE made with fresh ginger, which gives a real spicy, peppery warmth to this version. Especially when you add a piece of crystallized ginger on top (which I do!). Here’s the recipe:

FRESH GINGER CAKE
3/4 cup butter
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour·
2-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh nutmeg
1/4 cup grated fresh ginger
2 large eggs
1/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9”x9” cake pan. Place the butter, molasses and brown sugar in a saucepan and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium heat until the butter has melted. Stir to blend ingredients thoroughly. Set aside to cool. Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together. Pour the liquid mixture over the flour mixture and beat the ingredients to blend them thoroughly. Add the ginger and eggs and beat them in. Pour in the milk and mix until the batter is smooth. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes 8-10 servings

#gingercake #gingerbread #nationalgingerbreadday #ginger #birthdaycake #birthdaycakes #birthdaycakeideas

My Birthday Cake. L'il Miss Cakes

I never celebrate my birthday with cake. It’s always apple pie for me because I can’t think of a dessert I like better. And my grandson, who doesn’t like to eat much of anything loves my homemade apple pie, so of course I want to have one when he’s here.

But this year I added cake too, for a couple of reasons. First, because it was one of those round numbered birthdays and it felt as if dessert should be more festive, even though the birthday has passed and we actually ate the cake on Father’s Day because that’s when we all got together at my house.

Second, because a blogger colleague of mine, Melissa Kaye, bakes such gorgeous cakes that I wonder at the artwork every time I read one of her blog posts and see what she has created for some client.

I had to have one of her cakes for my birthday.

That’s it, in the photo. Isn’t is beautiful? Simple, elegant and tasteful.

The kids shared the flower (Melissa had made another one first that she didn’t think was good enough and I took that one home too, which was good because little kids always like the flower best).

The cake itself was white cake (at my request); in between were layers of chocolate.

But she will bake any kind of cake you might want. Also cookies, snack cakes, bundt cakes and such. You can see some of her other creations here.

If you are in the market for a delicious and gorgeous cake, here’s how to reach her: lilmisscakes.

Classic Strawberry Shortcake

I know it was Julia Child’s 100th birthday this week and she was an important person in my life. Although it was my Mom who taught me the basics, Julia taught me to take giant leaps beyond. I didn’t cook every recipe in her first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I did make many of them. A boyfriend had given me that book — a treasured first edition — which is now gravy stained and coverless and signed by Julia herself on one of my favorite recipes (I met her when I took a cooking course along with several hundred other people like in some College 101 class).

So, Happy Birthday Julia.

But this week was also a friend’s birthday. A what you call “round number” birthday, so I invited her to my house, along with another friend, who recently celebrated that same round number birthday. We had a few hors d’oeuvre with a nice few glasses of wine, then grilled fish with Grilled Pineapple Salsa (and a few vegetables) for dinner.

SO healthy. We are all at that nice round number watch-what-you-eat age.

But dessert? Oh well. Why count calories when summer strawberries are out and you can eat Strawberry Shortcake?

Which is what I made instead of baking or buying a birthday cake.

Not a morsel was left on our plates.

Classic Strawberry Shortcake

2 pounds fresh strawberries
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon sugar
orange, mango or papaya juice
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon peel
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Wash the berries and slice them into a bowl, sprinkle them with 2 tablespoons sugar and a few tablespoons of juice and set aside. In another bowl, mix the flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, salt, baking powder and lemon peel. Add the butter and work into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse meal. In a small bowl, beat the egg and milk together until well combined. Add the liquids to the flour mixture and mix until a soft dough forms. Roll or press the dough to 1/2-inch thick circle on a lightly floured surface. Cut out 8 circles with a cookie cutter. Place the circles on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12–15 minutes or until puffed and lightly brown. Remove from the oven and let cool. Whip the cream with the remaining teaspoon sugar until the mixture stands in soft peaks. Cut the biscuits in half and place each bottom half on a serving dish. Place the berries and any accumulated juices on top. Pour some of the cream on top. Top with the remaining biscuit halves. Makes 8 servings.

Cream Cheese Frosting for Yellow Cake

Saturday may be St. Patrick’s Day, but for me the important milestone that day is my grand daughter Nina’s 5th birthday.

She always asks me to bake a birthday cake for her and when she came to my house a few weeks ago we discussed what she would like and she told me “a rainbow cake with vanilla.”

Which is what we made for practice, just to see if that’s what she really wanted. We were able to have all these good colors thanks to several squirts of food coloring, which I added to small bowls of yellow cake batter and let Nina mix. 

Here she is frosting her practice cake with a cream-cheese frosting.

Her real birthday cake will have the same frosting plus an Ariel, Little Mermaid design on the top. And a Little Mermaid Candle.

Of course.

Cream Cheese Frosting for Yellow Cake

Cream Cheese Frosting:

3/4 cup butter at room temperature

12 ounces cream cheese at room temperature

1-1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Beat the butter, cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar together until smooth and creamy. Add 1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract, enough to make the frosting easy to spread. Enough for one 9-inch layer cake