These last few weeks of ignoring the garden and focusing on the wedding have left the flowers looking a bit dull, but I'll leave the garden update for a future post and focus on the birthday cake.
I've had my eye on this cake for a while, and decided that it was the perfect project for christening my new Kitchen Aid!
I can definitely see why this is Alicia's go-to birthday cake. It's nice and simple, and made with ingredients that I always have on hand. The cake itself comes out moist, bouncy, and with the right amount of crumble. Plus, if you follow Alicia's lead and add the coffee, you'll get a good, dark color.
After popping the cake into the oven, I read her frosting recipe. It calls for a roux... which caused me to pause. I was up for baking the cake, but a roux on a relaxing Sunday/birthday morning? I wasn't so sure this morning, but one frosted cake later, I assure you it's definitely worth the effort.
I followed her instructions to a T *except* for that whole bit about whole milk. I only had 2% in the fridge, and I knew that whole milk only has about 3% fat. So I threw caution to the wind, and it worked!
A note about the roux : it was a piece of cake. ha! If you look at the ingredients, you'll notice that you're making a hefty portion of roux (1 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of flour). As long as you keep your heat on medium to low, with that quantity of liquid & flour, you don't have to worry about it burning. And as long as you keep whisking, per Alicia's warning, you really won't have have to worry about lumps.
This may just become a birthday regular around these parts too! I'll just have to work on my decorating ~ did you see how beautiful hers is with the red sprinkles and strawberry?
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