Let em eat cake!

Why hello there. So I see that you are stalking me. That is always nice. Well, since you have come here I will at least give you something to read. The last big cooking event in my life was Syd's birthday last Sunday. We have been fabulously broke since then so no groceries = no real cooking this week. Except my tuna noodle dish, which may sound gross, but i'm telling you you will never look at tuna and noodles and cringe ever again once you try it. Anyway, back to da burfday. I wanted to do a lot of food, fresh food because it is swarthy hot down here in nola. Mmmmm... nuttin like some swarthy heat to make you not want hot food at all. Here is La Menu De Syd:

Fresh cut fruit - pineapple, cantaloupe, strawberry, watermelon.
Tomato, basil, buffalo mozzarella skewers
Feta, Basil and Tomato salad over baby spinach with fresh lemon dressing
Strawberry orange layered butter cake with whipped citrus zest topping
Homemade Italian Chocolate Ice Cream
Lemon Iced Tea

Sydney was so excited to eat all this food that she slept through most of her party. Sweet!

The fresh cut fruit is relatively self-explanatory. The watermelon we left the rind on, which was the hubs suggestion because he wanted it to be easy for the kids at the partay to hold. This was a fabulous point but I would have left it on anyway. Watermelon is one of the most visually appealing fruits out there. It is constantly copied on toys, clothing, designs. There is something about the vibrant pink, the white and green border and the speckling of black seeds that is really just amazing. I don't buy seedless watermelon and I won't cut off the rind. Nature made it perfect the way it is.

All the other fruit was simply chopped up and served. Mmmmmm...

The tomato basil skewers are a sinch as well. I took a tooth pick, popped on a grape tomato (cherry tomatoes are too big for bite size), added a folded leaf of fresh basil and then popped on a bite size ball of fresh mozzarella. I will tell you a secret that I have discovered. I know everyone thinks Whole Foods is ridiculously expensive, well you're wrong. Your local grocery store orders many "gourmet foods" in small quantities which means they do not receive the discounts that Whole Foods receives and they only carry one brand. Fresh Mozzarella is the perfect example of this. A tub of bite size mozzarella balls at my local grocer is between 5 and 7 bucks. Whole Food has their own house brand, is always fully in stock, has bigger tubs and they are only $2.99 a piece. I also found this to be true for baby food. Nature's Best Organic baby food was $1.43 per jar at Rouses an $0.89 at Whole Food. AND at whole food if you buy 12 or more jars of any combination it is considered a case and you get another 10% off. Two cartons of free-range eggs, 18 eggs each are $4. That's right $4 for 36 eggs. So there you go. Pay attention to the price of things. Don't just assume that since you are at Whole Foods you are getting ripped off or since you are at cheapo grocery that you are actually paying less.

Moooooo-ving on. Now you have skewers. If you couldn't find bite size balls, you can always just get a big one and cut it into cubes. But please, WHATEVER you do, do not buy "fresh mozzarella" that is not sitting in water. If the cheese is not actually sitting in water it is not fresh and it is not the same cheese. I made these skewers the night before, laid them out on a tray and covered them with a wet cloth so that they wouldn't dry out in the fridge. Right before you serve them sprinkle with fresh cracked pepper and sea salt, liberally. Oh, and please don't forget to take off the cloth before you do this.

What I haven't mentioned is that I did these skewers at 3:30am while I was baking the cake's layers and macerating the fruit. Here is how this went. Buy a box of cake mix, I like yellow butter cake. If you want to get creative with homemade cake mixes go right ahead, I would call you crazy. Unless you have formal baking training you have no idea what you are doing. So why are you wasting your time? Buy the mix in the box and get creative with layers, toppings, add-ons, icings, etc. WAY more manageable for the average creative person. However, if you want to sit at home and try to figure out if your cake would be better if your ratio of baking soda to buttermilk to egg yolk to water were slightly different, be my guest. I will be over here eating my delicious cake and laughing at you. So I bake 3 round layers for the cake by following the directions on the box. I buy two boxes, make all the mix and then ration it out. I have some batter left over, don't overfill your cake pans or it won't cook evenly. Throwing away of cup of cake batter is not the worst thing you have done in your, you will be fine. I bake my layers one at a time. Yes this is time consuming, but I am not rich yet and I do not have a super awesome convection oven. I rent my home and although my oven is new it is cheap and heats unevenly like most ovens. If you shove 3 cake pans into the oven in all sorts of different locations your cooking time will be off and your cakes will cook unevenly. Be patient and cook each cake in the same position at the center of the oven, one at a time. You bought the mix in a box, the least you could do is take the time to make it good. Unless of course you have a fabulous new convection oven. If this is the case, can I come bake at your house?? Please?

While I'm baking all these delicious cakes I also chop up 2 containers of strawberries and 2 oranges. My dogs love this because Iverson's favorite snack is strawberry tops. I cut the skin and the pith off the orange, then go in and slice each section out so that all you have is the meat of the orange, no white stuff, non membrane. These slices go in a big bowl with the strawberries and then squeeze the left over floppy orange to get the juice. the orange juice begins to break down the strawberries and they taste scrumptious together. Now you make a simple syrup. One cup water and one cup sugar into a pot and onto the stove. Warm it up until is melts and combines completely. As soon as it is one homogenous liquid, cut the heat and let it sit to cool.

Run around baking and pouring and checking with toothpicks. OH! Here is my most fun piece of advice. Undercook everything you bake. People always bake until something 'looks' done. If you are baking cookies, cakes, brownies, etc. and they look done that means you just burnt them. All of these things will continue to cook once you pull them out of the oven and form a more solid texture once they cool. When they say that a tooth pick should "come out clean" they do not mean completely clean. It means clean of anything WET. If there are crumbs on it that is fine, even moist crumbs. You just don't want wet batter. Seriously, every single time I make brownies I undercook them even more than my other baking items. Whenever I make them everyone insists that I make the best brownies and they hoard them. I absolutely do not make the best brownies. I make Betty Crocker brownies, I add a bit of lemon extract, a pinch of sea salt and splash of cold coffee to the batter and I always under cook them. I put them in the fridge which causes the undercooked batter to take on a fudge-like texture. Try it one day. People will worship you.

Now that your simple syrup has cooled, pour it over the fruit. Zest two lemons into this as well. Take a hand held potato masher and go at it. Mush up the fruit so that it is broken down, but still a bit chunky. Put this aside and let it sit. This ia actually the point where you would make your skewers. As your cakes come out of the oven and cool it is time to cut the tops off. Take a big bread knife (if you don't have one of these you shouldn't be baking anyway) and slice off the top of the cake, the whole top. You cake will come out of the oven with a bit of a dome shape and you want it to be flat. AND you want to expose the inner spongy part so that it absorbs the fruit syrup. Don't freak out if it is not perfectly straight and even, it will work itself out. Place your first layer on the plate/platter that you will serve the cake on. Drizzle the mashed up fruit over the top, all the way to edges. Use half the fruit, but only as mush syrup as needed to coat the whole surface, but not over soak the cake, you will turn it to mush. Top with another layer and repeat. Use all the fruit in these two layers, because you will put syrup on the top but not more fruit. I usually end up with left over syrup, so don't worry if it's not exact, it really shouldn't be. What I end up doing is putting all the left over cake tops into tupperware and then drizzling any leftover syrup/fruit over this. Then if someone needs to leave before tasting the cake, they can steal a bite out of the tupperware. Or, you can just sit on your butt and eat it the next day. Once you have assembled the cake cover it. I use a big upside down mixing bowl. Put it in the fridge for at least a few hours, preferably over night.

The icing for this cake is whipped cream and you don't make it until right before you serve it. I use an old skool electric mixer. Whipping cream with a whisk by hand is mind numbing. Add orange and lemon zest. You don't even need to sweeten the cream. The cake is so sweet that no one will even be able to tell. I would say whip up two pints of cream to be safe. Add a couple big pinches of Cream of Tartar to the whipped cream. All this does is help the whipped cream maintain it's texture. Take a spatula or a butter knife and slather this stuff on your cake like it is going out of style. Start on the top and then move down the sides until you have covered every inch of the cake with a thick layer of whipped cream. This is not the time to be shy, if you do a thin layer it will get all mixed up with crumbs and not look nearly as cool. Be generous. Tah Dah! Now you have a super delicious gourmet birthday cake.

Alright, again I am sleepy. The ice cream and other recipes will have to wait until tomorrow. I apologize for all typos, i'm not even gonna spell check this bad boy.