Jim's Birthday Cake for Marie

OK, I didn't really go the Funfetti route; but I was a little bit tempted when I saw this gag present that Marie's brother Doug sent her.  Here's the real one:

When Marie first broached the idea of having me do a cake for her birthday and being guest blogger, I was taken aback and tried to talk her out of it - "It will look and taste like crap," I said (actually, I think I used a less polite word).  I've never baked a cake; I don't like to cook; and I'm a lousy cook.  There was no budging her, of course; so I went through the blogs from before the start of the Heavenly Cake Bakers to find a possible candidate for a person of my lack of skills and experience.

I found the ideal cake - the Golden Lemon Almond Cake that she blogged about on June 21, 2009.  This cake is on the quick and easy list, and more important, Marie had a couple of screw-ups when making it and received a lot of advice and tips about it.  The bar was not as low as I wanted, but it was as low as it was going to get.  Marie offered to help, but I decided I would put Rose's instructions to the acid test and do the whole thing on my own.

I gathered everything I'd need, went over the instructions for the fourth or fifth time, and added some stuff.

I took something away, too.

I love the scale.  I've watched Marie use it hundreds of times since she started the Breadbasketcase blog but never really appreciated it until now.  That's why there are no measuring cups in the picture (though that's not what I took away).  The precision that's possible with the scale appeals to my German background, accounting training, and bureaucratic soul (if that's not too blatant an oxymoron).  I weighed almost everything.

The nuts.

The eggs - I was so excited when the three eggs totaled exactly the 150 grams that were called for, that I rushed out to tell Marie (she hasn't yet had them come out at the exact weight straight from the shell).  With this kind of luck, I began to think that I just might pull off this cake.

One of Marie's screw-ups was having some cake damage when unmolding it - so I looked at the tips in the blog entry and sprayed half a can of Baker's Joy inside the pan and used a brush to get into all the nooks and crannys.

I avoided that mistake, but I made one of my own in grating the lemon zest - note how white the lemon is.

Marie came through the kitchen just then and asked me why I didn't use the micro-plane and why did I use so much of the white.  It seems you're only supposed to use the yellow because the white is bitter.  "OK," I said, "how do you happen to know that?" (I was about to be indignant about not being informed in the instructions)  "Everyone knows that."  "Maybe they do now, but they didn't five minutes ago."  Then, she patiently showed me the section in the back of the book in which a great deal of interesting information about lemon zest is laid out. 

I also avoided Marie's screw-up about forgetting to add the nuts at the right time, but then I screwed up by forgetting to sift the flour into the mixing bowl - at least everything was there.

Dry ingredients at low speed

Butter and sour cream added

And egg mixture gradually added and everything whipped smooth.

So far, so good.

It's a little rounded on the top (bottom actually), but I can live with it.

Slather some lemon syrup on the bottom-to-be [you can tell this is a staged picture because I'm not left-handed and needed my right hand to take it]

Et, voilà!

I even got the undissolved sugar to sparkle like it's supposed to.

Marie supplied the rose in remembrance of how she presented the cake last year. 

So, I failed to prove that Rose's instructions aren't foolproof.  I had a good time doing it (except for scrapping my knuckle on the grater), and Marie seemed to enjoy it.  And it wasn't bitter either.

Thank you, Rose.

Oh, and how did it taste?

TASTING PANEL

Marie: "Very moist and tender."

Karen: "Lively lemony flavor."

Jim: "Well, it could have been worse."