On Birthdays

LUCY BURDETTE: I grew up sharing a birthday “season” with my sister Sue, and I don’t remember ever minding that. We each got our own cake, mine on January 14 and hers on the 27th, but we always shared parties. We were less than a year apart – can you imagine? What were my parents thinking?

But I digress…As long as I can remember, the birthday tradition in my family has been choosing the cake of your dreams:). This chocolate lovely is the one most of my family prefers these days.

My father always chose yellow cake with mocha icing. My older sister and I always had angel food cake with whipped cream as the frosting. My mother didn't like cake, so we made her tapioca out of a box.

A couple of years ago, our daughter and her hub were in Key West for our son-in-law's birthday, which falls on New Year’s Eve. He loves carrot cake. Now I am not a big fan of carrot cake--in fact I had never made one. And if faced with a supermarket carrot cake, I will always pass a slice by. However, I do believe that the birthday person should have the homemade cake of his or her dreams. So here was his cake.

As for gifts, the best ones I've ever gotten came in orange stripes. Tigger was an orange tiger cat who joined the family when I was 13. I lobbied hard for him and he was an excellent family member for many years. (This is my mother with Tigger and Schatze the dog.)

Two years ago this week, I decided I’d been pet-less too long (4 months!) and went to the Key West humane society to pick out a kitty. You can read all about T-bone’s gotcha day right here--he's a wonderful guy...

Lately in Key West, I've been sharing a birthday celebration with friend and writer Barbara Ross, who's a week older than I am.

Obviously, we can't have a party this year, but you can imagine us eating this cake...at a good social distance on their back porch.

How do you feel about birthdays Reds? Is there cake? Any other special traditions?

On Birthday Cake

LUCY BURDETTE: The birthday season is coming up in my household, so I've got cake on the brain. One of the traditions we had in my family growing up was that the birthday person got to choose their cake. I went with angel food cake with whipped cream frosting, tinted pink with food coloring.

But with the family I married into,  the choice is always chocolate. The recipe that I use for feathery fudge cake with chocolate sour cream frosting comes from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.

My birthday falls in early January--not only are there no other bakers in my family, most of the good bakeries in the area are closed, exhausted from the holidays. So every once in while I splurge and bake the cake I would choose: yellow cake spread with whipped cream and crammed with strawberries. I found this on a Softasilk cake flour box years ago--it's a winner.

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 C butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
4 egg yolks
2 1/4 C Softasilk cake flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup milk
whipped cream
strawberries

To make the cake: grease and flour 2 round pans, heat oven to 350. Beat sugar and butter until fluffy. beat in vanilla, eggs and egg yolks, one at a time. mix flour, baking powder and salt. Mix in alternately with the milk, beating after each addition just until blended, beginning and ending with flour mixture. pour into pans. Bake 25 min or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. cool 10 min, remove from pans. cool completely.

Frost with fresh whipped cream sweetened with a tbsp of sugar and a dash of vanilla. I put chopped strawberries in the middle layer and decorate the top with halved strawberries, maybe a few blueberries too.

 What cake do you crave on your birthday? And as I saw my friend Steve Ulfelder ask on facebook the other day, would you serve it with ice cream? (I'm a purist--I think ice cream makes it soggy...)