Hello Good - IZZE Contest and Giveaway

**Giveaway is closed**

Hello friends, and happy Friday! I was given a head's up from IZZE Sparkling Juice yesterday about their ongoing contest, Hello Good, celebrating the good moments in life.

To enter, simply snap a picture of yourself enjoying your favorite IZZE beverage and submit it to the IZZE Facebook page. Upon submission, you'll receive a $1 off IZZE coupon, and you'll be entered to win free year's supply of IZZE! The contest runs through Sunday, with a winner picked everyday. You can enter everyday if you choose.

I'm also hosting a giveaway right here. One winner will receive a prize pack that includes -

2 10 Year Anniversary IZZE T-shirts
2 Royal Blue IZZE T-Shirts
1 4-Pack of IZZE Sparkling Juice

Pretty nifty! Simply leave a comment and tell me what which IZZE flavor is your favorite. If you've never tried it before, tell me which you'd like to try. Winner will be chosen at noon on Tuesday. Open to U.S. residents only.

Since I was in the mood for IZZE, I went to the store to pick up a pack (using my own money) to guzzle and to bake. That's right, I baked a sparkling cake. Unlike the last cake I made with IZZE, this one is much more simple. This hearty pound cake is perfectly snackable and doesn't have to be saved for dessert. I changed up the original recipe a bit, adjusting the sugar and leavening amounts as well as method of preparation, but it's mostly the same. Honestly, the apple IZZE isn't very pronounce. The cake does taste incredibly good, though. Recipe is after the jump.

(Full disclosure: I received a prize pack from IZZE in exchange for this post, but I was not otherwise compensated. Opinions are my own.)

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IZZE Sparkling Pound Cake
Recipe adapted from Ostblog's Seltzer Cake

Ingredients -

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup vegetable oil
3 2/3 cups flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2/3 cup IZZE Apple Sparkling Juice

Directions -

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a 9-inch loaf pan well; set aside. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.
2. Add eggs and sugar to a large mixing bowl. Using a mixer, beat on medium-high until mixture is pale and thickened, 2 minutes. Mix in vanilla extract. With mixer running, stream in vegetable oil until blended. Fold in dry ingredients, mixing just until a trace of flour remains. Pour in IZZE and fold into batter just until smooth.
3. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour; cover top of cake with a piece of foil and continue cooking for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edges, then remove from pan. Let cool for another 10 minutes before slicing.

Apple and Pear Upside Down Cake

Sometimes you make a recipe just once, either because it's elaborate and time-consuming, or because it simply wasn't very good. Other recipes are made repeatedly because the results are too fantastic not to make again. The latter category is where this cake falls. I first made it one evening after dinner when Alex requested a post-dinner snack. (A long run will do that to a person.) I immediately thought about a "French apple cake" because it's very quick and the kitchen was already clean. My search led me to this recipe from America's Test Kitchen. The only elaborate part is the apple topping (to which I added pears), but the batter comes together quickly.

I used pears the first time I made it. They were there and turning brown, and for whatever reason I hadn't gotten around to poaching them like I had initially planned. While I can't pick out the pears in the topping, I want to believe that it adds more flavor than just apples alone.

Most recipes I found, including this one, slices the apples, but after trying it that way once and trying it again with cubed fruit, I prefer the cubes. Besides being easier to slice, the cubes caramelized more evenly than the slices.

Half of the chopped fruit gets caramelized briefly in butter. I tend to add the apples first as they are firmer than the pears.

Finally, the remaining fruit, along with brown sugar and lemon juice, are added and cooked until the topping gurgles and thickens slightly.

Springform pans scare me. Why, you ask? Because it's not a solid pan, there's always a chance that liquid will seep out no matter how tight the two pieces are latched together. That is you see happened here. I quickly took a similar sized cake pan out from under the cupboard, buttered the inside, and poured in the apple-pear topping, noting that it came about halfway up the sides.

The topping is tasty, but it's the cake that really does it for me. This quick cake is easy to prepare, adding to the simplicity of this recipe. But for being so quick to put together, the taste is incredible. There is brown sugar, butter, and sour cream. Although the sour cream doesn't taste noticeably tangy, it gives the cake a moist, velvety texture that's incredibly good. The caramel notes from the brown sugar ties into the apple topping and gives it even more flavor.

Back to the pan... There is a reason why the recipe calls for a 2-inch deep cake pan. There was no going back, so I placed the cake pan on a baking sheet and hoped for the best. Fortunately, it didn't spill over at all!

This is fall in all of it's glory, people. If you can get in-season apples, please do so. I suggest making this cake anytime you find yourself craving a dessert without all the hullabaloo of a regular cake. Perfect for lazy weekends or time-crunched evenings. Perfectly tasty.

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Apple Pear Upside Down Cake
Recipe from America's Test Kitchen

Serves 8

Ingredients -

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into four pieces
2 Granny Smith apples (about 1 pound), peeled and cored
2 firm pears, peeled an cored
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions -

1. FOR THE TOPPING: Butter bottom and sides of 9-inch round, 2-inch-deep nonstick cake pan; set aside. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut apples into 1/2-inch cubes; set aside. Cut the pears into 1/2-inch cubes; keep separate from apples. Heat butter in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. When foaming subsides, add apple cubes and cook, stirring 2 or 3 times, until apples begin to caramelize, 4 to 6 minutes. (Do not fully cook apples.) Add pear, brown sugar, and lemon juice; continue cooking, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves and apples are coated, about 1 minute longer. Transfer apple mixture to prepared pan and lightly press into even layer. Set aside while preparing cake.
3. FOR THE CAKE: Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl; set aside. Whisk granulated sugar, brown sugar, and eggs together in large bowl until thick and homogeneous, about 45 seconds. Slowly whisk in butter until combined. Add sour cream and vanilla; whisk until combined. Add flour mixture and whisk until just combined. Pour batter into pan and spread evenly over fruit. Bake until cake is golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes.
4. Cool pan on wire rack 20 minutes. Run paring knife around sides of cake to loosen. Place wire rack over cake pan. Holding rack tightly, invert cake pan and wire rack together; lift off cake pan. Place wire rack over baking sheet or large plate to catch any drips. If any fruit sticks to pan bottom, remove and position it on top of cake. Let cake cool 20 minutes (or longer to cool it completely), then transfer to serving platter, cut into pieces, and serve.

Cupcake Fail = Cake Ball Win

It wasn't my intention to make cake balls. I made them once before for New Year's Eve, mixed in too much frosting with the cake, and ended up with something that disgusted me. Initially, I planned on making cupcakes flavored with Celestial Seasonings' Sugar Plum Spice tea.

Every year, mid-November, their holiday teas reach the shelves of the grocery store. I really like all their flavorings, like Gingerbread Spice, Nutcracker Sweet, and Candy Cane Lane, a peppermint green tea. I haven't tried Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride yet, so I can't say what it's like. But my favorite of them all is Sugar Plum Spice. It's spicy with a floral note and perfect to sip when the weather outside is frightful. While drinking a cup, I thought back to previous cakes I made with tea and figured Sugar Plum Spice would make for a delicious cupcake flavor.

I have my favorite go-to cupcake recipes, though today I mixed it up and used the Amy Sedaris Vanilla Cupcake recipe,, but halved the original recipe (the link I gave shows the original cupcake recipe scaled in half). I figured that although I hadn't tried it before, I'm sure it would work out well. It looked like a basic recipe.

To begin, I scalded milk and steeped two tea bags in it. After five minutes, I removed the bags and let the milk cool to room temperature.

I also cut open a tea bag and added the leaves to the butter and sugar. I found this adds even more flavor to the cake and you don't notice the tea leaves when you eat it.

When you make a pot of Sugar Plum Spice tea, the tea has a reddish plum color. That wasn't going to work with the cupcake batter because the steeped milk was a little gray, so I added a tiny bit of Wilton food gel coloring to the butter and sugar.

After those two little additions, the recipe proceeds like standard cake recipes. The eggs and vanilla are added to the creamed butter and sugar followed by the flour, in three additions, and the milk in between the flour. I always give cake batters one final stir with the spatula.

I noticed that there didn't seem to be much batter and I was worried the cupcakes weren't going to look very impressive. I like tall, domed cupcakes, not small squatty cakes. There wasn't enough batter to fill the cups up 2/3rds of the way, which technically is what you want. Personally, I always fill them up a little higher when I make cupcakes but there wasn't anywhere near enough to do that this time.

As I expected, the cupcakes didn't really rise much higher than the top of the tin. I also failed to grease the tin properly and almost all of the cupcakes tore as I prodded them out with a butter knife. Failure. Fortunately, they at least tasted flavorful and buttery, with a delicate crumb that melted in your mouth.

I didn't really know what to do with the cupcakes until I decided to turn them into cake balls.

U-G-H.

Thinking back on my last cake ball venture didn't leave me with fond memories. Because I didn't want to waste perfectly good tasting cake, so I proceeded with the idea, making a quick batch of buttercream. I may have made a bit too much because the mixture was kind of tacky after combining the buttercream with the crumbled cake. I stuck it in the fridge overnight and hoped it would be edible.

The next day, I melted two cups of white chocolate chips over a double boiler with shortening. Shortening helps create a smooth consistency that makes it much easier to coat the balls. I don't know how much I used, but it was probably close to 1/3 of a cup until I got the consistency I wanted. It easily flowed from a spoon and wouldn't result in a gloppy mess. I would use Wilton Candy Melts or bar chocolate next time since they melt more easily than chips, which are made to keep their shape. Chips can be used and I often use them because that's what I usually have in the pantry, but it takes longer.

The process went quickly and the cake balls were firm enough to be rolled in the chocolate without melting. I think I was a little sloppy when I transferred them to the wax paper-lined baking sheet, though, because mini disks of chocolate spread out underneath. The tops of the balls were sprinkled with coarse sanding sugar mixed with raspberry jello powder to make a subtle pink sugar. They looked pretty and festive.

They tasted really good, too. The spiciness was dulled a little by the frosting (which I didn't flavor with more tea for whatever reason), though they still were good and the tea flavor did come through. The white chocolate coating wasn't overpowering, either. All in all, success!

IZZEcake

Remember the cake I talked about? Here it is! Since the juices are so good, I wanted to incorporate them in a baked treat. I have always been curious about champagne cakes, so I decided to use a recipe for one, replacing the champagne with IZZE Sparkling Blackberry juice.

I ran into some trouble along the way. The cake baked up fine, though the tops stuck to the cooling rack, and I had trouble lifting them off without tearing. This wouldn't have mattered much, except I sliced each layer in half to create a four layer cake. In the end, you can't tell.

My other snafu was the icing. I settled on making a confectioners' sugar based buttercream (I wouldn't suggest it -- it's too sweet), but ran out of sugar. I had just enough to ice between the layers and give the cake a crumb coat.
Since I couldn't leave it unfinished, I figured I'd make a half a recipe of 7-minute icing. Halfway along the way, I remembered how unstable it is, as it begins to dissolve after a day. No problem. Beating in butter will turn it into a Swiss meringue buttercream of sorts, right? The problem I encountered here was that I only had half a stick of unsalted butter in the fridge, which wasn't enough. As I whipped the butter into the frosting at high speed, I frantically attempted to soften frozen butter in the microwave. I didn't quite succeed at this, though I got enough softened butter chunks to make it work. After an extra stick and a half of butter, the buttercream whipped up into something resembling icing. A bit grainy, but I didn't mind.

The taste of the finished cake is delicious, even though you can tell there are two icings. The flavor of the IZZE isn't strong, but it gives the cake a fruity essence so I'd call it a success.

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If you would like the recipe, click through to this page. Other than replacing the champagne with the juice, I decreased the sugar to 1 1/2 cups to account for the sweetness the juice contains. I didn't use the icing from the recipe.

Valentine Cake

Maybe I have no soul. Perhaps I was born without tear ducts, but I (in my aged state) am not one to celebrate Valentine's Day other than to make themed edibles. So another year has passed and I've become more sarcastic than ever before, because the thought of this cake came to me early on and made Valentine's more than just another day for me.

I went with a classic red velvet double layer cake, complete with cream cheese icing. I've only made a red velvet once before, though it was cupcakes, and it was a really deep beet-purple red since I didn't actually have red food dye. The recipe for the cake and frosting came from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook, and my only substitution since I only had 1 tablespoon red dye was to add about 2 teaspoons raspberry Jello powder. Now, a red velvet layer cake has never appealed to me because it's practically in a state of limbo -- not quite chocolate, not really white or yellow. But it's red, and you're expecting it to taste like, I don't know, something other than just red. Adding the raspberry Jello powder gave it a lovely flavor that blended with the hint of cocoa powder, and that is how I will always make future red velvet cakes. I also colored and flavored the frosting with the Jello powder since I was out of red dye, and the chocolate icing was leftover from the football cakes.

This had to be the most difficult cake to slice into because it was the best cake I've ever made. Not just the cake itself, but the decoration and the design on top, it broke my heart.

I will never go to another recipe again. Soft, moist, simple to make and it bakes up wonderfully. The frosting was really good, though I added an extra cup of confectioners' sugar since the description said this was on the softer, looser side than regular frostings. It still was softer even after the extra cup, but any more would probably have made it much too sweet and taken over the tangy flavor of the cream cheese. (The recipe also says to use full fat cream cheese, otherwise it'll be too soupy.)

So Happy Valentine's to everyone, whether it was indeed happy or sad.

Recipe after jump.

Red Velvet Layer Cake
From The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

Serves 8-10

Note: For the cake to have the proper rise and color, you must use natural cocoa powder; do not substitute Dutch-processed cocoa.

ingredients ~

2 tablespoons natural cocoa powder, plus more for dusting pans
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons red food coloring
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 cups cream cheese frosting (recipe will follow cake)

directions ~

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat to 350 degrees. Grease, line with parchment or wax paper, and dust with cocoa powder two 9-inch cake pans.


2. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, whisk the buttermilk, eggs, vinegar, and vanilla extract together. In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of the cocoa and red food coloring together to a smooth paste.


3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 6 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in one-third of the flour mixture, followed by half of the buttermilk mixture. Repeat with half of the remaining flour mixture and the remaining buttermilk mixture. Beat in the remaining flour mixture until just combined. Beat in the cocoa mixture until the batter is uniform.


4. Give the batter a final stir with a rubber spatula to make sure it is thoroughly combined. Scrape the bater into the prepared pans, smooth the tops, and gently tap the pans on the counter to settle the batter. Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, about 25 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking (I didn't do this).


5. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes. Run a small knife around the edge of the cakes, then flip them out onto a wire rack. Peel off the parchment paper, flip the cakes right side up, and let cool completely before frosting, about 2 hours.


6. Line the edges of a cake platter with stripes of parchment or wax paper to keep the platter clean while you assemble the cake. Place one of the cake layers on the platter (before doing this, place a small blob of icing in the center to hold the cake in place). Spread 1 cup of the frosting over the top, right to the edge of the cake. Place the other cake layer on top and press gently to adhere. Frost the cake with the remaining frosting (I did a crumb coat first, then sealed the cake with more icing) and remove the parchment strips from the platter before serving.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes about 4 cups

Note: Do not use low-fat or nonfat cream cheese or the frosting will turn out too soupy to work with. This frosting has a softer, looser texture than other frostings; it won't work with a three-layer cake. If the frosting becomes too soft to work with, let it chill in the refrigerator until firm.

ingredients ~

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups confectioners' sugar (I added an extra cup)

directions ~

1. Beat the cream cheese, butter, sour cream, vanilla, and salt together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until smooth, 2-4 minutes.


2. Reduce mixer speed to medium-low, slowly add the confectioners' sugar, and beat until smooth, 4 to 6 minutes. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, 4 to 6 minutes.

To make ahead
The frosting can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Let the frosting stand at room temperature until slightly softened, about 1 hour, then whip with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Easy Bake takes the cake

The timer would not cooperate.

This will be a blast from the past for many of you, an Easy Bake Oven blog appearance! Before you laugh, there is an entire book of gourmet recipes scaled down to Easy Bake size that legit chefs have contributed to, even Rick Bayless. And so, as requested, I now blog about Easy Bake cake.

I would like to mention that this oven has not seen the light of day for a few years. The same crusted cake that overflowed onto the metal hinge flap is still there, though. Sigh, memories!

I found a site that shows how to make homemade mixes and I started off with the brownie mix. It turned into more of a cake since I don't have chocolate syrup, and not just a chocolate cake, but an applesauce chocolate cake.

Now if you're an environmentalist, an Easy Bake Oven is not for you. You can't use any of those special earth-saving light bulbs because these cakes took 15 minutes per layer. And, as you know, only one layer can bake at a time. This is with a standard high-wattage light bulb. And if the bulb breaks inside the oven, forget about it. You'll have toxic waste cakes.

An hour and four cake layers later, I was finished for the night. I did have fun baking this, and I even took a video of the first cake going in the oven. That's not really upload-worthy, but it gets funnier because I forgot which side the cake goes in. Easy Bake Oven fail.

The next day is frosting day, my favorite part of cake baking. Nothing says cute more than a miniature pink layer cake. You could probably slap pink on anything, call it cute, and the world will concur.

This is so much fun. I mean, seriously, if you're on a diet, this is the cake for you. If you have ADD, this is your kind of cake. (Don't get mad -- it's the truth. Oh wait, I forgot about how long it took to bake.)

I'm just really quite flabbergasted by how well this turned out. The cake layers were moist, the entire thing looks genius, and you just want to stare at it all day, knocking on neighbors' doors and offering them a bite-size slice of cake. (I didn't.)

If you really want to one up your wedding, tell everyone that the mini cakes were baked in an Easy Bake Oven.

The guests will die.

Some might call you crazy.

But they'll always remember the cake. Imagine a line up of freaky illuminated Easy Bakes all in the same room with hundreds of little mini cake pans ready to pop in the oven, a nonstop process that begins half a year before the date of your wedding. Incredible.

So here is the special request cake. I hope you like it. =)

Hostess Giant Orange Cupcake Birthday Cake

My mom's request for her birthday this year (earlier in November; yes, I'm behind; Happy Thanksgiving!) was for a giant Hostess Orange Cupcake cake.

I settled on a yellow cake recipe from Nick Malgieri, a vanilla pastry cream buttercream, and orange marshmallow fondant to cover the cake. This butter is for the frosting; the butter gets whipped, the pastry cream is slowly added. I liked the frosting, but at room temperature it wasn't as sturdy as a Swiss meringue buttercream, or even a regular buttercream. It did have more of the texture and taste of the vanilla filling the regular snack cakes have, though there's room for improvement.

If you don't like fondant, I urge you to try marshmallow fondant. In fact, I will pester you until you do. Not only is it incredibly simple, but so tasty that you'll want to pinch pieces off and eat it. The bad part is that I broke my hand held mixer because I continued to use it instead of using a giant wooden spoon once I realized it might be too thick. But now you know that it's possible to mix it by hand! At a certain point I began kneading the fondant and it was all really easy. I added the flavoring (orange oil) and food color (orange, obviously) after the marshmallows were melted.

Easy to roll out with a bit of confectioners' sugar to keep the fondant from sticking to the surface. I quickly realized that I should have halved the recipe; even now, a few weeks layer, half of the fondant remains.

And here we are, a giant Hostess Orange Cupcake, complete with the squiggly line across the top.

The cake was a hit, and Mom was very pleased! We decided the coating should probably be an orange white chocolate ganache next time, but none of us picked the marshmallow fondant off the cake.

Happy Birthday!

happy 200th post!

Since I've never made much of a mention of my 1st and 2nd years of blogging, I decided that I would bake a cake for my 200th post! It's kind of cool to think that I've been blogging this long, and that with all the breaks I've come back and stayed with it. The food blogging community is really great and I've learned quite a bit about cooking and baking just from reading all the different posts from everyone. You guys are also some of the most hilarious people out there!

Brown butter layer cake with light and airy chocolate buttercream

While I originally planned on baking the yellow cake from a Nick Malgieri, the technique of beating the cake for 3 minutes at the end reminded me of a cake recipe from The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook I got as a birthday gift last year. The difference is the use of melted butter instead of beating the butter and sugar together, thus creating a denser cake, but I figured that it'd still be rather light and not hockey puck-ish. And I'm lazy, melting butter takes less time than letting it come to room temperature.

The key to a perfectly decorated cake is a crumb coat

Called Anne's Liniment Cake, readers of the Anne of Green Gables will remember that the Reverend and Mrs. Allan were coming over to the Cuthbert's house for dinner and Anne begged Marilla to let her make a cake for Mrs. Allan, whom she adored.

While Anne was wont to daydream and ruin many attempts at baking, she maintained her focus from start to finish and produced a lovely layer cake that did justice to anyone cooking in Marilla's kitchen.

Dinner came and went, and while everyone was stuffed from the many delicacies of Marilla's table, Mrs. Allan, once realizing that Anne had baked the cake just for her, was pleased to have a slice. Unfortunately, Anne's first few years at Green Gables were pegged with Charlie Brown cases in the sense that the football was always being removed just as she was about to kick it. Instead of vanilla extract, Anne had mistakenly used anodyne liniment. The liniment bottle broke and Marilla poured the remains into an empty vanilla extract bottle.

So, this cake is titled in honor of Anne, using vanilla extract in the place of liniment.

Since the butter in this recipe is melted, I went ahead and decided to brown the butter, letting it cool a bit afterward, and using buttermilk in place of the regular milk. There is no baking soda present, though there isn't any in Dorie's Perfect Party Cake either and I figured it would be fine. More on this later.

The batter tasted wonderfully, as brown butter and vanilla are compatible flavors, and the batter was thick and fluffy. I felt very good about this cake.

It's a really pretty cake, and the layers baked up dense and sturdy, easy to move around, though lacking the dry, sawdust feel you get from cakes that are dense. The downside, however, was that it came out tasteless. How brown butter and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract could translate into flavorless, we have no idea! Maybe I should have added a bit of cardamom, or maybe the buttermilk canceled out the flavors since the Perfect Party Cake does have lemon zest and extract, though it's optional so I'm deciding that it had nothing to do with buttermilk. Perplexing, to be sure. I'll post the recipe anyway and if you have any tips, perhaps a sugar syrup spread on the layers, or anything reason you can think of that explains what happened, let me know.

This really didn't stop anyone from eating the cake, as it still tasted good even if rather flavorless, and it just made the chocolate buttercream stand out more. The buttercream is a simple butter-shortening, Wilton-standby that's easily whipped up on a moment's notice.

So, Happy 200th Post to me, and to everyone who's been reading this blog!

P.S. Blogger says I have only 200 posts published, yet I have a total of 201 posts. Whatever the reason may be, this is the 200th post because it has cake.

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Anne's Liniment Cake
From The Anne of Green Gable Cookbook by Kate Macdonald

ingredients ~

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup melted butter (I browned the butter)
1 cup milk (I used buttermilk)
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Chocolate buttercream, using a total of 1/3 cup milk

directions~

1. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans (I greased the pans, lined with wax paper, then greased the wax paper and dusted with flour). Preheat the oven to 350°.


2. Measure out the sifted flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar and whisk together in a large bowl.


3. Add the melted butter and the milk to the flour mixture and beat the mixture for 1 minute with an electric mixer, scraping down the sides of a bowl with a spatula.


4. Add the eggs with the vanilla to the cake batter, then beat with the mixer for another 3 minutes, constantly scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.


5. Pour the cake batter evenly into the two cake pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Test the cakes with a toothpick, or press lightly on the top; the toothpick should come out clean, or the tops will have a bit of resistance when pressed.


6. Let cool, in pans, on wire rack for ten minutes. Slice the blade of a butter knife around the edges to loosen the cake from the pans. Turn cakes out on wire rack. Let cool completely before icing.