Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Strawberry Cake.

My husband turned 39 last week. He either requests no cake or an ice cream cake. This year, it seemed he was leaning towards "no cake" and I find that unacceptable for a birthday. So, I found this cake in my recent Cooking Light and decided to give it a go. I knew he'd be OK with a CL recipe. He's very calorie conscious.

The reviews on the Cooking Light website are very mixed. Some people say the cake simply tastes like flour, others rave. In our house, we all enjoyed it. Honestly, I do think it could use more strawberry flavor in the actual cake, but I'd be concerned that adding more strawberry puree would make the cake too dense. I will make this cake again and play around a bit. Perhaps I will add some vanilla extract; I thought it was odd that there wasn't any in the recipe. Or, maybe some strawberry extract for more strawberry flavor. But I don't know... I've never used that before and don't really know what it tastes like. Is it too artificial tasting? Another thing I've decided to do... add strawberry preserves in between the layers.
The frosting was pretty good, but I really didn't see the point of the orange juice (used that instead of the Grand Marnier). There was no orange flavor, maybe add some zest? But I don't know, I think I'll just skip the orange all together next time. It didn't do a thing.
Overall, good cake, just needs a few alterations to make it great.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Yes, that's right, make some damn delicious lemonade!

I got a lot of lemons this week; both figuratively and literally. With the figurative lemons, well, that'll work out. With the literal lemons, a big, fresh batch of homemade lemonade was made.

Got the recipe here. But, I'll write it out because it's pretty simple. It really is quite sweet so next time I'll add a lot more lemon juice. While I was squeezing the lemons, I wished I had one of those old depression glass hand juicers that my parents used to have.


Perfect Lemonade
  • 1 cup sugar (can reduce to 3/4 cup)
  • 1 cup water (for the simple syrup)
  • 1 cup lemon juice
  • 3 to 4 cups cold water (to dilute)

1 Make simple syrup by heating the sugar and water in a small saucepan until the sugar is dissolved completely.

2 While the sugar is dissolving, use a juicer to extract the juice from 4 to 6 lemons, enough for one cup of juice.

3 Add the juice and the sugar water to a pitcher. Add 3 to 4 cups of cold water, more or less to the desired strength. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes. If the lemonade is a little sweet for your taste, add a little more straight lemon juice to it.

Serve with ice, sliced lemons.

Serves 6.