another food post

Today is Steve's birthday (happy birthday Steve!). In some ways I think I enjoy his birthday more than my own. For example, I didn't bother making myself a birthday cake (even though I LOVE cake) because it seemed silly and a little wasteful to make a whole cake for just the two of us. But by his birthday, we realized the folly of this thinking: that his coworkers will eat anything (ANYTHING) that sits in the departmental office long enough. As evidence of this I can personally attest to the truly disgusting, cold, congealed take out that was left over from some departmental function that I, myself have eaten...because it was there. So out with the old plan (the two of us eating with exponentially increasing self loathing equally increasingly stale cake until one of us finally dumps some portion of it in the garbage) and in with the new: birthday cake for everyone! Some of you have eaten my cakes--I decided to abandon mixes once I realized it's nearly as easy to make them from scratch and much, much more delicious--so you know that as often as not, they turn out pretty well. Last year, when we were still on the Old Plan but with the scale-tipping addition of my sister (no love handle pun intended--really) I made this:

It was an orange chocolate cake with a lovely ganache (recipe available here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/09/this-cake-has-a-hole-in-it/) Sure her ganache was a little ganachier than the one I ended up making, but pain that this was to make, it tasted amazing. It was also perfect for my Stephen (aka Dr. Poopjoke) since it required the purchase of a bundt pan, which was almost immediately rechristened the butt pan.

This year we know each other even better and Steve finally felt comfortable confiding in me that he doesn't really like frosting in the traditional sense. Ganaches and glazes are fine but butter cream really isn't his thing. In a less perfect union this might have be cause for alarm. Indeed in my younger, singler, more care-free days I largely considered the point of making cake the opportunity to also make large quantities of frosting, sometimes to the exclusion of the actual cake, putting the frosting directly in a tupperware container so that I could eat it on fruit--strawberries, bananas--or sometimes as a meal in itself with a spoon. But Steve and I are meant to be, and I've taken his honesty as a bit of a challenge--to make the most delicious frosting free cake ever! So this year I whipped together this (recipe available at http://www.joyofbaking.com/LemonCranberryPoundCake.html):

Yes, it's a bit like last year's. Indeed, if you substitute the orange for lemon and the chocolate chunks for dried cranberries soaked in brandy, you'd have the general gist of it. But the added bonus of this year's is that it's a pound cake. Yes, this airy, six egg, three cups of sugar, full pound of butter, four and a half lemon confection was so big it nearly spilled out of the butt pan and took a good heave-ho to get out of the oven. (I recently learned--and then promptly forgot--that a pound cake gets its name from the vast magnitude of its ingredients, namely a pound each of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs.) Steve and I had two pieces each and the rest was gone by lunch time. To wit, I must say, good job Steve's coworkers, good job.

Tonight we head to the hibachi to continue Steve's tradition of celebrating his birthday (which also happens to be Pearl Harbor Day) with the consumption of theatrically prepared Japanese food. Some coincidences are too perfect to let pass by.