Meltwater of Bluster

Cake . . . Such cake, very frosting . . . . I will be chased by cake in my dreams, if I ever go to sleep. I thought it would be easy . . . . I made this three-layer lemon-orange cake. It sounded simple and pretty. In my fantasy world, I even had time to decorate it with a few flowers. But, as in the sonnet, I found it "in waking no such matter." A kind friend posted a yummy lemon curd recipe that you can make in the microwave. This sounded quick and simple. Unfortunately, while I was melting some butter in the microwave, I blew it up somehow and my entire microwave was thickly coated with the very best butter. If only this had been a recipe for coating your microwave evenly in melted butter, I would have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams! After I cleaned up this fine disaster, I felt kind of gun-shy of the microwave and ended up making the lemon curd the slow way, stirring it over boiling water for ten minutes. Then I made the frosting, which sounds easy but was not because it involves quite a lot of hand-grated lemon and orange zest, plus fresh-squeezed juice. My kitchen is littered with dismembered citrus.

Then I put the cake together and frosted and filled it. Lemon curd is a slippery little critter. The cake is in the refrigerator now, stuck together with toothpicks to keep it from sliding sideways on a frictionless layer of lemon curd. Baking is my forte, if we're talking about flavor, but sometimes the presentation goes a bit pearshaped. My hope is that it will chill into shape overnight and then I can take out the toothpicks and give it a bit of a polish. Everything does taste exceedingly lemony. It's delicious, but I hope not too acute for the palates of the guests. I hope it will mellow a bit overnight and be just lemony enough, perhaps with the addition of a little vanilla ice cream when served. My evening would have made a priceless episode of the Great British Bake-Off, but I think I might have been asked to leave the pavilion. I'm the only baker my family has, though, so they can't get rid of me.

Ermine of Bluster

I can't quite believe this was all just one day, but it ends with mission accomplished on several fronts. We got up pretty early, loaded up the cake (toothpicks removed, and rosettes and "Happy Birthday 93" added with extra orange-tinted frosting), the calendar clock, a knife, cake server, napkins and extra plates added just in case, and got in the car. These days I always bring a go-bag with my jammies, medication, and a change of clothes just in case we have to stay over for some reason. But I'm happy to say we didn't have to.

We arrived shortly after 11, stopped to pick up the flowers we'd ordered from the local florist, and were in Mother's room by 11:30. We then helped her with necessary tasks of getting ready, and managed to arrive in the dining room in the next building at 12:15, only 15 minutes late! The Duchess and Duke and Ikes, who made a special day trip all the way from Chicago to be present, had just arrived, and Mr. Science and his daughter got there 20 minutes later. The staff had set us up with a nice table in a cozy spot. We had lunch, sang Happy Birthday, and had cake. I brought a rather large serrated knife and a cake server, and Mother insisted on cutting the cake herself with great panache. What we didn't eat was stashed in containers so she can serve it to Mr. Science's other offspring and their boyfriend, who will be arriving tomorrow. The Mad Scientist's Daughter brought another big bunch of spring flowers, and the Duchess gave Mother some lovely sachets to make her closet smell nice. We set up the calendar clock on the windowsill where it will be easy for her to see what time, day of the week, and date it is.

We left about 3, and got home before the freezing rain started--yay--and drove immediately to the restaurant where we were meeting friends before going to see "Captain Marvel," which we also accomplished in fine style. By the time the movie ended, it was raining hard and the pavement was icing over--a very good night to be just a few minutes from home. And here we are. A good time was had by all, I think, and it was definitely worth the effort. After all, you don't get to celebrate a 93rd birthday every day!