Sometimes, All You Need is Cake.

Day 21.



It's my birthday.

Every year, for everyone's birthday, I make cake. I take special orders: what flavor, what color, what design? And I make a cake.

Even my own.



No, really, I enjoy it, and prefer my cake over store-bought.

This year, I was going to make sponge cake with alternating filling layers of blueberry and lemon, with fondant icing and a big white fondant bow on top. Simple, elegant, delicious.

Then my daughter told me that she wanted to make me a cake. I was so touched by her generosity...by her thinking of me... Of course I agreed to forego my traditional cake baking and let her run the show! And run the show she did! She made a cake from scratch with no adult assistance at all. She found the recipes. She did it all. And we got to eat it.

And it was good.

I am so proud of my little cake baker. But most of all, I am so proud of her spirit of giving.

Bayberry's Dark Chocolate Buttercream Frosting (Borrowed from Kittencal at Recipezaar)

frosts top and sides of a double layer 9" round cake, with leftovers for licking and sharing with siblings

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup 1/2 & 1/2
• 1/2 cup dark unsweetened cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

How it's Done:

1. Cream butter in mixing bowl. Add cocoa. Beat in sugar and 1/2 & 1/2 and vanilla, alternating adding sugar and 1/2 & 1/2 / vanilla until smooth and creamy. Stop every so often and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
2. Frost cake as desired.