How I Got Frostbite While Baking a Cake & The 12 Gary Hoey Days of Christmas

I have five dogs monkeys. So, I am thinking my marriage prospects are slim.

I think, I may as well get fat. 

I enjoy cooking but as a single gal the serving suggestions  are ridiculous.

I cook one meal and it lasts almost a week or 

I get tired of the meal after day THREE, and share it with the dogs monkeys.

Anywhooo, back to my quest of getting fat.

I baked not one but two cakes.

Per a recipe found on Pinterest.

Modified, of course. 

My changes are highlighted in pink.

This is the recipe that gave me frostbite.

Lemon Raspberry Cake

Okay. First let me say, my cake looked NOTHING like this.

This looks light and fluffy.

IT IS NOT!

Here are the ingredients.

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup low-fat buttermilk

1 ¼ cups sugar

3 large eggs(from my chickens. Yay! Chickens!)

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (from 1 large lemon)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup vegetable oil

juice of 1 large lemon( I used 3 tbsp lemon juice)

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries(All that could fit in one hand)

2 tablespoons framboise liqueur* (raspberry liqueur)(Did not have this. I suspect one of the monkeys drank it all or I never purchased any.)

2 tablespoons sugar

1/3 cup sugar (for sauce)

I decided to make this cake because:

A. It sounded DANG GOOD!

B. I had "most" of the ingredients on hand. Yay! Me!

These are the directions.

Directions:

Preheat the oven 350°F. Butter and line a loaf pan with parchment paper.Umm..totally missed this parchment part. I would grease the pan, next time.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk and combine the buttermilk, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla extract. Mix the buttermilk mixture with the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in the vegetable oil until evenly incorporated. Pour into prepared loaf pan. Allow batter to rest.

In a blender, blend the lemon juice, raspberries, framboise liqueur, and sugar. Blend until smooth. Take one ounce of the raspberry mixture, straining if desired(I like the seeds), and drizzle lightly on top of the cake batter. Use a toothpick to swirl into the batter.(I used half of the handful in each cake. Sue me, I love raspberries.)

Place the loaf pan into the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.(I had to bake this for the full 50 minutes. This is a very dense cake.)

Strain the remaining raspberry mixture into a sauce pan. Add 1/3 cup sugar, and cook over medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves. Cool and set aside.(Yeah, I did none of this.)

When the cake is done, let it cool on a wire rack. Serve the slices with the ruby raspberry sauce. (Yeah, umm...no. I put it all in the cake, thank you very much!)Enjoy!

*Optional. If you do not have any raspberry liqueur, substitute with water.(This I did do.)

Okay, as I said earlier this is a very dense cake. The only difference I made between the two cakes,  one had the full amount of oil and the second cake had only half the amount.

Taste difference? None, really.
Appearance difference? None, really.

In my cakes the raspberry filling went throughout the cake, not really visible on the top. Of course, I did NOT use the one ounce measurement suggested in the recipe. Again, sue me.

Two questions remain. 

How in the world did I get frostbite making a cake and
would I make this cake again?

Did you notice that this recipe calls for a real live lemon?
I had this, sorta.

I use the juice of two lemons elsewhere and threw the lemon carcases in the freezer.

J U S T~ I N~ C A S E!

So, lucky lucky me I had it to use for the lemon zest.

WARNING:

Zesting

frozen

lemons

WILL 

give

you 

frostbite.

I should make a t-shirt with this slogan.

And OH, YES! 

I WILL MAKE THIS CAKE AGAIN!!!

I liked it soooo much, the monkeys did not even get a taste!

And now we continue our series on Christmas!

Featuring:

Gary Hoey~ The 12 Days of Christmas

Enjoy!!