Lou Lou

{goodbye for now/ happy birthday lou!}

I would like to preface this post by saying that I do not bake a cake every few days. It just so happens that we have a lot of birthdays at the beginning of the year. It also happens that my little sister is taking off for a three month long vacation to South East Asia this Tuesday. All this to say, I had no choice but to make her a "goodbye for now/ early happy birthday" cake.

I was feeling adventurous so I thought I would try a cake of the ice-cream variety. Who doesn't feel like ice-cream in early February? Perhaps my baking luck is turning; I only had to make this cake once. If I am being honest, I should mention that I had one minor mishap. I noticed the other day that one of our silicone spatulas had a loose piece on the end. I thought these things were supposed to be really durable? I didn't want to throw out an otherwise perfectly good spatula so I popped it back in the drawer. As I was stirring the cake batter I noticed that the loose piece was missing. I felt like a Real Housewife of Orange County: where could that silicone have gone? Luckily the piece was sizeable and thus easy to find when I poured the batter onto the pan. Don't worry family, I checked, the piece I found in the cake fit the spatula perfectly.

The cake (recipe found here) was good, but not great. I was impressed how easily it rolled and I thought it looked really pretty, but the cake itself seemed overpowered by the ice cream. If I made it again I would use better ice-cream (I used the PC ice cream shop mint chocolate chip) and I would make sure to freeze it overnight. The recipe recommends a night in the freezer, but it also suggests using a jelly roll pan and it is not 1950 -- how was I to know what to take seriously?

I'm excited for my sister and I'm proud how brave she is. Now get back here in one piece missy.

{I'll miss you Laura Lou}