The day-to-day, things that are neither here nor there. Follow via RSS.
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ooh.directory is “a collection of 2,018 blogs about every topic”. Pretty cool, and useful at a time when the major search engines seem to be totally whacked. And, my site is on it! Found out about it from Sam. ❤️ This led me in turn to its creator Phil Gyford’s personal site. Love it, talk about a personal repository!
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All of the birthdays in our little family fall within a 15 day period in the middle of the summer. There was a lot of cake around for nearly a month. And then we went to the UK to visit family who kindly wanted to celebrate all of our birthdays, so we did it all over again.
Now, B asks for cake after nearly every meal, sometimes for breakfast. Obviously we’ve been trying to phase it out, explaining that there’s none left. But there have been enough times when he’s asked for it at random moments and it has been around. So there’s no way he’s going to chance not asking for it.
This was the conversation the other day at his Nana’s table during lunch.
“KEHK??”
“No buddy, there’s no cake.”
“… Happy bur-day?”
“No buddy, there’s no cake. It’s no one’s birthday.”
“…… Happy bur-day Nana?”
“… 🤦🏻♂️”
It had been my birthday, Sam’s birthday, and his birthday already. But we hadn’t celebrated Nana’s yet, so it was a logical ask to be fair.
I asked him what his favorite song was yesterday, and he started singing Happy Birthday. (This was 100% a ploy for cake, his actual favorite song is “Hey Jude” because he likes to yell the NAH NAH NAH part.)
He’s still getting over jet lag since we arrived back from the UK last weekend, lots of 5:30am-ish wake-ups. This morning, he wandered sleepily out of his bedroom to go use the potty and the first thing he said was, “Bur-day?”
I’m pretty sure he thinks he can manifest cake.
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This is my Grandma Piper’s classic white frosting recipe that she always used on the family recipe for white layer cake. Her notes: “This frosting is super. It never hardens on the cake. BUT, it is only enough for sides and top. So must use a filling.” I just doubled it for B’s birthday cake and there was plenty left over.
I’d never heard of a frosting with a flour and milk base before so looked it up online. Apparently this is “ermine” frosting. I was sort of skeptical, but it is really, really nice. It’s not quite as sweet as a standard buttercream, and Grandma Piper is right. It stays so fluffy, it’s kind of crazy. It was super easy to spread even after it had been in the fridge (after it had come to room temp, of course).
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Double the quantities if using it for the top, sides, and inside of this white layer cake recipe.
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It’s such a stereotype. But there really is a moment when suddenly they’re not a baby anymore.
You open up your phone to look for particular photo and notice it’s automatically made a memories album of your kid. So you click and watch, and realize you missed the moment, whenever that was. It’s a weird shock that seems so obvious, it’s like you didn’t get to say goodbye to a friend you always knew had to leave.
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This recipe was in the cookbook that my Grandma Piper customized for me. This is apparently the cake that the Piper family always made for weddings (so my great-grandma’s recipe on my Grandpa’s side, I think), and my Grandma made it for birthday parties. I made this for the first time last week for B’s birthday party on the weekend.
It results in an exceptionally smooth batter, it almost feels a bit too fancy for a kid’s party. But it’s a lovely cake! It also stored well double-wrapped in the fridge for a few days before I iced it. I haven’t tried freezing this cake, but I think it would probably work nicely.
Grandma would have always used her KitchenAid, but it was no problem making this with handheld electric beaters. Her recipe didn’t specify salted or unsalted butter. I used salted and quite liked it. Likewise it didn’t specify the sugar. I’m almost certain she would have used granulated, but I used caster which worked fabulously. If you use caster, just make sure to go with the weight measurement, not cups.
Apparently this recipe makes 3 dozen cupcakes and you have to bake those for 25 minutes. But I’ve never tried it, and there is no more instruction from her on that.
Goes well with this classic white frosting recipe.
* This cake is sort of hard to tell when it’s done. When done, it will have picked up a little bit of color on top and should pull away from the sides of the pan slightly. If you listen to it you shouldn’t hear much crackling, and if you very lightly press the top, it shouldn’t feel like you pop too many bubbles.
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This post by Peter Richardson is wild. I considered doing something like this a few years ago but A) the tech didn’t exist / wasn’t easily accessible, and B) I’ve been sort of afraid of how deep the rabbit hole is.
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My favorite season as a kid was summer (obvi). Then autumn in my 20s, maybe because I actually started experiencing it then. Now it’s spring. You get all of the excitement and anticipation of summer without the humidity and mosquitos. Not sure it will ever be winter, but who knows.
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I think it’s time to get in to macrame. The big girl version of my childhood friendship bracelet habit. F**k it, bring back friendship bracelets too!
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My grandma’s cheesecake is truly the best around in my opinion, and it has been a huge hit on the extremely rare occasions I have made it for friends.
It is a little involved to make, you really need to follow the instructions and ingredients quite carefully in order for this to come out right. It takes about a whole afternoon and it’s best to let it chill in the fridge overnight, but it’s very worth it. Also worth the lactase pill, in my case. Can be made 1–2 days ahead of time.
I’ve included variations on the original recipe below because she included these variations in the cookbook she gave me. I’ve never made them myself though, not yet!
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This is a re-written version of my grandma’s recipe. I inhaled this as a kid.
It’s basically a really massive “drop” biscuit that you then slice in to portions and drown in strawberries + milk. It is one of the quickest and easiest things to make, a must between May and June.
You can use oat milk instead, just try to use something as similar to whole milk in consistency as you can find. The smaller the strawberries, the sweeter they are. A sturdy straw works fantastically as a strawberry core-er.
Also, you can make this ahead of time, but it’s really best enjoyed the same day you make it. The crispy bits of the cake go a little soft after the first day, and the strawberries, while still delicious, start to look a little sad and anemic. It’ll still taste good, but I recommend re-warming a slice of cake if you’re having it the next day or so.
One final thought: This makes quite a lot of cake + strawberries… Might be worth halving this recipe if you’re not serving many people.
As my grandma wrote in her recipe book (she was confident about this recipe, and she wasn’t often wrong): “MMMM good!”