Mom's Birthday Cake- Episode 2: Rise and Shine

Since we had a busy day ahead of us, I forced myself out of bed at 8 o'clock Saturday morning to bake the cake. The recipe called for a mixture of sour cream, more lemon zest, and lemon juice as the wet ingredients.

Dry ingredients included cake flour (which I had never used before,) regular all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt, all sifted together. In the mixer went butter, sugar, and eggs. I cracked one egg directly into the mixer and decided that it wasn’t a good idea. After all, I am quite a butterfingers. Once the butter, eggs, and sugar were all creamed, I alternated adding the dry and wet ingredients, starting and ending with dry. I’m not sure what difference it makes, but I’m a rule follower and who am I to question Martha Stewart?


It made a TON of thick delicious batter, at least compared to the very pourable boxed cake mixes that I’m used to. I scooped giant spatulas full of batter into the greased cake pans (Pam for baking is awesome.) Then I smoothed each cake and put them into the oven to bake.


I checked the cakes when they were supposed to be done and the center was still jiggly, so they went a lot longer than called for, but eventually the cake testers came out clean and my morning baking was at a close. The cakes did rise a lot, but when I stuck the toothpicks in the center to check for doneness, unfortunately they fell a little bit in the middle. Right before we left for the shower, I took the cakes out of their pans and left them to cool completely.