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Dear Reader,
It's tradition. Every summer when Bailey, my granddaughter comes to visit, we bake something quirky and memorable with my good friend Linda. This year Paul, my six-year-old grandson, baked with us, too. He's been baking with me once a week since he was three, so he handles a mixer like a pro.
Our memorable baking choice this year was a polka dotted cake. I'd seen the recipe online a few months back, including photos, and I was intrigued. Because the polka dots aren't on the outside of the cake, three-inch, colored cake balls are hidden inside a three layer cake. So when you cut into the cake, you see big, perfectly round colored polka dots.
You need to mix enough cake batter for a three layer cake and 18 cake balls, so we used box mixes to save time. One cake mix was divided into five portions, each a different color. Then we poured the colored batter into a baking pop pan. (It's a pan that's used to make the popular cake balls on a stick.) The balls need to be under baked, just a tad, because after they come out of the oven, you divide them between three regular cake pans, then cover the balls with the rest of the batter, and then those pans go into the oven to bake.
Because we were baking with six-year-old Paul, Linda, Bailey (who is 18), and I were determined not to initiate any jokes about the colored balls. But no matter how hard we tried, it was impossible not to start laughing when you have to ask questions like:
"How long do we have to bake these balls? Make sure you cover up those balls after you put them in the pan. The balls shouldn't be sticking up through the batter."
And then after the balls were in the oven we discovered, "Oh no the balls are floating to the top of the cake pan. How are we gonna keep those balls down? My balls are browning too quickly. The cake will have bumps in the top, because the balls are breaking through the batter. We might have to slice off the tops of those balls, to level the cake." (Men might be uncomfortable baking this cake.)
We were thrilled with the results, but we did learn that if you're making a towering cake, you should freeze the layers, before you start decorating. See the step-by-step photos (of our leaning--just a bit) three-layer cake, including those mischievous colored balls, go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/Polka-Dot-Cake.html
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
* This month's Penguin Classics book is DEATH OF A HERO by Richard Aldington. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/July13Classics
AUTHORBUZZ: THE CATERPILLAR AND THE STONE (Fiction) by Erec Stebbins
"Once upon a time in the middle of a beautiful garden, there lived a Caterpillar and a Stone, and they were very much in love." Have you ever had a loss that you survived only by transforming it into myth? This is my fairy's tale of love, loss, and beauty for not quite grown-ups: an illustrated love storybook.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE CATERPILLAR AND THE STONE to read more and to email author Erec Stebbins, you'll get a reply.
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