December already! I wonder why they decided to skip November this year? Going straight from Halloween to the Christmas season just seems so wrong. It's quite a monumental moment in our world history--I'm actually surprised there wasn't any sort of massive uproar over it. I mean, Thanksgiving is a pretty sweet holiday. It's too bad we missed it. At least thousands of turkeys' lives were spared this year.
Nah, I just didn't blog at all in the month of November, and I wanted to cover it up by trying to convince you that the wonderful 11th month of our year was non-existent. I think it worked for a second, but then you realized that I'm really bad at lying. And I'm also pretty fickle. How about we move on to YOUR imperfections? No?
Thousands of turkeys actually died, by the way. And the one that died for our Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic. (Shout out to you, Mama!)
ANYWAY.
How's your holiday season going? It is a little on the warm side, but I can dig it (I am NOT complaining Mother Nature, not for one second). Our holiday season over here starts with my mom's birthday, which is TODAY.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAMA! Double shout out.
If you know my mom, you already know she's an awesome lady. She's super fun...I'm pretty sure she has more of a social life than I do. And she's super nice, and really pretty. I'd post a picture of her and have you guess how old she's turning, and you'd probably all guess somewhere around 30, 32--MAYBE. But, she's probably horrified at the thought of that all going down, so we'll just skip that little game. But seriously, she's pretty much my BFF, and puts up with my fickleness, which is very admirable. Enjoy your day, Mama. I love you!
Obviously this cake is for my mom's birthday. I tried to come up with something that combines a few things she likes. So, I started with coffee buttercream (Mom loves coffee!), then moved on to the cake. Hmmm...what goes with coffee?....chocolate: BORING, vanilla: BORING, coffee: TOO MUCH COFFEE, hazelnut: NO. So what did I go with? Almond. Mom seems to like almonds. And I figured if I douse it in Disarrono, she'd be sold (Mom loves alcohol!). Now we have a party.
Almond Cake
Adapted from Living Tastefully
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup almond butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup amaretto liquor (I used Disarrono), plus more for dousing the cakes
2 cups cake flour (or 1 3/4 cup AP flour and 1/4 cup cornstarch)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup hot milk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and prepare two 9" cake pans. Cream butter, almond butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, and then add vanilla and amaretto. Mix in dry ingredients, slowly add the milk, and mix until just combined. Divide batter between the two pans and bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool cakes a bit and use a pastry brush to add some additional liquor.
The frosting I used was basically this frosting from a previous post.
See you in February!
Just kidding, maybe.
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup almond butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup amaretto liquor (I used Disarrono), plus more for dousing the cakes
2 cups cake flour (or 1 3/4 cup AP flour and 1/4 cup cornstarch)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup hot milk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and prepare two 9" cake pans. Cream butter, almond butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, and then add vanilla and amaretto. Mix in dry ingredients, slowly add the milk, and mix until just combined. Divide batter between the two pans and bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool cakes a bit and use a pastry brush to add some additional liquor.
The frosting I used was basically this frosting from a previous post.
See you in February!
Just kidding, maybe.
