{TWD} Tale of a Perfect Party Cake - Guest Post!

Hi, j.d.e. here, guest-posting for my mom this week. You may not have known that I was into food blogging way before my mom was. I’m not going to take all the credit, but I am actually the one who told her that she should make a food blog. *Ahem!*

Anyway, long long ago, in a land far, far away, way before my mom had her blog (which is to say, the 2007-2008 school year), I was reading all of these food blogs and came across a post featuring the recipe for Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake. I knew I had to make it soon.

Some backstory: I tried to bake a red velvet cake for my boyfriend G’s birthday last May, right before I came home from college, but I didn’t have cake flour, so I used regular flour instead. DON’T EVER DO THAT. That cake ended up turning out rather like a brick (red, dense, and rather dry). Let me tell y’all: brick cake is not where it’s at!

My boyfriend, the saint that he is, did indeed eat some of The Brick Cake—and even managed to squeeze out a compliment or two—but I felt so bad about his failed birthday cake that I decided to make him another cake when he visited Georgia over summer break. And that second cake was Dorie’s cake.

Now, the funny part is that my mom doesn’t remember ANY of this. She recently told me that TWD was making the Perfect Party Cake, and she was extremely surprised when I told her that I’d already made it once. Even my [terrible quality] pictures (see, above and below), very obviously taken in our kitchen, prompted a blank face.

notes:

- I did make four layers, but I didn't put both frosting and jam in each layer. Instead, I put frosting in two layers and jam in the middle one. Much easier.

- I used raspberry jam for the jam layer. If I remember correctly, it had seeds. I thought that the raspberry was great with the lemon, so if I made this again, I probably wouldn't be tempted to use one of my mom's many other exotic jellies. Though we have many.

- I do remember that my mom was very impressed when I split each cake round evenly in half, thus making four cake layers. (This doesn’t sound like a huge feat, but if you’ve ever seen me mangle bagels in the morning, you’d be impressed too!) She also liked the lemony taste of the whole cake overall. And that’s all I can say about the affair.

Don’t let my tale convince you that this cake is not memorable—it really is (for some of us). I do think that this is the cake I’d want if someone threw a party for me. In fact, this cake is what convinced me to buy Dorie’s book later that week. And Dorie’s book is what prompted me to tell my mom about Tuesdays With Dorie. And Tuesdays With Dorie is what prompted my mom to start this blog. The End.