How It All Started

Bob Phillips

The title of this blog was inspired by one of my Spanish professor's at Miami University of Ohio, Dr. Robert Phillips, who died in the e...

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Birrrrthday Cake

A couple of rules about Casa Hayes-Boh birthdays:

  1. The celebration starts early, with Attainment Day. Careful readers of this space will notice a few recipes that I prepared for May 26 celebrations in recent years. 
  2. The honoree gets whatever kind of cake they want, providing either a category or a recipe for someone else in the household to make. Pam made my favorite "Stirring Up" Mocha cake to celebrate my birthday earlier this month, for example.
  3. We have blanket permission to pronounce "birrrrthday present" like Sméagol/Gollum much more than would otherwise be acceptable.
All of which is to say that Pam requested that I prepare a sprinkle-festooned Rainbow Sprinkle Cake, courtesy of New York Times Cooking.

Photo: Romulo Yanes for The New York Times.
 Food Stylist: Vivian Lui.
To make the cake, I followed Julia Moskin's instructions carefully, with two small exceptions: I did not try to cut any convexities off the cake layers, though I did put the bottom layer on its plate with the dome side down. Also, I did not measure the vanilla -- I add it in dollops, which is why my frosting was more tan than white.

The result was a somewhat dense but delicious cake. It was colorful enough to draw compliments from our birthday guests. Lacking a food stylist, however, it was not quite as photogenic as the cake featured in the Times

I wish I had read some of the comments online before I began; had I done so, I might have heeded the advice of one reader who suggested making only half the called-for frosting. I had enough left over to frost at least one more cake!

And now only one question remains: what, if any, is the difference between frosting and icing?

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