Birthday Dinner!

Michael had asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday and I wanted to do dinner and a movie. But since we still have no sitter, we had to adapt - we got Horrible Bosses from Netflix and Michael offered to make me dinner. Luckily he's a good cook!

He had found country style pork ribs on sale - and we had leftover chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, so tacos it would be. He used a barbecue spice rub on the ribs - Corky's barbecue seasoning to be exact, to which he added more garlic salt and black and white pepper. He then made the sauce by pureeing the can of adobo chipotle peppers with some cider vinegar, some soy sauce, and brown sugar. Remember, we just guesstimate the amounts, so whatever looks & smells good will work. Then all of that went into the slow cooker to simmer for, I dunno, I want to say about 6 hours. Once it's done, you shred the meat, and if you're lucky enough to have a fat separator, good for you - the sauce is easy. We do not, so it's more of trying to siphon off some of the fat & saving what you can salvage from the sauce. Serve on small flour tortillas with shredded cabbage, salsa, and a bit of queso fresco. The pork is juicy and flavorful, not too spicy. A girl couldn't ask for more. Well, besides second helpings...

For dessert, we had the lemon cake as promised. I made the one from Fine Cooking, with a couple of adjustments as noted below:
9 1/4 oz cake flour
2 3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 3/4 c sugar
2 T finely grated lemon zest
3/4 c butter, softened
1 c whole milk, room temp
5 egg whites, room temp
1/4 c cream of tartar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two round cake pans. Whisk the cake flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl - I don't sift, and it didn't make a lick of difference, I assure you.

Steal lemons from neighbor's lemon tree under dark cover of night. (She's a total bitch, so I bet she'd have an issue with me borrowing a few, even though she just lets them fall to the ground for her landscapers to pick up once a week). Pulse 1/4 cup of the sugar with the zest in a food processor until well combined. When it comes to the lemon zest, I do not own a microplane. I've always thought that it would be cool, but never been able to justify the purchase of one. So I make zest using a regular grater, and that works for me. Also, while the cake turned out absolutely delicious, it didn't pack quite the lemon punch that I would have liked, so I'd up the amount of lemon zest next time. The lemon curd filling (below) had the perfect lemony flavor, so it's not a big deal overall, but I'd just use more lemon zest in the cake itself in the future.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and lemon sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 1 1/2 minutes). Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and beat until smooth (about 1 1/2 minutes). Beat in a quarter of the milk just until blended. On low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk in three batches, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula; beat just until blended.

For the next step, I really wished I had had an extra mixing bowl and beater for my stand mixer, but I do not. Luckily, I'd read through the recipe, so I used my hand mixer for the previous step and saved the stand mixer for the egg whites...

In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer (with clean beaters) on medium speed just until foamy. Add the cream of tartar, increase the speed to medium high, and beat just until the whites form stiff peaks when the beaters are lifted. Add a quarter of the whites to the batter and gently fold them in with a whisk or a rubber spatula; continue to gently fold in the whites, a quarter at a time, being careful not to deflate the mixture.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Smooth the tops with the spatula. Bake until a pick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. That's what Fine Cooking says. Now I don't know if it's because my oven is a total piece of sh*t or for some other reason, but 35-40 minutes was RIDICULOUS. I set it to check at 15 minutes, and I could smell them already. I checked and they were nearly done. I set the timer to check again after another 10 minutes, but after 5, the cakes had pulled away from the sides of the pans and were going to be overdone if I left them in any longer. Let cool in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Run a table knife around the inside of the pans and carefully invert each cake out onto the rack. Flip them right side up and let cool completely.

While the cakes cooled, I made the lemon curd filling:

1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice
3 T. finely grated lemon zest
Pinch salt
6 large egg yolks, room temp 

 

Assembly: You're supposed to cut each cake into halves so you have 4 cake layers and spread the lemon curd between each. I did not do that - I just used half the lemon curd in between the 2 cakes. The original recipe called for a lemon frosting, but several of the commenters noted that the frosting was gross and they'd substituted a cream cheese frosting (which I'm not a big fan of). I had been craving some fruity complement to the lemon. I was originally thinking cherries, but strawberries were in season and on sale, so I used them to make strawberry buttercream, inspired by Martha Stewart's recipe. However, Martha Stewart's recipe calls for whisking the whites & sugar overheat until "mixture registers 160 degrees on a candy thermometer." F that. I don't have a candy thermometer, and, more importantly, buttercream doesn't have to be that hard. Do a quick and easy version instead:

2 1/2 sticks butter, softened
2 1/2 c confectioners' sugar, give or take
pinch salt
1 t vanilla
2 T heavy cream (I used the whole milk I had on hand)
1 1/2 cups strawberries, pureed

Throw the butter into the mixer on medium until it's smooth and getting fluffy. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar - I didn't end up using all of it - it just depends on your texture / thickness preference. I'd gone ahead and measured out the 2 1/2 cups into a separate bowl and just added it in a little at a time until it was right because I know from making it before that it can come out way too thick if you use all the sugar, even taking into account that it'll thin out a little bit once you add the cream and vanilla. Toss in the strawberries. Even with all the strawberries, I wasn't getting enough of a strawberry flavor, so I added about 1 c strawberry preserves and kept mixing. Finally, add the vanilla & milk/cream and mix until blended.

It was probably the best birthday cake within recent memory.  The raspberry-filled chocolate cupcakes with rich vanilla icing I made for Michael one year were good and all, but this? This was better. The cake has a wonderfully light texture - almost on the verge of an angel food cake thanks to that folded meringue - and the lemon custard filling would be an excellent dessert all on its own. The strawberry buttercream is rich and flavorful. And since it didn't have chocolate, I could share it with Millie! She got to have her very first taste of cake (without any frosting). And you know what I'm going to do next paycheck? Go get a microplane because I will be making this cake again and again.