Birthdays & cake

Plus a recipe for carrot cake

Earlier this week we celebrated both my birthday and Joe’s. If you don’t know, I love birthdays. Growing up regardless of the day of the week or what was going on we had dinner together and then cake my mom would have made. When I was an adult this became dinner, cake and champagne. Now the baton has been passed to me as the mom to continue making the magic for our family.

As an adult, as work and life has allowed, I take my birthday off. Sometimes it’s half a day sometimes it’s just an hour but I like to acknowledge the day of my birth and reflect on my life over the years. I’ve been known to throw huge parties for myself because if we don’t take time to celebrate, life can really get us down and it shouldn’t. Life is such a gift if we are so lucky to have it and if that isn’t reason to celebrate I don’t know what is.

For my birthday I wanted a flourless chocolate cake so I made myself one. When I lived in Monterey I would always get a princess cake for my birthday—the Swedish cake that is yellow sponge cake, whipped cream, and raspberry jam covered in marzipan. But I haven’t found a bakery up here that makes princess cake so I had the next best thing.

The following day was Joe’s birthday and he’s not a big chocolate cake fan and also I don’t believe in recycling birthday cakes so I made him a carrot cake.¹ The magic is in having a cake in your honor on your birthday, with a candle that you get to make a wish over and cut into the cake. While Giovanni was napping I baked the cake and I thought of how I wanted to infuse love into the cake. In Arabic they say the cook puts their nafas or breath into what they make and I have heard several variations of this in other cultures and traditions. I’ve heard people say if you’re angry when you’re cooking your food won’t taste good or two people can follow the same recipe with the same ingredients and one can taste totally different than the other and that is from the cook and their nafas. Life has been a lot lately—I don’t mean to complain but with everything going on in the world, a tough economy, etc. etc. I wanted to make sure it was a cake baked with the best of intentions for Joe’s birthday.

Baking is a meditation for me. Grating the carrots for this recipe took some effort. You have to peel the carrots—I love peeling vegetables. And then grate them on a cheese grater. You have to be careful to not get the flesh on your fingers or your nails (which I’ve done enough times). So I got everything ready and was popping the cakes in the oven just as Giovanni woke up from his nap.

Let me tell you, Giovanni loves birthdays. Well, he loves a good celebration, I should say. As soon as we started singing the happy birthday song he started dancing and then enthusiastically pointing at the cake—he knew this was something special and delicious. On my birthday we had to give him some whipped cream to get him through the song and making a wish and cutting the cake. We didn’t do this trick on Joe’s birthday and the birthday song was accompanied by some whining and emphatic and impatient points at the cake.

So happy Friday, beautiful souls and happy birthday to all the Geminis out there, this is our birthday season. I’ve been known to celebrate for the whole month of June so I see no reason to not live up to my reputation. I hope this is a good reminder to everyone to celebrate yourself and life, itself. Enjoy the cake, do what you love, and be grateful for your health and what you have.

P.S. for those of you wondering about the strawberry plant/bird’s nest…since the nest was empty last week and I hadn’t seen the birds around I thought I had scared them away so I watered the plant without looking and a bird flew out like a rocket and scared the daylights out of me. So they were still there...I consulted with a naturalist friend of mine because I didn’t want to mess with their brooding habits and she told me to keep watering the plant—the birds will appreciate the cool environment, forget about the strawberries, and enjoy the magic. So the other day I went to water the plant and chickened out when a bird flew out, again like a rocket. So I asked the neighbor to help me, I was going to have her hold Giovanni while I watered the plant but then I got scared and I held the baby and she watered the plant while on the ladder. I asked her to see if there were any eggs in the nest and she said she saw four or five eggs in the nest. So then I had to see for myself now that I was over my fear of being attacked by a two-inch bird and I saw at least four light blue speckled eggs! I will keep y’all posted on the eggs/baby birds.

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Carrot cake with a soft cream cheese frosting

When I was growing up my dad would donate blood every eight weeks at the (now closed) Blood Center in Monterey (eight weeks is as often as they’ll let you donate). He would sometimes bring my brother and/or me and we would giggle over the required questions they had to ask him as part of the screening (if you know, you know) and then sit patiently as they drew the 500 mL (about 16 oz.) of blood. Afterwards the donor was required to wait for thirty minutes to make sure they weren’t lightheaded from the fluid loss and the blood center staff offered them carrot cake and juice (it was those individually packaged Minute Maid juices in the white plastic cup-boxes with the foil lids that you peel off, the options were orange, apple, or cranberry).

My dad started donating blood in 1992 and donated every eight weeks like clockwork until he had a heart attack in 2013 and was no longer permitted to for obvious health reasons. By the time he stopped he had donated over 15 gallons (56+ liters or over 112 donations) and that was at the Monterey location alone. He also donated blood when we lived in Georgia and when he lived in Syria.

On my 16th birthday (21 years ago this past week!) I donated blood for the first time. I would always ask my dad if I could donate and he told me the age requirement was 16 so it was a big deal to me to finally get to donate. I forget how it happened but I ended up on the local news about it, they asked for my parents’ consent to film me (since I was a minor) and the camera crew from KSBW came and recorded it. I remember I was wearing a quarter-length, pink-and-white-striped polo shirt—funny the things we remember. The news anchor was a childhood friend’s dad and made a cute comment about how he would probably embarrass me by saying it but he remembered me from when I was *this* big. Like my dad, I donated blood every eight weeks unless I didn’t pass the blood iron screening (you can’t donate blood if you have low iron levels) and continued to until the Blood Center closed maybe 10 years ago.

That was a long way of saying this carrot cake I made reminded me of that carrot cake that I got to eat about every eight weeks as a treat for most of my life.

I’m not paid by the Red Cross or any blood donation organizations but I would like to just take a moment to say, if you can, blood donation is a very simple thing to do and helps people in dire need. Whether we recognize it or not, we all know someone who has been the recipient of a blood transfusion and they seriously save lives.

Joe’s birthday carrot cake

Ingredients

for the cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp. baking soda

• ½ tsp. salt

• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

• 1 ¼ cups vegetable oil

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 4 eggs, at room temperature

• 3 cups grated peeled carrots

• 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

• ½ cup raisins, optional

for the creamy frosting

• 8 oz. whipped cream cheese (you can use normal but I like the fluffier texture of the whipped one(

• 1 ¼ cup powdered sugar

• ⅓ cup heavy whipping cream

• ⅓ or so cup coarsely chopped pecans for decorating

Position a rack in the middle of the oven. Heat the oven to 350˚F.

Grease two 9-inch round cake pans, line the bottom with parchment paper, and then grease the top. Or grease and flour the bottom and sides of both pans.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl until homogeneously combined, set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk the oil, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking well after each one.

With a rubber spatula scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl, then add the dry ingredients in three parts, gently stirring until they become fully incorporated and the batter is smooth.

Stir in the carrots, nuts, and raisins, if using.

Divide the cake batter between the prepared cake pans. Bake until the tops of the cake layers are springy when touched and when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes.

Cool the cakes in the pans for 15 minutes, then carefully turn the cake layers out onto cooling racks. Remove the parchment paper and cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the frosting. In a large bowl, place the whipped cream cheese in a medium bowl. With an electric hand mixer beat in the powdered sugar. It helps if you sift the powdered sugar in to avoid clumps.

Pour in the heavy cream and beat on medium speed for two to three minutes or until the frosting is whipped and creamy. This frosting will have the texture of sticky whipped cream. Chill covered until ready to frost the cake.

When the cake layers are completely cool, frost the top of one cake layer and place the second cake layer on top.

Add the remaining frosting to the top of the carrot cake and use a small spatula to swirl the frosting around. Leave the sides of the cake unfrosted. Finish with a handful of chopped pecans on top.

Enjoy!

breakfast this morning

1. I don’t believe in wasting birthday cake either, I eat it for days after but it can’t be used as another birthday cake.