I’ve been looking at Sarah McLachlan’s collection of recipes “Plenty” for a while now – and then on Saturday I was trying to decide what to make for dessert to take to the November Birthday Party (what a cool idea that my friend Sue Kern came up with to celebrate all us gals who had a November birthday together with a potluck supper – can I just say that the roast, chicken, brocoli casserole, rolls from Cobs, roasted veggies and garlic mashed potatoes, paired with caesar and green salad, and of course a few bottles of merlot made for this amazing meal – conversation was great and a collection of ages from Stephen, aged 4, sporting his ‘first’ hockey injury to another gentleman who, six weeks after suffering from a stroke is recovering remarkably well but stopped eating red meat after the stroke – interesting!
I plan to try some of the other recipes in the book, including Curried Corn Chowder, Cocolate Chip Cookies with some special ingredients, and the Tequila Salsa, but for this special occasion I made the “Love Cake”! Everyone loved it and the last piece I delivered to my “I’m not really a cake eater” friend on my way home and guess what, he loved it too!
Preheat oven to 350.
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup carrot juice (the original recipe called for beet juice, which if I think if you had a juicer would make an amazing cake, because the red would be swirled throughout the cake, however, I didn’t and the carrot juice worked just great!)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 1/4 cup sifted flour
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tsp baking soda
Grease 2 x 8″ round cake tins.
Cream shortening and sugar together til light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat 1 minute. In a separate bowl; mix cocoa powder, carrot juice and salt together. Add to the shortening mixture and stir until well blended. Mix vanilla and buttermilk together and add alternately to the shortening mixture with the flour, about a third at a time.
Mix vinegar and baking soda together in a cup and add to the batter. Gently stir just until blended. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool cake in pans for 10 minutes; remove from pans and continue cooling on racks.
Icing
I wasn’t sure what this would be like because of the first two ingredients and the instructions but honestly, so good, that I licked off the beaters!
- 1 cup milk
- 7 tablespoons flour
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
Mix milk and flour together and cook over medium heat til thick. Refridgerate until completely cool.
Beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar. Stir in vanilla. Add cooled milk mixture a little at a time and blend.
Add birthday candles, sing your heart out and enjoy!
