Mum's Birthday, or, In Which I Make Four Cakes and Throw Away Three

The good thing about having my particular mother as a mother is that when you pose the question "What do you want me to cook for your birthday?" you get a request that is a) ridiculously simple to make and b) exactly the same as the year before, and the year before that. A creature of habit, is my mother; a creature of habit with the tastes of a nun in northern Finland.

Oh, Beetle, you say. You're just being hyperbolic. As usual. But, dear reader, I kid you not that every single year the answer to the above question is "Pancakes, Potatoes, and Salmon."

So . . .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

SWEDISH PANCAKES

BOILED POTATOES WITH DILL BUTTER

BROILED SOCKEYE SALMON

GREEN BEANS IN MUSTARD DILL SAUCE

BUTTERMILK LAYER CAKE WITH RASPBERRY BUTTERCREAM

The good thing about only having to make the requested dishes is that because all are quite easy and simple to prepare, it freed up the SEVENTEEN MILLION HOURS I spent making a birthday cake, throwing it away, making another birthday cake, throwing it away, making ANOTHER birthday cake, throwing it away, and making a final cake that, had it not worked out . . . well . . . I'd probably still be on the stairmaster.

This is also a solemn promise from me that this is the LAST TIME I stray from the Nigella Lawson Birthday Cake Path of Light and Deliciousness and make anything other than her Buttermilk Cake. I WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, NIGELLA, I SWEAR. I'VE LEARNED MY LESSON.

My lessons, incidentally, are buried in the bottom of the trash cans in the barn in individual ziploc bags. (The good thing about watching so many Scandinavian crime thrillers is that I've seen from the best of the best psychotic Swedish serial killers how to get rid of dead bodies, and that's kind of how I treated the cake failures: wrap it up, take it out with the trash, disinfect all surfaces, make like it didn't happen, deny EVERYTHING.)

The cake thing began last month when I was flipping through Country Living UK and came across a recipe for Cappuccino Brûlée. Upon showing the page to Mum, she said "THAT'S what I want for my birthday cake." So, June 23rd swings around, I get out the eggs, the heavy cream, the coffee, and set to work. 

I went in, it has to be said, with a distinct optimism. Crème Brûlée is actually relatively simple, and I've cracked the custard ceiling in the last few months quite a few times with a decent success rate, so I was feeling good. 

Somewhere around the 30th minute of a cook time that said 5 - 10, my confidence was waning. Instead of looking set at the top with a lovely dark brown sugary coffee crust, the top was bubbling in this weird creepy way that didn't so much suggest "dessert" as "primordial swamp." 

I threw it out. 

But it was MUM'S BIRTHDAY and she HAD requested it, so I felt obligated to give it another go. I doubled the recipe this time, and switched the baking dish to a shallower broader one, thinking that might work. After an HOUR in the oven, the primordial ooze was bubbling away and it honestly did look like that one episode of Bones where the corrupt construction guy kills the health and safety inspector who's going to rat him out and dissolves his body in a bathtub filled with acid.

I threw it out. Mum had raspberries and cream for dessert that night.

*I'm going to blame the recipe, which is convenient and exonerates me completely, but when you make something twice, and both times it comes out horrifically, chances are you're working with a dud. What can I say. I tried.

Monday, THE BIRTHDAY dawned, and I pulled on my apron, and pulled out the emergency box.

The emergency box, dear reader, is an Organic, Ethically Sourced, Free Trade Produced, Lovingly Hand Prepared, Holistic, Spiritually Blessed, Nirvana Achieving box of Vanilla Cake Mix that cost $15.99 at the tiny health food store in the town over. It promises to open your chakras, clear your mind, and let you see the light and error of your previously dietarily sinful ways. I keep the emergency box for situations such as the above, when I need to make a cake but, in the last 12 hours, have used up a full dozen eggs, two pints of heavy cream, three cups of sugar, and almost all of my patience.

I made the cake.

The only Nirvana I reached upon pulling it from the oven was "Wow. Cake mixes are awful." It was sticky and flat and gooey and smelled like cotton candy at a state fair.

I threw it out.

BUT IT WAS MUM'S BIRTHDAY. THE WOMAN NEEDED A CAKE.

I had exactly three eggs left (I seriously need to get a chicken. Or take out stock in egg production). I had Buttermilk. WHY HADN'T I JUST MADE NIGELLA'S BUTTERMILK CAKE IN THE FIRST PLACE? I sent Mum out to the garden in her brand-spanking-new overalls and colour-coordinated gardening gloves, put the World Cup on, and suited up. In ten minutes it was in the oven, smelling delicious. In half an hour it was out and golden brown and fluffy. BIRTHDAY WAS SAVED.

Raspberry Buttercream SOUNDS difficult but really it's not. I chose to strain the mashed berries because I wanted a clean-looking frosting, but I've seen more rustic versions that kept the seeds in and it didn't look half bad. But being on cake FOUR, I figured I might as well go big or go home.

The only thing about Raspberry Buttercream is that it really does look like Pepto Bismol.

But once you get over that everything is groovy.

Herewith are more photos of potatoes and salmon because they are so pretty and honestly one of my favourite things to do is look at photos of potatoes. I feel like you will understand.

AND just because I love my LL's the leftover Buttercream frosting (what I could wrest from Mum amidst plaintive cries of "BUT THAT'S MY FROSTING" has been dotted onto butter cookies and transformed into mini birthday cookies that are possibly the girliest things ever to come out of Beetle HQ. I hope you like them.

So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

And strap in for next year.

Because it's Buttermilk All The Way.