Janice Coyle: Saturday, March 27, 2010

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Tonight we celebrated Kevin's 22nd birthday, for which he came home from college for the weekend. His actual birthday was Thursday, March 25, but we had everyone over for dinner and cake and ice cream on Saturday. Dennis made this absolutely delicious flank steak and some yummy roasted potatoes. To round things off, I made a the vegetable (peas) and a green salad.

Kevin wanted a lemon cake, so I made one for him on Friday. As usual for the last 7 or 8 times I have baked a cake, neither of the two layers would come out of the pans; they were stuck like cement. I banged and banged on the first pan until finally of the cake came out -- in pieces. The second one fared no better.

I had always been able to make perfect cakes, and I didn't know why I had had this problem for the past 2 years. I thought perhaps it was the pans, so I bought new ones, but my cakes still stuck to the pan. I thought maybe it was the location of the oven racks, so I tried moving them up. No cigar! Could it be the brand of cake I was buying? Nope!

Finally, after my failure with Kevin's cake, it hit me! Could it be the shortening I was using? After all, it was probably 5 or 6 years old. I sent Dennis out to buy new shortening, along with a new box of cake mix.

As it turned out, it was the shortening. I made a new cake Saturday morning, and it turned out PERFECTLY! And, it was DELICIOUS!!