Cake Day: Birthday Cake

My birthday has always fallen right on the cusp of summertime. School is out, or is going to be out in a few days. People are making summer plans–in New York, this means they’re heading out to Long Island or to the Jersey shore. We were Long Islanders, and so every year, the weekend closest to my birthday was reserved for me being able to take a few friends out to our house, to open the pool, to swim and welcome summer.

As I got older, and especially once I went to boarding school, I didn’t bring anyone out to Long Island, but my birthday still always felt like that marker that ushers summer in. I had my siblings, and we had a group of family friends that had houses near ours on Long Island, so my birthday was always celebrated together, this day where everyone started wearing their sundresses and my brother fired up the pizza oven.

I’ve been away from home for three birthdays in a row now, something that would have been unthinkable in high school, where I counted down to my birthday, not because I was that excited about getting older, but because of what it meant: summer, lemonade, the pool, pie, the beach, tanning while reading junky magazines.

This year, I was supposed to be in the Congo for a journalism job: long story short, it’s not going to happen, and the month of June has no idea what it is planning for me. I let myself continue the way I was for a week or so, watching my birthday come and go without much fanfare at all. I made my own birthday cake, as many of you out there do, and Alex and I enjoyed it over the course of several days: my favorite birthday cake, bright with the summer flavor of lemon and soft and moist and perfect. Alex, the chocoholic, requested it for his next birthday. When it was gone, I checked out tickets to the beach on the French train website and closed the window as quickly as I’d opened it–apparently, the rest of Paris had the same idea as I had, and prices had skyrocketed.

But yesterday… yesterday was different. Yesterday, as I sat in my apartment with the windows opened, trying to work but my heart not really in it, I remembered a summer from a few years back, where June felt empty, and it was only me and my sister to keep one another company. We didn’t have a ride to the beach, so we’d biked to the library to pick up huge stacks of books–eight apiece–and set up camp by the pool in the backyard. We made giant glasses of iced coffee and tanned and read, every so often, jumping in to the pool to cool down. It was one of the best summer months I’ve ever had.

I don’t have a pool, but I do have a balcony, so yesterday, I collected an equally large stack of books–Knock, A Separate Peace, The Story of French, Modern Spice, Franny and Zooey–and I climbed out onto the balcony, equipped with a towel, my iPod, a bottle of water, a pen and paper and a tall glass of iced coffee. It’s not the same, but I’ve welcomed summer anyway, even if it was a week late.

Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd and Coconut Frosting

For cake layers (adapted from Gourmet)

1 cup canola oil, plus additional for greasing cake pans
2.5 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. grated lemon zest
2 cups sugar
4 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease two cake pans with canola oil.

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Combine the cup of canola oil, milk, vanilla and zest in another bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs together until fully combined. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the oil mixture, starting and ending with flour. Use a wooden spoon to fully combine all ingredients.

Divide the batter evenly between the two pans. Bake on the middle rack about 30 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pans for ten minutes before removing and cooling completely on a rack.

For lemon curd (Alton Brown recipe)

5 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
4 lemons, zested and juiced
1 stick butter, cut into pats and chilled

Add enough water to a medium saucepan to come about 1-inch up the side. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.

Meanwhile, combine egg yolks and sugar in a medium size metal bowl and whisk until smooth, about 1 minute. Measure citrus juice and if needed, add enough cold water to reach 1/3 cup.

Add juice and zest to egg mixture and whisk smooth. Once water reaches a simmer, reduce heat to low and place bowl on top of saucepan. (Bowl should be large enough to fit on top of saucepan without touching the water.)

Whisk until thickened, approximately 8 minutes, or until mixture is light yellow and coats the back of a spoon. Remove promptly from heat and stir in butter a piece at a time, allowing each addition to melt before adding the next.

Remove to a clean container and cover by laying a layer of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd. Refrigerate until needed.

For frosting:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla
1-3 cups powdered sugar
shredded coconut

Cream butter and cream cheese together. Add vanilla and begin adding powdered sugar by the half-cupful until desired sweetness is achieved.

Assemble cake by placing one layer, flat side up, on a plate. Spread with the lemon curd. Place the other layer on top, and frost with the frosting. Cover the top of the cake with shredded coconut.