cake

Sometimes you have a family or culinary experience that’s just so delightful you wish it would last forever. In my case, it was a combination – an evening watching a movie followed by eating a yummy apple cake. It was so great I decided to blog about it 🙂

Last week, I enjoyed watching one of my absolute favorite movies The Ultimate Gift (2006) Poster – The Ultimate Gift (2006) – with my grandmother, aunt, and uncle. If you haven’t seen it, you MUST watch it immediately. It’s one of my go-to movies, the kind I love to watch or listen to any time. It is the perfect family movie with a message for everyone – one “take-away” is that life is a gift meant to be shared with others. Plus it has a great cast (Abigail Breslin, James Garner [one of my personal faves], and Drew Fuller).

So, back to my great evening. After watching this with my family, we ~~devoured~~ ate most of a DELICIOUS French Apple Cake with Almonds (Yes, I am a little biased because I baked it myself, but when my uncle wants seconds, you know it’s good). The recipe came from Hillary Manton Lodge’s fabulous novel A Table by the Window, which is full of recipes squeezed in between the chapters of the story (like Nutella mousse, pasta carbonara with leeks and lemon, pine nut couscous, and mini focaccia to name a few). The story alone was one I loved, but these recipes are a fantastic bonus. This apple cake was very moist and just sweet enough — and easy to make. It was the perfect end to an evening making memories and enjoying a movie with my family. I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of this book, if only for the recipes.

By the way, Hillary is featured in August’s Book Fun Magazine with an interview and recipe for the Provencal Lavender and Honey Pound Cake from the novel.

Here’s a pic of my cake. Doesn’t it make you want a piece?

Note: I did receive a free copy of this book from the publishers to review (Thank you!), but this post is just a “fun” one I wanted to share, not encouraged/required by the publishers.

Have you seen The Ultimate Gift? What did you think? What’s your family’s favorite movie?

I’d love to hear your comments – they don’t even have to stay on topic! 😉

After seeing Anita’s cute little owl cake over on Leave Room for Dessert, I was inspired to make one for my birthday. (Yes, for my own birthday…don’t worry, I had some help).

I didn’t have two 9 inch cake pans, so I made mine out of 10 inch pans, and the cake batter ration evened out nicely. I followed her example of cutting and arranging my layers in this format:

I then proceeded to do a thin crumb coat with my chocolate buttercream icing. I refrigerated it for about 30 minutes to set before piping on the rest of my design.

I used a petal tip for frosting the feather design, starting with the bottom and layering feathers up, leaving a round space for the belly and eyes. I used plain vanilla frosting for the eyes and belly, filling in the yellow details with a star tip. For the eyes, I sliced thin sections of black licorice.