Happy birthday to Erik with a poppyseed cake

For birthdays, my family makes a wonderful poppyseed cake. I didn’t take a liking to it until later in life and now love it. Erik didn’t care much for it at first, but now he’s a believer as well. His birthday was November 11th (31!) and he requested a cake of his own. It was my first attempt at cooking it all by myself. I did have help from my faithful sister (she supervises the kitchen activities) and we had had a practice run with mom and gram in Sept. so I was feeling good about it.

The cake was a success, even though we only had 9 inch pans when 8 inch are preferred. The cake was then bigger and thinner. I cooked them a bit too long, so the edges were a bit hard, but overall I’m happy with the first try – and at altitude for that matter. We made the cake at Mel’s since she lives at a mile high – nearly 3,000 ft lower than our house and altitude does funny stuff with cooking/baking.

The filling was really successful. The thickness was perfect and it was yummy. I didn’t get the layers even, but for a first try, again I was pleased.

Cake assembled

The hardest part about the cake was letting everything cool before putting it together. I get why my grandma often pushes it here, but my mom’s stern warning was that if you do it too soon, the cake will fall apart. I couldn’t have that happen, but we had dinner plans and the cake was coming with us so I had to get moving. We decided a mountain bike ride midday was in order, so the cake got pushed back!

Next came the frosting. The usual frosting is a box mix thing, but apparently it’s hard to find. We didn’t try too hard, but instead went for a traditional cake frosting, but the whipped version since the frosting my mom and gram use is whipped. It ended up tasting very similar to what they use and much easier. I didn’t realize how hard it’d be to frost! Too much pressure and cake crumbs mixed it and getting all sides was a challenge. I think I could’ve gone heavier on the frosting too, but I’ll remember that next time.

Frosting in process.

Ta-da!

Erik liked it and that’s all that matters!