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Early this morning I baked a cake. The top photo is fresh out of the oven.and after it cooled with frosting on it.
I needed a dessert for our Goat Meeting at 1:oo p.m. today. I'd made this cake before and thought it would be a good one for the meeting. I'm not sure why it's called an Italian Cream Cake. The only La Crema I remember from my Italian heritage was a layered cake that was put together with pound cake and chocolate, citron and lemon custard, so this is not what I remember being called a Cream Cake. But sometimes I think folks like to make up new names for recipes because they have changed some of the ingredients.
So, because I don't think it's a Cream Cake and because I added an ingredient..., I will rename this cake ~Orange Pecan & Coconut Cake-mix Cake~. I like this cake, it's very easy to fix and it always turns out well.
I follow the recipe exactly for the cake itself, only I add the zest of one orange to the batter. ( saving about 1/2 teasp. for the frosting.)
I'm not big on frosting so I don't usually cover a cake with a thick layer of it. I didn't use the frosting that is here (above) for this cake. I'm sure it's good, especially if you like a lot of coconut, but I prefer the following:
I melted a little butter (probably two teaspoons), added about two tablespoons of orange juice, the 1/2 teasp. of orange zest, and maybe two teaspoons of dry Marsala wine or any kind of sweet after dinner wine that you like. You don't need to use any sweet wine at all but I think it gives the frosting a great flavor. Mixed it with some powdered sugar until it is runny enough to drip all over the top of the cooled cake. That's it. This cake is so good that I have just served it sprinkled with powdered sugar. It's a very moist cake.
We had a great time at the meeting. We drove down to a town in the valley, about an hour away from here, to the home of a lady named Jane. She and her husband raise Alpine goats and a few other critters. We enjoyed a potluck lunch and had a productive meeting. The Prospector and I are kind of new to this group and most of the other members raise, show or have milk producing goats and they are very knowledgeable about anything that has to do with goats. We will learn a lot. I have volunteered to train as a ring steward for the next Cal-AM Goat Show in May. I'm not even sure what this means yet, but I know I will learn a lot about goat breeds and get to watch the judging. Should be very interesting.
Tomorrow's post will have some very interesting photos that I took out behind Jane's house. One will be a "Guess what this is" photo.
See you tomorrow.