A Not-So-Bad First Birthday Cake
Cake
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup applesauce
1 egg
Heat oven to 400F. Grease 8" x 8" pan. While dog licks Pam up off the floor, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix well. In a separate bowl combine orange juice, applesauce, and egg; blend well. Put baby in a carrier on your back and combine wet and dry ingredients. The batter will be lumpy and works up more like a quick bread than a cake. I like to mound up the batter toward the edges so it bakes a little flatter since te middle always rises more. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and flip over onto a cooling rack. Once it's cool enough to work with, hack at it with a bread knife until it only has right angles.
Filling
1 cup frozen strawberries
Place strawberries in a covered bowl in the refrigerator and forget about them for a few days. Remove them from the juice in the bowl and finely chop the ever living daylights out of them, or puree with a fancy kitchen device of your choice. Return them to the juice and mix.
Frosting
1/4 package (2 ounces) reduced-fat cream cheese
1/8 cup sugar (I used a bit less)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cups heavy cream
Blend cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until mixed well. Give the baby on your back some scraps of cake as entertainment. Slowly add cream and whip until you have whipped cream but stop before you have butter.
Putting it all together
Very carefully cut cake in half horizontally with a bread knife. Layer on the strawberry filling, and return top half of cake. Plop all of the frosting on top and spread it over onto the edges with a spatula. Lick every spoon, beater, and bowl while the baby pushes cake scraps into your hair.
Ta-da!
Stop trying to wait for your husband to get home and eat a small piece already.
Patch it with some more frosting--like nothing ever happened :)
I will definitely be baking this again in a few weeks! (OMG my baby is going to be a year old in a few weeks!)
