95 and sunny!

.

Today, while the thermometer approaches 100 degrees Ione turns 95!

We celebrated, at her request, with a small family gathering last Saturday.  

She was in great form and spirits. 

 

Speaking of spirits, this crowd not only digs Blue Moon Belgian Wheat but some of the bubbly.  The Moscato d'Asti went quite nicely as a dessert toast.
champagne flutes available at ionesAttic

The story on the "birthday cake"

Sue Heairet kindly shared the recipe for her fabulous 12 egg white angle food cake, the likes of which do not compare to bakery or box cakes.

 The texture is unbelievably fine and smooth, like white velvet.

(check back to see if I get rights to share the recipe here)

 Vanilla and almond extract flavor the egg whites and I had great success whipping the meringue.

Fold in the flour/powdered sugar mixture by quarter cups

This relic of an old, square tube pan should work great

 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven yields a cracked and golden top

Once the cake comes out of the oven, I quickly invert the tube pan on a bottle.  

Well, maybe not so quickly.

The beer bottle I retrieved and washed from the recycling bin, is too narrow a fit. 

I scramble for an alternative and end up rigging a turkey baster end up in the bottle and safely prop it all so that I can attend to other details.

I heard the crash from my garden.

One of the best parts of my day was my reaction to the spilled cake...

uncharacteristically, I laughed and got down the trifle bowl.  

I don't think this was a mere pan malfunction and poor choice of support.  

Being the casual baker that I am, twelve extra large egg whites does not necessarily 

one and one half cups of egg whites make.  The texture of the cake was a little too dense and too wet.  Once the whipped cream met the cake you could barely tell cream from cake.

But it was still beautiful and devoured by the six of us.

blow 'em out, Ione.

oh, and that old tube pan is being redirected for something like this: