Birthday Birthday Birthday Pound Cake

Happy Birthday Kathy, Vivian, and Cora!

Today we celebrated all the September birthdays at work - fully 1/3 of the staff was born in September! I made the Baking Illustrated Classic Pound Cake on page 329. I made this cake before in San Francisco but I wanted to try it again to make sure the first time wasn't a fluke. After making it twice, I can truly give this recipe a massive thumbs up. It is soooo buttery, light, and rich but not overwhelming. Of course, your cardiologist might not like it as a loaf pan uses 2 sticks of butter and 6 eggs...

Yum!

I brought in a metal bowl, my old-fashioned electric hand mixer, some super fine sugar, a bit of vanilla extract, and a lot of that low-calorie heavy whipping cream. After my metal bowl and mixers chilled out in the freezer for a few hours, I whipped up some incredible, delicious clouds of yum. When you sit around at Aunt Jean's Thanksgiving gathering eating pumpkin pie with a dollop of Cool Whip, you think the Cool Whip is pretty good... until you come across some fresh whipped cream. Heaven. Pure. And. Simple.

We topped it off with some fresh blueberries and strawberries.

Oh yeah, my big brain freeze! I also made a small marble cake with butter cream frosting... but I left it at home. I'm going to bring it into the office tomorrow and I'll post some pictures of it. I think all the Ibuprofen and electric stimulation therapy for my hands has fried my brain!

By the way, only days away from my trip to Duluth to visit my library school friend, and check out all that is cool in Duluth! But before that trip, I'm heading to Disneyland to check out the new Finding Nemo ride, Soar over California, and, of course, eat the best corn dog on the planet. I'm also going to check out the Wired NextFest in LA. And after Duluth, I'm heading up north to celebrate a milestone with some dear friends. Busy September!

P.S. Cakes, with the big help of my KitchenAid mixer, are okay on the hands as long as anything isn't too heavy to move around. Cookies - they are on hold unless I have help. (Too bad there isn't voice-activated baking...)

P.P.S.T.J. (Personal post script to Jessica): Don't disrespect the crisp! Make the crisp! Photograph the crisp! Post the crisp! :)