My first hand account of the ongoing search for health and wellness through a conscious focus on nutrition, cooking, ingenuity, and physical exertion. As an active stay at home mother of two young children, I spend large portions of my day in my kitchen inventing new recipes and reinventing old favorites into fun, healthy and delicious meals my whole family loves... especially while on the run... literally.
My husband and I recently discovered and fell in love with Crown Royal Maple whiskey. So when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, which is in early January, this is what he requested. I am not sure if at first he was at all joking, but I thought it sounded intriguing, so I did a little research. The basic recipe is a pretty typical pound cake, which lends itself well to being drenched in whiskey. The shape, however, is a lot more childish than the flavoring, and was also part of my husband's request. Because I was preparing this cake during a busy week in which I was also getting ready to host a baby shower, I decided to make the cake a few days ahead and freeze it. I think that if I were to do it again, I would do the glazing step while the cake was actually still warm from the oven. Because the cake layers were fairly cold, the glaze had a hard time absorbing into the dense cake, even after I poked it dozens of times with a skewer and a sharp knife. I didn't want to go crazy on the off chance that the cake would fall apart, but instead the glaze kind of pooled at the top (and bottom edge of the top half which I flipped over for glazing) and the butter part of the glaze congealed a bit. Sounds worse than it was for sure, as there is nothing about this cake that is not delicious. It smells like maple, tastes like maple whiskey and was definitely a hit with everyone at the party, and most importantly, my husband. The best part is that because there weren't that many people there to enjoy it and they were all so full from eating all afternoon, I have a lot of this amazing cake in my freezer and plan to actually get a piece or two out after I write this post. So I think I am done. (and no, this cake is not particularly healthy, although I did use half whole wheat flour... it is a birthday cake after all and not supposed to be eaten more than once, or twice or a dozen times a year.) :)
