2 tsp. vanilla

Remember my list? Well, Penny wanted a post about 2 tsp. vanilla. Here ya go!

Just before I left for Boston I baked myself a birthday cake because, well, it was my birthday. I baked a Whiskey Cake since that is the traditional birthday cake - for at least four generations - in my family. I ate one piece and left the rest for my hubby who was disciplined enough to leave me half the cake, cut into individual slices, in the freezer. Remember, he left the day before I got home. So I got to eat a piece every day - there were a couple pieces left when he came home too.

So how does that relate to my list? I wrote the recipe down from memory and 2 tsp. vanilla and 2 1/2 sticks butter ended up on the list page of my little note pad.

A Whiskey Cake is this moist, tender white cake (you know me, I’m a chocolate girl but I love this cake), leavened with 4 beaten egg whites- so you don’t want to Zumba around the kitchen while the cake is baking.

The frosting is simple - powdered sugar, corn syrup, butter, 4 egg yolks (wouldn’t want to waste the yolks!) and well, yes, whiskey. A minimum of 4 TBS. My mom usually tosses in a shot or two or three. She’d let me taste the frosting when I was a kid, just to make sure she’d added enough whiskey. Sometimes she used Kentucky Bourbon or Mash, sometimes Scotch, sometimes Jim Beam… depended upon what we had on hand. I usually grab the Scotch or the Bourbon.

Anyway, after the cake is baked and cooled, you frost it and here’s the best part, drizzle on 2 melted squares of bitter and I do mean, unsweetened, chocolate. That’s one of the many contrasts that makes this cake a favorite of every single person in our family.

I’d give you the recipe, but that would mean betraying a closely guarded family secret. Or as my dad says whenever I ask him about his days with the CIC… “If I tell you I’ll have to kill you.”