The morning started out well. My cleaning lady brought me a Polish sugar lamb. She explained that our ubiquitous chocolate lambs have no meaning for her as chocolate was very rare when she was growing up in Poland. They did, however, have these very dense sugar lambs decorated with sugar flowers and a red flag symbolizing victory over death. She told me how she would beg her parents for the lamb each year, bite off its head, and then put it down because the sugar was so intensely sweet. Cool culture lesson!
She noticed my lamb cake mold on the counter ready to be put to use today. I explained that I would be making two lamb cakes this year since we have invited twelve people for Easter. I further said that I was going to make the traditional pound cake and would also, for the first time, make a chocolate lamb cake. No, this is not the black sheep....it will be a lovely brown lamb...or so I thought.
After an hour of water aerobics to get in shape for my cooking marathon, I began to make the traditional pound cake. Now, I have been making this cake for over 50 years. It was one of the very first things I learned to bake as a child and I remember regularly making it for my grandfather because he liked it. Making this should be a piece of cake, as it were.
However...................Every year there is not quite enough batter for the lamb cake. The lamb's face is fine, but the back of his head looks flat like that of an infant who lies on his back all the time. I decided to make 1-1/2 recipe. Sounds easy, but how do you make half again more of 5 eggs? 1-2/3 cup of sugar? 1/2 tablespoon?
Well, I did my best with the measurements and filled the mold almost to overflowing. No flat headed lambs this year! Into the oven it went. After an hour the toothpick inserted in the little hole came out clean. The lamb was done...but it wasn't. Seems that 1/2 again as much batter means it needs to cook a lot longer. I didn't find that out, however, until I finished struggling to remove the two sides of the mold. This, sadly, is what I got.
OK, so now we'll make the chocolate lamb cake. Mixing, no problem. Plenty of batter, no problem. Bake, no problem. Take out of the mold, problem! This cake also needed a lot more time, so it went back in the oven resting in just the bottom of the mold. After another half hour it was baked, but, oh, what a sight!
It looks like one of those awful Learning Channel shows. "The Lamb with Horrible Disfiguring Tumors of the Neck and Chest", perhaps?Traditional pound cake lamb #2 just came out of the oven. It has to "rest" five minutes before I take off the back of the mold. Then "rest" five minutes more until I take off the front of the mold. I know it will be flat-headed because I didn't add more batter, but will it be in one piece? Will it be fully cooked? I can hardly bear the stress of waiting.
All I know is that my daughter-in-law is coming over tomorrow to decorate the lambs. She did a great job last year. Will she up to the challenge of TLC lamb victims???????????????
Only time will tell.
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