Welcome back to No Free Lunch, and happy 30th birthday to Ariel! 2018 came and went with amazing speed. A lot happened last year with our engagement, move across the country, and then my first semester in my new job. Fall 2018 turned out to be the busiest semester I've ever had. The blog laid sadly dormant during that time, but I'm hoping this year will be more fruitful. I continue to enjoy cooking with gas on a daily basis!
For Ariel's birthday, I produced what I think is my best cake yet. This time, I used Stella Parks' vanilla butter cake recipe, and it turned out great. The recipe discusses letting the milk, butter, and eggs come to room temperature before making the batter in order to improve the texture of the cake. Instead of two 8-inch layers, I made two 9-inch layers. I again made Mark Bittman's buttercream frosting with chocolate. I also improved the cake construction by trimming off the dome on the bottom layer. I do think this is worth doing to get the cake to fit together nicely.
For dinner, our plan was to have our traditional birthday lamb kebabs with roasted mushrooms, but it turns out you can't buy lamb in Vermillion. We had chicken kebabs instead, and they were excellent, as always.
Here's to a great 2019 -- there's a lot of excitement yet to come, and I hope to share some of it here.
