The one about the English project cake

The cake. She is made.

Jordan had to make a Lane Cake as part of a "To Kill a Mockingbird" project for English.

Anybody ever heard of a Lane Cake? It's apparently a very popular cake in the South. Well, I've lived in the south my whole life and I've never heard of it. One description I read said it was also "very difficult to make". I'll second that.

Personally, it didn't sound - or look - too appealing.

She made the cake - three layers - FROM SCRATCH - Wednesday night.

Then last night - at 9:00 pm after volleyball practice - made the filling that had raisins, cherries, pecans and coconut in it. Yuk. No thanks. This had to be "constantly stirred for 20 minutes until thick". That's when Jordan conveniently took her shower and ate her dinner. (aka I constantly stirred for 20 minutes until thick.)

(The recipe also calls for 1/2 cup of bourbon in the filling and one recipe we saw said to also soak the cake layers in bourbon. No wonder people like it so much. You'd have to be drunk to think all that nasty coconut, raisin, cherry, pecan mixture tasted good. But since we don't drink, and this is a private Christian school, and the kids are thirteen, we used a nice vanilla extract substitute as recommended by the teacher.)

My mom had loaned me her double boiler and given me a quick culinary tutorial on how to make the frosting - which, come to find out, was actually a Seven Minute Frosting. (I *have* heard of that.) Jordan whipped up a batch.

It didn't go so well. Only made about 1/2 cup of frosting. For a three layer cake?

Then it got all hard and crusty and crumbly.

Fail.

That's when Jordan said something like, "Forget this. I'll just take the F."

Oh, no worries, we can make another batch - and let's double it.

Oh, man. No more eggs. Blah.

We had already used eight eggs in the cake. Plus one egg for the filling. Not counting the one that accidentally went down the drain during the separation process.

So I flew to Walgreens - in my pajamas - to get some eggs.

I ran in the store at 9:58 hollering like a crazy woman, "Please don't close! I just need TWO EGGS. TWO EGGS! "

Eggs purchased.

Seven more minutes on the stove.

Frosting perfect.

Tah-dah! Finished product:

I took a picture, so Jordan can prove that she made it, less the cake meet some sort of misfortune before it can make it to 2nd period English.

So, the cake is done.

And so is this week.

Amen.