loveysoven

Ever seen one of these?  It’s a mold for a lamb-shaped cake.  A little creepy, but there you go.  Mrslovey’s great-aunties used to make a lamb cake every Easter, and it made quite an impression on her.  When they passed away, mrslovey became keeper of the mold.  Which, if you stop and think about it, means that *I* became keeper of the mold, because she doesn’t bake.  Mostly it just lives in the pan closet, but this year she requested that I revive the tradition and make a lamb for Easter.   Following is a step-by-step demo of the process.

First, the recipe.  After poking around the internet and worrying about the reviews of the recipes I was finding there, my problem was solved when we actually opened the mold.  Tucked inside was a who-knows-how-old recipe clipping, complete with a few handwritten notes.

I think ‘shartening’ is a typo, but I couldn’t stop saying it.  “Can you pass the shartening?”  “I need to cream the shartening before I add the dry ingredients.”  “Shartening, shartening, shartening.”  Anyway.  I made the recipe as written, with one exception.  Newer recipes I had seen used butter instead of shartening, so I decided to use half of each.  Otherwise, it’s as is.  The cake came out a little denser than I would have preferred, but the flavor was good.

Here’s a shot of assembled ingredients, because I thought they looked nice as I was pulling them all onto the counter:

First step was beating the egg whites to soft peaks:

Then, sifting all of the dry ingredients together (please note, sugar is considered a wet ingredient, so should not be part of this step).

Next, cream the butter, sugar, and shartening together until light and fluffy.

Now add your dry ingredients.  This will make a very stiff dough, but don’t worry – it will thin out when you add the milk and vanilla.

Fold in your beaten egg whites, and then mix the whole thing for a minute or two.

Grease and flour both sides of the mold, and then pour your batter into the face-half.

Now put the back of the mold on (the side with the steam holes), tie it with some kitchen twine, and put face-down into a 370-degree oven for 55 minutes (or until a skewer poked through a vent hole comes out clean).

Remove from the oven, snip the twine, and let  and cool on rack for 15 minutes.

Very carefully remove the back half of the mold, and let cool for another 10 minutes.

Now you can flip the cake onto it’s back, and gently remove the front of the mold.  Let cool completely in this position before trying to stand the cake upright or decorate it.

Once the cake is completely cool, make the frosting of your choice (I chose a 7-Minute Icing), and slather a good amount onto the bottom of the cake so that it will stay firmly in place.

Now ice the cake.  Once iced I cut some jelly beans in half and used them for the eyes and nose.

That’s pretty cute as is, but to really gild the lily you should add texture – cover your lamb with coconut!!!  Then, slather some more icing around the lamb, sprinkle with green coconut and some jelly beans for landscaping, and you’re good to go!  I’ve seen several suggestions to tie a ribbon around the neck, but I didn’t have any, so I skipped that part.

Sam the Lamb, ready for his close up!!

So that, my friends, is how to make a lamb cake.  It takes a little time, but it’s fun, and people are generally impressed.  I think next year I’ll try it with red velvet, just for the startle factor when cutting the first piece.