Lamb Cake

This year I got to make the lamb cake for Easter because my grandma is driving back from Florida the day before Easter.  Challenge accepted!

Background
The lamb mold originally belonged to my great-great-grandmother and she would make the cake for Easter.  I love the history of it.  My grandma has been making the cake as long as I can remember.  She is not a baker.  She is part of the generation that celebrated the invention of boxed cake mixes.  She has made the cake with a Betty Crocker mix and my guess is not kept up the seasoning on the cast iron.  I love to bake and the idea of making the cake from scratch excited me, especially with my new kitchen aid.

Random notes:

• Originally pound cake was a pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar.
• http://atgrandmastable.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/traditional-lamb-cake-recipe-from-griswold-vintage-mold-insert/
  
  This blog gives a history and seasoning instructions.  They also link to the original recipe and another recipe with instructions.

Trial Cake = Cake Fail
I started by doing a trial cake on Wednesday before easter with a lemon sour cream pound cake recipe I found on Epicurious.  The cake was amazing tasting, but I learned many things.  First that recipe was way too light and fluffy.  Half of it spilled out of the mold and the left the mold partially empty.  I needed something very hefty.  I also figured out my mold needed to be seasoned, which meant the cake stuck.  It was ugly, but yummy.

I also emailed my mother-in-law for her lemon pound cake recipe.  It is a very heavy pound cake, which turned out to be perfect.

Success!

The cake turned out much better the second time around.  I placed toothpicks in the neck and ears before I baked it as was recommended on a few websites.  I also used twine to tie the two parts of the mold together, which I think really helped the process.

The extra batter went towards making cupcakes.  After you pull the lamb out of the oven you let it cool, then pull the back off.  The back came off so easily it surprised me, I guess the seasoning process really worked.  The front was a little bit harder to get off, especially the face and ears.  The ears got a little crispy.  It seems inevitable since they are so thin compared to the body of the lamb.  The neck tore slightly and one ear fell off, but I was able to repair it with toothpicks.

After it cooled I frosted it and then added a layer of textured frosting for a woolly effect.  I realized I need a cake decorating kit at some point.  I quickly decorated the cupcakes like chicks, although they admittedly look a little goofy.

Jane's Lemon Pound Cake Recipe
Lemon Pound Cake

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk

3 1/4 cups cake flour   OR 3 cups regular flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

4 Tablespoons lemon juice


Beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs, beat some more. Mix soda
with the flour  and add alternately with buttermilk  to wet stuff .
Mix between additions. Add lemon juice and mix well.

Bake in greased tube pan for  60 minutes at 325 or til toothpick comes
out clean.

• I used butter, regular flour, fresh lemon juice and added a bit of rind (probably 1tbsp) because why not.  I greased the mold with the butter wrappers and dusted with flour and cooked for 60 minutes then added 5 minutes at a time until the cupcakes were golden.  The cupcakes were a perfect indicator of when the lamb was done because my mold had no toothpick holes.  Apparently the "newer" models have holes.