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It's been an age since I did a Sunday Dinner post. I've been concentrating on my literary projects, and I am horrible at taking breaks. I did take a couple of breaks to research making my own cake, cookie, and pudding mixes, but that's a post for another time!
My son's 30th birthday was May 8th. Physically, I was feeling much better this year than the year he was born. I wasn't conscious when he was born, and I certainly didn't make a cake.
My son doesn't like people making a fuss over his birthday, so I didn't put candles on the cake, and I didn't traumatize him by singing. My singing causes birds to drop dead and airplanes to fall from the sky, so there was none of that.
This year, I did make a cake. The cake was a modification of the following recipe for Watergate Cake.
1 box white cake mix
1 small pistachio instant pudding
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon water
4 eggs
Beat ingredients together and pour into 9x13 baking pan, greased. Sprinkle 1/2 cup chopped nuts on top and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Topping--combine:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water
Poke holes in cake and pour topping over. Put back in oven for 5 minutes.
I am unsure why it's called Watergate Cake. Maybe President Nixon enjoyed a slice while listening to the infamous tapes.
I didn't have pistachio pudding mix, so I opted to make a poke cake with Jello instead. I used a box of vanilla pudding mix instead of pistachio, I used 3/4 cups of melted butter instead of oil, and I added four tablespoons of dry milk to the water. The result was a very smooth, rich, tasty batter.
I let the cake cool for a couple of hours and then poked holes in it with a fork at approximately 1/2 inch intervals. I didn't measure, so who knows? Then I mixed a small box of pomegranate blueberry Jello into 1 cup of boiling water, stirred until the Jello was dissolved, added a cup of cold water, stirred a little more, and poured it over the cake. We had to let this sit for another couple of hours.
I didn't frost the cake. My son isn't big on frosting. I'm the sort of person who likes a little cake with my frosting. In any case, the Jello makes the cake very sweet, so the frosting would probably be a step too far. I would use whipped cream or whipped topping rather than regular frosting.
I am going to try the Watergate cake at some point. It sounds really tasty! However, the recipe is very adaptable. Use what you have on hand and make it your own!
~Your Ornery Old Aunt Cie~
Win free vanilla + $100 worth of good stuff from Watkins
https://www.winfreevanilla.com/1233739
The Inevitable Legalese and Other Blah-Blah
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