The Little Mister & the Boy have birthdays exactly one week apart — exciting and exhausting for someone who, like me, loves to bake. This year is a big one for both of them: the Little Mister turned 30 last Thursday & the Boy turns 1 this Thursday. So I wanted to do something special for both of them.

The Little Mister's Birthday Treats
For the Little Mister, I made Barefoot Contessa’s Lemon Yogurt Cake. The cake is a great balance of sweet & tart, is extremely moist thanks to the post-baking lemon juice soak, and is pretty easy to make (I juiced & zested my lemons the night before, and was able to prep & bake during the Boy’s afternoon nap). It is topped with a lemon juice-confetioner sugar glaze (you can’t really see it all that well in the picture), which may not be necessary but is very nice nonetheless.
The cake is topped with two scoops of home-made eggless vanilla ice cream, compliments of the Little Mister’s fake-out present, the Kitchen Aid ice cream maker attachment. The Boy does not tolerate eggs, and it hardly seems fair to make ice cream at home & not let him have even the smallest taste. Even without the eggs, this recipe was great! Simple & delicious. As the LM said, It’s like when you let the ice cream sit out on the counter & get soft around the edges — but all of the ice cream tastes like that. Next time, I’d like to try to get my hands on a vanilla bean (mostly for the aesthetic value… there’s just something about vanilla beans in vanilla ice cream), but otherwise it was great.
…Now to work on the Boy’s cake.






That cake was quite tastey. And so was the ice cream. Can’t wait to see the doggie cake you put together.