I was recently asked to make an anniversary cake to celebrate a couples 25th Anniversary. Now, usually when someone asks for a cake, they have some ideas about what they want it to look like or taste like…
Not this time baby.
Absolute power to make what I wanted!
Gutsy of them, I know!
With great power comes great responsibility. -Uncle Ben (Spiderman 1962)
(Yes, I know it’s actually a translation of the French National Convention of 1793 : “Ils doivent envisager qu’une grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d’un grand pouvoir.” which easily translates into “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you.”
Now, I’m just not the kind of person you should put on speaker phone, never ask me to be subtle because I don’t speak it… and if I show you a picture on my phone, do not swipe left or right because there’s NO TELLING what you will see. Nothing of the naked variety mind you… just things that make me giggle… like rude looking mushrooms and veggies or slightly suggestive memes.
That little gem has been hanging out in my photos for a long while. I’m not sure under what circumstance it would be relevent, but whenever it happens, boy will it be funny.
I feel like most of you are looking at me the way that cat is looking at the peach.
…and yeah. Sometimes I take pictures of Dingo’s poo.
He’s a very old dog. He has a lot of tummy issues. The vet regularly asks for updates on size, consistency and color. I myself am a very old man. I have a lot of memory problems. When the vet asks, I am prepared… with photos. The vet is prepared for my photos. You may not be… jus’ saying’.
Mark is never ready to see them… which is why I enjoy texting them to him. I read somewhere that keeping a marriage alive is taking that extra step to surprise your spouse.
Surprise!
Most important though… you should never send me to Target to buy lube and assume I will NOT make it into a totally awkward situation.
You did in fact read all of that correct.
No, things aren’t getting weird.
…well.
I mean…
…back to the cake though!
Marcia and Belinda fell in love with horses when they went to Morocco for their honeymoon. “Click” and “Babs” as they refer to each other (…theres a story there folks, I just know it…) only had one request: Make the cake deliciously unusual.
That’s *sorta* my thing.
“Click” is a coffee drinker, and “Babs” is a tea drinker. Complete and total opposites. Funny how those tend to work beautifully together. Enter Yuanyang. Yuanyang is a coffee and tea drink popular in Hong Kong and is also known as Yingyong, which makes me giggle. Its 50% Coffee and 50% Milk Tea which is strong Black Tea and Sweetened Condensed Milk mixed together. It’s so popular in some places that very prestigious contests are held to find who makes the best cup of Yuanyang.
…and Yingyong sounds vaguely dirty somehow, though I can’t really put my finger on it.
(More about THAT later.)
So how does a Yingyong become a cake? It takes a Ding Dong like me to make a Yingyong cake. Start with my Black Tea Cake. Add some Coffee Syrup and SCM Buttercream and voila!
Ya got a Yingyong cake.
OK, so I did a bit more work on it than just throwing some ingredients together…
Brew your black tea with milk and let it cool down. Mix your batter up, then fold in the tea. The cake is really that simple.
Cut off the dome top and generously soak the top with coffee syrup. Use the lusciously easy Sweetened Condensed Milk Buttercream to frost your cake
Protip: Use Dulce de Leche in place of the Sweetened Condensed milk in this recipe to really kick it up a notch!
This cake is both flavorful and unusual. I spread coffee grounds on the cake board too, so the fragrance of coffee was the first thing people noticed. The coffee and tea work together and meet with the creaminess of the Sweetened Condensed Buttercream to become something new… Slightly chocolatey, slightly chai, slightly indescribable.
The perfect description of love and marriage.
The soothing elements of the tea mingle so nicely with the brash and abrupt coffee flavor. The biting tones of the tea are mellowed by the caramel and robustness of the coffee. They mingle and dance, lifting and helping each other become better, together. Sounds like the perfect recipe for longevity.
…and helping each other is the secret for longevity in any relationship is it not? It’s a team effort.
Take, for example my husband and I. We make an amazing team. He lifts me when I need help, and I send him dog poo pictures when he’s in executive meetings. Just the other day I had a horribly awkward encounter at Target, and he came to my rescue.
You see..
I was on the phone with the vet getting some blood results from Dingo.
The vet said that everything was looking very good, and asked if I had any other issues. Well, there definitely had been an issue lately. A socially unacceptable issue.
-“Well Doctor, it seems Dingo can’t put his wiener away anymore.”
-Oh, well… that actually really is a problem. Can you push it back in?
-“Weeeellllll, I haven’t tried… really.”
-The risk is that it will dry out and become infected and we don’t want that!
-No. No we certainly do not.
-OK. So… Try to push it back in. If it doesn’t go back in, you are going to have to put some personal lubricant on it to keep it from drying out.
So, off to Target I go to buy lube for the dog.
Now, we are all adults. I want to assure everyone that I absolutely do not think that buying lube should be a shameful experience. Since the vet had said something about drying out, I chose a nice brand with Aloe Vera, because I thought it might be, you know, soothing. When I get sunburned Aloe Vera works miracles.
As I put the lube in my basket I thought “I’ve got to remember to go through self-checkout because the episode of Golden Girls popped into my head. You know, the episode where they all go to buy condoms…
Yup, so I had the lube picked out, in the basket, and I had a plan of going through self-checkout.
Something shiny in the store distracted me and I completely forgot the plan. Poor Sheri. Did you know they hire 12 year olds at Target these days? No? She was so young and innocent looking and I completely forgot the lube as I emptied my basket onto the belt.
Beep
Beep
Beep
Pause to look at me. Look back at the lube.
Beep…
Maybe I imagined that look. Maybe it was real. I felt like launching into my diatribe about all being adults and to not judge anyone for what they buy… but clearly she was not an adult, and it was probably her first job, and maybe her first shift ever… and suddenly I felt like a dirty old man and I said the first thing that popped into my head.
“It’s for the dog.”
Yup, I did.
I said that.
To her.
I said that to her.
I know for a fact I did not imagine the look she gave when I said that.
I went home, with my tail between my legs, and told Mark the story. He lifted me up when I was down.
Actually he lifted the dog up and we did the deed.
Together.
Because thats what marriage is.
Next time I’m getting Dingo flavored lube since he just licks it off.
Don’t judge me or my dog.
Go try my recipes. Click the buttons below to go to the recipes… and tell me what you think!
My day has been crazy and there have been many times when my “nice Amy” mask has slipped and the demon face was there. This was exactly what I needed. Thank you so much for the laugh 🙂
This is the most amazing sounding, and looking!, cake I’ve seen in a Loooong time! i will be checking out your site often, for the food and the insanity! Oh the dog lube story! Just makes my day also! BTW, what did you Ice your Pfefferneuse Cake with? THATS HOW I found you… I want to make pfefferneuse but when I saw how you have to refrigerate the dough I decided on “instant” gratification… You know what I mean… Not a week later… Hence, I found You!!! Really classy place you got here!