Birthday Girl's Almond and Orange Pound Cake smothered with White Chocolate Frosting

Go, go, go, go

Go, go, go shawty

It's your birthday

We gon' party like it's yo birthday

We gon' eat cake like it's your birthday


So lucky me, I get to make a couple of birthday cakes, but this one is for the office. So we will call it a pre-birthday practice cake. So muse with me for a minute Almond and Orange Pound Cake smothered with White Chocolate Frosting, with Raspberry and Dark Chocolate and Almond Garnish.

You can make it too because “We don’t give a fudge it’s not your birthday.” Mom, don’t cringe it is just a joke. :)

For the decadent happy girl birthday-cake:

2 sticks organic unsalted butter, left out overnight

3 cups sugar bowl sugar

1 cup sour cream (full fat, full stop)

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

6 eggs (I know, right as my good friend Meg would say)

1/2 teaspoon orange extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract


Now as Black Eyed Peas Says Pump It (oven) to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour your baking receptacle of choice and set aside.


In your electric mixer (Andy notice how I didn't call it sexy, although mine is), cream butter and sugar together until it is a light and airy consistency. You know the kind that you can’t stop licking. I used to keep the mixer on low, but I found the more faster the more better. So as my brother says, “drive it like you stole it.” Then hit the brakes and slow the mixers, add sour cream, in one glorious dollop of whitey-goodness. Add your eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Add extracts and stir to combine. Sift flour and baking soda together. Add to creamed mixture. Goo-goog the happy concoction into your prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Cool cake in pan until it is cool enough to handle, and then turn out onto a wire rack. Bench it until is completely cooled before frosting.


Yummyness, Frosting by any other name would still be so sweet.


6 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk

4 ounces (8 tablespoons) butter

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

In a microwave safe bowl, add chopped chocolate. Now pulse your microwave, and by that I mean, heat for 30 seconds, stir, then put back in and heat for 30 seconds. When all the chocolate is melted but not quite yet smooth stir and let the residual heat melt the small bits the rest of the way. Don’t use white chocolate chips, they have stabilizers and pesky preservatives that mess with the melting and cooling process. In your electric mixer: beat up the milk and powdered sugar until the mixture is smooth. Little by little add butter, vanilla extract, and salt and continue to beat up until smooth and shiny.


With a rubber spatula, stir in the cooled white chocolate. (Side note, my little sister thinks that rubber spatulas are the neatest thing since they put the pocket in pita. For some reason she thinks they clean things better than a dishwasher. When she grows up there will be no sponges or soap in her kitchen sink, only lots of rubber spatulas) Finally, your sad, beaten-up, melted, yet delicious white chocolate frosting needs to chill for about 30 minutes in the refrige.

Spread goodness around a cooled cake and then you can lick the spoon. But only after you are done frosting the cake that other people will eat. You will notice, saliva, not on the ingredient list.


Then please wash the bowl, the whisk, the spoon, and even the blessed Rubber Spatula, with hot water and soap. (Shout out to the monkey.)

Much love, happy baking, and happy birthday, whenever yours is!