{Such a Delight}

I had a favorite great-aunt growing up...My Aunt Hortense.  She and my dad shared the same birthday; June 1st.  She was an incredible gardener, seamstress, quilter, baker, an avid BYU fan, and a lovely lady.  She lived only a few blocks from our home, so we would ride our bikes to her house on Summer Sundays, with our parents not far behind, usually pushing a stroller or pulling the red wagon.

I remember thinking her house was beautiful.  I loved the way it smelled.  I always thought it was odd how she didn't have a light fixture in the middle of her living room on the ceiling, but she compensated by having lamps in almost every corner.  I loved playing in her lush, green, whimsical yard.  I always felt like a fairytale princess surrounded by trellises, neighborhood swing sets, and irrigation ditches to her large vegetable garden.  It was heaven to go to Aunt Hortense's house.  In fact, we would BEG our parents each week if we could go...and promised that we would also be good while visiting the Springville Art Museum and Great-Grandma Birds, just a block or two away.

Two of my cousins would frequent our neck of the woods in the summer, to either play in our ponds or visit their grandma.  Usually, when we were done playing in the cold springs and tired of being chased around by my brothers and other cousins, we'd call aunt Hortense to come and get us.  She'd come and visit much to long with my dad, as we were wanting out of there and over to her house, and Megan, Chelsie and I would hop in her trunk to ride back to her house.  Between the two houses are two sets of railroad tracks...and they weren't smooth sailing back in the day.  To this day, running over a small cottonwood would probably be less of a hassle.  More times than not, that trunk would bounce us up and down, securing our fate of being locked in the trunk!  Oh, how we would giggle and pretend it was the end of the world!  And after going through the final dip before Aunt Hortense's house, we'd sigh, knowing the ride was coming to an end.

I have many fond memories of me, Megan and Chelsie having sleepovers, playing dress-ups in vintage formals, with nothing to fill the busts of the dresses!  We would make ourselves sick with snacks, and go so far as to read all the expiration dates on all the packages of Kool-Aid until we found one fairly recent, yet still 5 years older than we were ourselves.  If I recall correctly, Megan pulled out a big container of sugar and we dumped cup after cup into that pitcher of water and red Kool-Aid, and begin to gulp it down when we realized that we had put in cup after cup of salt.  We were sorely disappointed, and afraid Aunt Hortense would find out and make us drink it all!

It was with my Aunt Hortense where I learned to sew fabric yo-yos, make levi quilts, and signed up for my first sewing class, where we made a denim drawstring bag and LINED jumper with Megan (Do you remember those Megan?  Seriously, the funnest time in a sewing class a 10 year old could EVER have!).  In fact, I just washed that denim bag last week, as it holds our emergency diapers and wipes for the car.  Megan and I used to sew on Aunt Hortense's old Black Singer sewing machine any chance we could get.  It had a straight stitch and a zig-zag stitch.  I don't even think it had reverse unless you turned the hand wheel backwards.  

Oh, the memories!

One year for my dad's birthday, Aunt Hortense gave him a Tupperware container with a cutout recipe from a confectioner's sugar bag.  And to this day, it has been THE BEST birthday present, in my opinion. 

The recipe was for {Lemon Delight Pound Cake}, and it is divine.  Every year since, this is the cake my dad gets for his birthday cake, and that Tupperware is how we store any leftovers, which rarely happens!  (The tupperware works like this:  you put the cake on a plate, the plate in the LID, and use the container to cover the cake.  Genius, I know!)

I use my pampered chef batter bowl and a hand mixer to get this baby going...and it's TOO easy to be as good as it is!

In the bowl, dump in and mix.  Yes, you read that right...no separating, sifting, or blending...just dump and mix.  
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup orange juice (already made or apricot nector - I've even used pureed peaches)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp lemon extract (not to be confused with lemon juice)
4 eggs

Mix on low, till all wet is mixed with dry ingredients...should be smooth, but not full of air.

Pour into a greased bundt pan. I've used Crisco and flour many times, but I've since caved, and now use Pam. 

Bake at 350 Degrees Farenheit for 40-50 minutes.

Then there's the Glaaaaaaze.  :)

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice (not to be confused with the extract)
(sometimes I play with these ratios...cause I like THICK glaze on top and RUNNY glaze on bottom...you'll see why in a minute; so I start out with a kind of creamy, thin glaze...)

Upon pulling the cake from the oven, immediately poke holes in what will be the bottom of the cake...I like to use a fork, about every inch or so.  Pour runny glaze over the cake, and let it soak ...  for a minute or two, then reverse the cake onto a plate (if you want to be a genius, then make sure the plate will fit in the lid of your Tupperware BEFORE hand.)

Then, take what thin glaze you have left, about half, and add some more powdered sugar to it, making it thick and almost creamy...and drizzle it over what is obviously the TOP of the cake.

It should look like this:

And if you're like our little family, we can't wait for it to cool...

And within minutes, it looks like this:

I have to admit, that the BOTTOM of this cake is the BEST part, because it's saturated with the glaze and ooey-gooey.  And as kids, we'd have to arm wrestle our dad to lick the plate.  I know.  We're obsessed.

So, now you have six months to perfect his EASY cake recipe for your next summer birthday or summer snack.  Although it's good warm, it's fabulous cold for breakfast on those lazy summer mornings.  It has eggs in it, and they're healthy, right?