Birthday Meal

It's my mother-in-law's birthday and I decided to make her dinner and a cake. I had seen a recipe through Bon Appetite on Twitter for a meal with chicken and another tweet for a kale and grapefruit salad. You can find the chicken recipe here and the kale/grapefruit salad recipe here.

Everything was delicious, though I found that for the salad I needed closer to 1 1/2 grapefruits (so, more than the 1/4 cup found in the recipe), and I should have waited to put my avocado into the salad at the end. It really was a great combination though and I would recommend it for lunch anytime!

The chicken was really fantastic and I love the concept with the chicken thighs. These are an under-utilized cut of meat. They are inexpensive, full of flavor, and as versatile as their white meat counterparts (haha -- no pun intended).

I also made a lemon sponge cake with whipped cream icing for dessert. It was a nice, light way to end our meal.

Lemon Sponge Cake 

- 5 room temperature eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Beat the eggs and sugar with a wire whisk until tripled in volume. Using a stand mixer is ideal here but electric hand-beaters will work too. Gently fold into these light, fluffy eggs the flour, sifted, as well as the lemon zest and butter. Pour into 2 small round cake molds and bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 mins.

Allow the cakes to cool on a wire rack in their pans for a bit. When the pans are able to be handled, flip the cakes out and onto the rack to complete cooling. This should not take long as they are thin cakes.

Whipped Cream Icing

- 2 cups heavy cream
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 Tbl powdered sugar

While the cakes are cooling, whip all of the ingredients together until peaks form and hold. Layer some of the icing (a little under half) between the two cakes and then cover the cake top and sides with the remaining icing. I sprinkled some more lemon zest on top as decoration.