Successful goal-reaching thus far

1) I did sit down to eat lunch and enjoyed every bite of my compost salad, fresh hummus and FinnCrisp crackers. Have y'all tried those yet? I adore them, as do the boys. Great crunch, great -but not too great- rye flavor, they don't get soggy when spread with hummus, nor do they crack when you're doing so (a huge pet peeve of mine), healthy, full of fiber. Who can say so much about a cracker? I could go on. 2) This lime glazed cake looks extremely promising. It's a simple white cake that you pour a lime syrup over (lime juice, zest and sugar). Now it still needs its lime syrup-powdered sugar frosting, but I'm going to make a lemon one to go lemon-lime. LL has always been one of my favorite flavor combos- for sno-cones, it's the only way to go!

Why, might you ask, am I obsessively cooking all these lemon-lime cakes? Well, dear readers, because I'm in the throes of a personal Recipe Redux over here. Nanny's Lemon Lime Refrigerator Sheet Cake is still delicious in an old-fashioned kinda way. It's a springy lemon cake that you pour liquid lime jello over, top with a lemon pudding "frosting", and then refrigerate until it's cold, creamy and good. It's a great cake to eat right from the pan. It's not fancy, it's easy in the mouth, hell, it doesn't even really require chewing, and thus, you can put away about a half pan without realizing what you've done. The kids were smitten with it yesterday.

But, I wanted to see if I could update it to be 100% made from scratch. The lemon cake I made yesterday wasn't exactly what I was going for though the incredible bubbling that resulted when I added the baking soda to the 12 T of lemon juice + zest of 3 lemons was a fantastic show. Jack is all into acids and reactions right now, and I was quite sorry he wasn't here to enjoy the spectacle. This made for a terrifically rising cake but damn if I didn't drop it 3" from one oven rack to another by accident. I think it sunk a bit then and then a lot more when I doused it with lime jello.

Anyway, today I decided to go a different route and see if I couldn't get the lime flavor to assert itself more. I think this cake might do the trick. And then I'll make the lemon frosting to top it off. But it's got to retain some of the puddinginess that Nanny's did, so I might have to work on it a bit. Fun. I will let you know.

3) I learned something today that seems too valuable a baking tip not to share. If you don't already know this, you can make your own self-rising flour (vs buying it) by following this simple guide: Sift or whisk together 1 c all-purpose flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt. Voila. You've got 1 c self-rising flour.