Yes We Cake

Part of what is making this blog so much fun for me is how much I’m learning from you guys.  Laura from Oregon submitted the following awesome cake, along with some really great insight into the voting process in Oregon.  Read on to learn the fun way in which her and her friends stay informed and involved in the Democratic process!

Laura says:

Here in Oregon, we use a vote-by-mail system exclusively. Your ballot arrives in your mailbox, you fill it out and then mail it back or drop it off—that’s it. Sealing an envelope is not nearly as satisfying as pulling a lever, but this system does have its perks—first and foremost of which is that voting can be a social event.

This means that every six months, my friends and I get together to pour over the ballot measures and debate which local candidates to support. The big tickets are easy, but it’s the smaller items that most of us know little about until we sit down with our ballots and research them together. And because this election is, for obvious reasons, far more exciting than most, I decided to bake an Obama cake to celebrate the occasion.

The cake itself is the White Cake recipe in the Joy of Cooking, which I halved because I didn’t have enough eggs. I also used all-purpose flour instead of cake flour, in case anyone is keeping track. For the frosting, I chose the JOC Creamy Icing recipe and boiled some beets to make the red dye. The blue is made up of those icky artificially dyed sprinkly things, but I figured that since all of the other ingredients were either local, natural, organic and/or free range, we’d all survive a little Blue 1 Lake. 

(I also served an Obama side salad: arugula, of course, topped with red beets and blue cheese.)

So there you have it: Cake we can believe in.

Thanks for all the great info Laura!  You can check out her blog at mydogischelsea.com.