Happy days are here again! A cake for celebrations

Written by by Judy Vig and Joy Paoletti
Thursday, 23 August 2012 11:17

Happy Day Cake with raspberries — a perfect combination.The lazy days of summer are finally leaving us as we move into cool crisp mornings and sunny warm afternoons. The stores are filled with pencils, paper and school glue.....loving this! The kids are going back to school, hooray!

We were counting down the days.

 Our mom used to sing a song to us every year as the first day of school came rolling around. It’s called “Happy Days Are Here Again.” She would dance around the kitchen laughing, singing and clapping. The saying “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” must be true, because we find ourselves singing this same song song to our children!

As we decided what recipe would be right for this story we remembered a cake our Nana used to make. Its been in our family for 75 years now. She called it a “Happy Day Cake.” No one in the family can remember why she chose this name, but we think it would be a  perfect choice for our first day of freedom. The batter is lightly vanilla-scented batter and the cake can be used as a  base for many dessert choices.

Nana used it for the traditional summertime favorite, strawberry shortcake, and  birthday cakes frosted with sweet icings or simply topped with a late summer fruit. 

To this day, we all feel that Nana made this cake the best  out of all the women in our family, but we try to make her proud and hope she is watching....Enjoy! 

Happy Day Cake 

2 cups vanilla sugar* 

1/2 cup Crisco 

1 stick butter 

4 eggs 

1 teaspoon vanilla 

1 teaspoon lemon extract 

3 cups flour 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda 

1 cup buttermilk

Cream butter, sugar and Crisco until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in extracts.

In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking soda. Add alternately with buttermilk to sugar mixture.

Bake at 325 for 50 to 60 minutes using a bundt pan. When cool, turn out onto serving platter. Serve with fresh fruit and chilled whipped cream.

 * Vanilla sugar (a TwiceBakedTwin favorite): 2 cups white granulated sugar and 1 vanilla bean, split. Place bean in sugar in an airtight container for a few days until the vanilla has perfumed the sugar. YUM!