Birthday Blessings

A couple of weekends ago, my family and I got together in Bay St. Louis to celebrate my grandmother's birthday.  Mama Day is truly a remarkable person, and our family is blessed to have her as our matriarch!  We had a wonderful time celebrating her birthday.  While others were busy boiling shrimp and frying fish, I had the pleasure of baking the cake!  My family always talks about my Granny's (Mama Day's mom/my dad's grandmother) lemon doberge cake. Growing up, I didn't like cake, so unfortunately I do not remember ever tasting Granny's cake.  I knew I couldn't duplicate it, but I wanted to make something similar. So, for Mama Day's birthday, I made a lemon cake.

Quick side note ... I searched online for lemon and chocolate doberge cake recipes, and I was very surprised to find only a handful of recipes online.  Of course, I had to find out why ... Doberge cake (there are a few differnt pronunciations; we say dough-bosh) is a traditional New Orleans birthday cake, usually chocolate, lemon or half and half.  It consists of six thin layers of cake filled with either a chocolate or lemon pudding/custard filling, topped with a very thin layer of buttercream and finished off with either a chocolate or lemon glaze.  I never knew this cake was a local treat.  I thought everyone had doberge cake for birthdays and holidays!

Anyway, Granny's cake was a typical doberge cake, but from what I've gathered, it was made up of many, many layers of very thin cake with a lemon glaze/icing in between each layer and topped with the same glaze/icing.  For my own version of the lemon cake, I decided to make a 6-layer cake, filled with a homemade lemon curd (recipe given to me by my friend Kristy of her grandmother's recipe), topped with a lemon-vanilla buttercream.  And while I still hope to one day find a recipe like Granny's to make for my family, my own version was definitely a hit with everyone!  I believe I may get many requests for this one in the future.  I kept the decorations simple, bright and cheery!

Mama Day looks beautiful, as always.  I, on the other hand, look rough after spending the entire day outside in the hot, sticky Gulf Coast weather.  Oh well, it was worth it!