Easter Lamb Cake

Tom’s Grandmother Sienkewicz used to make a lamb cake as part of her Easter meal, which the Polish priest used to come and bless on the dining room table.

It took years for Anne to perfect her own lamb cake because the recipe which we got with the mold did not work very well. In the days when shee used that recipe, the head would fall off unless the neck was reinforced by putting toothpicks inside the batter. She always worried someone would swallow a toothpick. Changing to this pound cake cured this problem: This makes a stiff dough and a more solid cake.

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup of sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp salt

1.2 cup soft shortening (or half butter/half shortening). All butter also works.

1 tsp vanilla

5 egg yolk (2/3 cup), unbeaten

¾ cup milk

Preparation: 

Heat over to 350°.  Make sure your lamb mold pan is clean and dry. Grease both top and bottom well. Put about 2 tablespoons of flour into the bottom part, fit the top part tightly together, with a finger covering the air vent hole and shake vigorously so both inner surfaces of halves are evenly covered with flour. Shake out any excess flour.

Sift dry ingredients together into bowl. Add shortening, vanilla, egg yolks and ½  cup of milk. Beat 2 min., medium speed on mixer or 300 vigorous stroked by hand. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl constantly. Add rest of milk. Beat 2 more min. scraping bowl frequently.

Spread the batter into the bottom half (air vent hole goes on top). It will just about fill it. Make sure you spread batter across the head and into both ears. Put the top on and -- THIS IS IMPORTANT -- use cotton twine or some kind of string that won't melt in the oven to securely tie the top and bottom together, around the neck and body. When the dough rises during baking it will otherwise push the top right off and the batter won't enter properly into the top half of the mold. Bake the cake at 350 for 60 minutes and check to see if the cake looks golden through the air hole.

Cut off the twine, remove the top half and let the cake cool another 10 minutes or so before inverting it onto a cake rack to finish cooling.

When you want to plate and frost the cake, slice off a thin slice of the bottom to level it, since the two halves of the mold are slightly different in size.

Here is a good frosting for the cake:

White Mountain Frosting.

¾ cup sugar

3 tbsp water

3/8 cup syrup

3 egg whites

1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar, water and syrup in saucepan. Cover and bring to rolling boil. Uncover and cook to 242°or until syrup spins a 6-8 in. thread.

Just before the syrup is ready beat the egg whites until stiff enough to hold a point.

Pour hot syrup very slowly in a stream into beaten egg whites while beating until frosting holds peaks. Blend in almond extract and vanilla.

Decorating the Cake

Coconut flakes

Jelly beans

2 marischino cherries

3 chocolate chips

Green food coloring

Once the cake is resting upright on the serving plate, cover the lamb entirely with the frosting. Sprinkle coconut flakes all over the surface of the frosting. Use slices of marischino cherries for ears and mouth and chocolate chips for eyes and nose.

Mix green food coloring into ½ cup of coconut flakes until the color of grass. Sprinkle the green coconut flakes on the plate around the lamb. Scatter jelly beans (no black ones) in the grass.