Biscuit Dogs

When I think of hot dogs, I don't always think about the big eating contest that's held every July Fourth, or about the grill. I think about biscuit dogs!
A biscuit dog is a pig in a blanket wrapped in biscuit dough made from my grandmother's recipe. 

The first time I made biscuits, my father helped. Pops and I pulled out the recipe, gathered ingredients and heated the oven. We looked at the faded card and realized, then, that a crucial direction was missing: we weren't sure whether we should grease our cookie sheets. Since the biscuits were a surprise for Mom, we couldn't ask her, so we played it safe and buttered the pans before we baked. When Mom tasted the biscuits she paused for a moment as she tried to figure it out, and then told us that no, ungreased cookie sheets are the way to go when making biscuits.

Here's everything you need to make biscuits: flour mixed with leavening, milk, and shortening:

The key to biscuits, like any quickbread of muffin, is to not overmix the dough. In this case, you don't want to mix the shortening into the flour too well:
Once the shortening is mixed in, all that is left is to add milk and roll out the dough.

I like to wrap my hot dogs slightly messily wrapped in dough so the end result has a few crispy bits. I think my brother likes them this way so that the mustard is less of a mess:

Lemon-Coconut Layer Cake

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Pops!
My parents celebrated 39 years of marriage this past Saturday, June 20th, and to help them start their 40th year, I made a Lemon-Coconut Layer Cake.

The start of many good cakes has nothing to do with the batter, and everything to do with preparing the pans. For this cake, I buttered my three cake pans, then placed a circle of parchment paper in each and buttered that parchment:
After the parchment paper was well-buttered, I lightly floured the pans and set them aside until my batter was ready.

The cake layers were just plain vanilla, made by creaming the butter and sugar, adding eggs, and then alternately adding flour and milk:

In between the cake layers I spread homemade lemon curd and sprinkled a bit of sweet flaked coconut:

Then, on to the frosting. I used a seven minute frosting, which is a sweet, light meringue. The frosting gets its name from the process of making it - you combine your ingredients (egg white, sugar, corn syrup and here, a bit of lemon juice and zest) and beat it while cooking over a double boiler for about seven minutes:

Once the frosting was cooled, I spread a thick layer over the cake layers:
I also added a bit more flaked coconut to the sides of the cake for a garnish. Yum!