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This week is my 26th wedding anniversary and I am sharing the recipe for my wedding cake.  I meant to make this last year for the big 25th, but life, as often happens, had other plans. So, here I am on a not-as-special-but-just-as-wonderful anniversary with a family story and recipe.My grandmother ran a restaurant in her home during the 1950s.  It was a reservation only, private party type restaurant.  People would come to celebrate happy occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.  Mamie made beautiful cakes when commissioned.  In the 1960s, she closed the restaurant, but continued catering weddings at other sites.

When my mom got married, my grandmother made the cake:

When I got married, my mom made my cake:

These cutting the cake photos are funny, because they are totally fake.  We didn’t cut the cake.  At that age, we had no idea how to properly cut a huge layer cake so that everyone got a piece.  We simply stuck our knife in and took out a little chunk.  Then an older lady shooed us away and went to work.  First, however, she removed that special top layer.  That, traditionally, was to go into the freezer and come out at the first wedding anniversary as proof positive that we were going to make a go of this marriage thing.

The top layer of my wedding cake was carefully wrapped in waxed paper and foil so that it wouldn’t be freezer burned.  Then it was labeled and put away.  I left with my husband for our new life in Washington state.   A few months later, my father retired from the military and moved to another town in Arizona.  I flew home to help Mom with the packing and unpacking.  That special cake came out of the freezer and went into their motor home for the move.  Once we all arrived in the new home, the cake went was supposed to go into their new freezer.  My husband and I were going to visit for Christmas and take it home then.  However, I got to thinking that a year old piece of cake wasn’t going to taste very good.  At the time it was only two months old, so it was probably still pretty good.

Can you see where this train of thought led me?

Yes.  I ate the entire top layer of my wedding cake.  All. By. Myself.  And only two months after I said “I do.”

My mother was aghast.  What doom could this portend for my future?  What would my husband say??

Twenty-six years later, he still teases me about it.  To quiet him once and for all, I have finally made him a cake that HE can eat all by himself.  (Though my kids will gladly help him)  I clearly did not inherit the cake decorating genes of my mother and grandmother.  We are all lucky that the cake is circular, tall and not lopsided.  It is an almond flavored pound cake with a beautiful moist crumb.  In order to make those huge cakes, the recipe had to be doubled and trebled.   The following recipe makes a simple two layer cake.  I filled it with store bought strawberry jam and topped it with a buttercream frosting.