A royal wedding cake with a southern touch!

So, yeah, just like billions of others, I caught that royal wedding bug last weekend when Prince Harry married Meghan Markle.  I set my alarm for 4:00 last Saturday morning and I woke up and turned on the TV to watch every single second of it.  Larry woke up and joined me around 6:00 and we watched it together.  Such a gorgeous, perfect wedding and they looked so in love.  Yep, I cried, but mostly because his beautiful mother wasn't there and she should have been.  Sigh.  As soon as Harry and William stepped out to begin their walk to St. George's Chapel, both so very handsome dressed in full military uniform, the waterworks were ON around here.  

The thing I loved the most, though, was how UN-royal the whole thing was.  How the two of them had their OWN wedding and shucked so many royal traditions.  God, how I love them.

Their cake was no exception.  No stuffy old fruit cake for those two!  They opted for a light, fluffy lemon elderflower cake with buttercream frosting.  I just had to try it.  

So I did today!  On our Memorial Day.  Larry and I had hamburgers, hot dogs and this amazing cake.  Now if you search the internet, you will find hundreds of recipes for this cake.  This is the one I chose.  

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups cake flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup whole milk 

4 large egg whites

2 cups sugar

1 Tbsp lemon zest

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/2 tsp lemon extract

You'll need all this!

Directions:

Beat the butter and sugar on high until it's all nice and fluffy

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside

Beat the butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy and add in lemon zest

Using a fork, whisk egg whites, milk and extract together in a bowl

Alternate the dry and wet ingredients into the butter mixture beating on medium until incorporated

Prepare two 8-inch round cake pans with baker's spray

Pour batter evenly into the pans and bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes

For the buttercream frosting:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup butter, room temperature (that's three sticks!)

3 cups powdered sugar

1/4 c elderflower liqueur (I used St. Germain)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp lemon extract

Directions:

Cream butter until smooth

On low, add powdered sugar one cup at a time

Add elderflower liqueur, lemon extract and salt

Whip for five minutes

Yummmmm!  Buttercream!  With elderflower liqueur!  

Larry picked a magnolia bloom off our tree in the backyard and I placed it on the top.  A royal wedding cake with a southern touch!

We felt like royalty, fo' sho'.

Memorial Day

We drove down to Andersonville today to visit the grave of our adopted Augustus Schneider, #4088 in the cemetery there.  We adopted Augustus when we were there in September.  He's a Schneider, he's from Indiana (but served with the Ohio 3rd Regiment) and if he's not kin to us, we claim him all the same.  I picked a couple of flowers for him and we took some pictures.  It was a beautiful day, somber and HOT.  The flags went on forever, it seemed.  Such a sad, sad place.  

Larry got that Kepi hat the last time we were there and he added insignia from Augustus' unit and one for Indiana.
 

 I love this one of him saluting. 

 I caught this little birdy just before he took off. 

We left there and went and visited Mama and Daddy for a little while and had some of Daddy's awesome delicious burgers with chips and homemade lemonade and then some orange sherbet Push-Ups for dessert!

We stopped by Whitewater Park on the way home just to see all the new stuff they have there!  They have a splash pad now! 

And lots of folks were out there enjoying the beach today!  I'm so happy for my little hometown park for being able to get these improvements (a walking trail, new playground equipment and newly designed campgrounds, too!).  Whitewater has always been a special place for me and my family.  We spent many Easters there and had years of family Christmas celebrations there in the Pavilion.  We even had our family reunion there a couple of summers ago.  My childhood friend, Nancy Tramel and her husband, Adam, have made such a tremendous difference there and I'm so proud for and of them.  I know y'all will have a GREAT summer!!

Our Memorial Day

While Larry grilled our burgers and hot dogs, I painted this child-size picnic table that came with our house.  It's really too small for Elizabeth and Emma but Charlotte will be here soon and she can sit at it when she comes to visit!

Banjo and Tabbie Hoffman hung around for a while but when Tabbie got bored and Banjo figured out I didn't have any food for him, they both left me.

 

 

Larry brought me a glass of tea but I didn't get to drink it for very long.

 

My very own grill master.  :)

He did a great job, too!!

Back to work!

And here it is, all freshly painted and ready for a little girl and her sippy cup.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and I hope you stopped a minute and thought about how we came to have this holiday --- to remember with a grateful heart the many men and women who gave their lives in combat.  

We honor their sacrifice and will never forget them.

Memorial Day

 

As long as we remember them, they're never really lost.