Mother's Day Cake Recipe

Mother's Day is a holiday that always seems to arrive unexpectedly and leaves me scrambling to find a gift and card at the last possible moment. The majority of people end up buying flowers for their Mom and sadly, I am no exception.

This year, however, I marked the date on my calendar and I was able to do a little advanced preparation for Mom's big day. In a break from tradition, I decided to bake Mom a cake and I bought all of the necessary ingredients ahead of time. I decided to make Torte de Mamae (Mother's Day Cake in Portuguese) a recipe that I came across while visiting Brazil.

I was intrigued by the fact that Mother's Day was so popular in Brazil to have a standard recipe for the occasion. So I decided to do a little research into the origins of the Mother's Day and how the tradition of celebrating Mother's Day came to be.

The earliest observance of Mother's day comes from the ancient Greek celebration at the festival to Cybele, the great mother of Greek gods. This festival was usually held around March 15th around the Ides of March. The tradition later spread to other parts of Europe and became known as Mothering Sunday. It was set on a specific Sunday that usually corresponded with the 4th Sunday in Lent to honor the Virgin Mary. Children were given the day off from school to spend with their families. They would pick flowers to put in the church and also to give to their mothers.

In the United States, a feminist named Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870. This proclamation was influenced by the carnage of the Franco-Prussian War and also by the American Civil War and the assertion that women should have a leading role in shaping political action. Mother's Day was first officially celebrated in the United States in 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia. It was also in this small town that Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrase, "Second Sunday in May" and "Mother's Day." She was very specific about the location of the apostrophe so that the word mother was singular possessive so that the day was meant for each family would honor their mother and not plural possessive honoring all mothers of the World.

Ingredients - cake:
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
6 egg yolks, beaten
10 egg whites, beaten
1 1/4 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup whole milk
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tspn baking powder
butter cream icing

Ingredients - pineapple sauce:
4 cups fresh pineapple
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp Cointreau
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tspn vanilla extract


Preparation - cake:

1. Butter and lightly flour 3 9-inch round cake pans.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
   
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar.
4. Mix in the egg yolks 2 at a time and beat well.
   
5. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk and coconut milk.
6. In another bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder.
7. Alternate adding the mixture from step #3 and step #4 to the mixer until all of the ingredients are well combined into a batter.
8. Fold in the egg whites and mix thoroughly.
9. Pour batter evenly into the three cake pans.
10. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour. Stick a form into the top of the cake to test if it is done. If the fork comes out clean it is done.
    
11. Remove cakes from the oven and let them cool completely.
    

Preparation - pineapple sauce:

1. Put pineapple in a food processor and pulse several times until pineapple forms a paste with small chunks of pineapple.
2. Put the pineapple along with the other ingredients into a saucepan. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer.
3. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.
   
4. Remove saucepan from heat and let it cool.
   

Assembling the cake:

1. If you need to make the top of any of the cakes level, use a serrated knife to cut off any uneven sections. If you do this, put the bottom side up as this will make it easier to add frosting or sauce to the surface of the cake.
2. Place the bottom layer on a cake dish. Top it with a layer of the pineapple sauce.
3. Place the middle layer on top of the bottom layer. Top this with the pineapple sauce.
4. Place the top layer on top of the middle layer. Apply butter cream frosting to the top and sides of the cake.

Brasil