Love, Love, Love

A year ago, on Valentine's Day, Arthur proposed to me. It was awesome, and a memory we will truly cherish. And now, the day that is supposidly crass commercialism, is significant for us. Here's what we did this year:

 

On Saturday Morning, we saw this movie. And I have to say, it kinda sucked. There were some performances and some story lines that were meaningful and memorable (particularly Julia Roberts') but on the whole: crappy chick flick. Comes nowhere near Love Actually, which is what I think Gary Marshall (the director) was aiming for.

 

We then visited my favorite trailer cuisine in town: Hey Cupcake! Arthur indulged in the Double Dose, and I took on the amazing delicious Red Velvet.

 

I may or may not have helped a certain sibling create this flower arrangement for his significant other. It was fun pretending to be a florist for half an hour.

 

Finally we concluded our pre-valentines day celebration with Pizza and Beer (of the root variety) and a little Olympic Games watching. Sometimes, its the simple things that really make your heart feel a flutter.

 

Not to be outdone, Arthur brought me home these lovelies. I'm not a traditional rose fan, but these just said beautiful!

 

Finally, for the actual Valentine's Day, we got together with our friends Michele and Justin and had a little celebration, complete with Valentines Day cake. 

Now, this may look like a nice chocolate cake, with a lovely pink frosting heart-- but you would be wrong. This is the one, the only, THE strawberry cake.

Once upon a time, I lived with a girl named Lindsay D. We had only been roommates for a month or so when valentines day rolled around, and the rest of us roommates hadn't experienced her baking prowress, when she whipped out this little sucker--- THE strawberry cake. Being stupid idiots, we shared the cake with our close guy friends, and created somewhat of addiction for our close friends at the time. For the following year, at every birthday celebration, every party, every chance where you might think "Oh I might make a cake" (which in Provo, is like every other week) Lindsay and her fabulous cake showed up. I have seen this cake gone and devoured  in less than five minutes. It is a legend.

Lindsay never claimed that the recipe was her own, and openly admitted that it came from a book called "The Cake Doctor." After copying the recipe myself, and recreating the cake at my grandmother's house, did I discover that the recipe is actually, over 50 years old (or thereabouts). My great-grandmother loved this cake as much as I do, and my grandmother had a copy of the recipe in her own mother's hand, to whip out and show me that THE strawberry cake, has been somewhat of a legend, for quite sometime. 

The secret is fresh strawberries in both the cake and the cream cheese frosting. I have noticed that some people aren't as big cream cheese frosting fans as others, so bearing this in mind, I now only use the cream cheese frosting in between the layers of the cake, and as decor on top. 

If you'd like a copy of THE Strawberry cake recipe, comment, and I'll email you a copy. Trust me, my great grandmother and I (and about 100+ other Provo-ians) aren't liars-- this is a real crowd pleaser.