Happy Birthday to Me!

“Go, go, go shorty it’s your birfday. We gon’ party like it’s your birthday.” Yep that’s right, it is my birthday and I will cry if I want to. Unless, somebody makes me some Pink Lemonade Cake. Well technically they call it a pie, but it’s my birthday and I want to call it a cake, so a cake it is. Doesn’t it look delish? I love how pretty it is! I am not a big pie person in general, but my uncle made me an apple pie for my pre-birthday dinner and it was not half bad. Normally he cooks us Sunday Pasta dinner and I have to say he has perfected the art of Italian cooking to a T. Recently he has added pies to his repertoire and it was pretty darn tasty. I will have to pass this recipe along to him and see what he thinks. Hopefully the whole pink thing won’t throw him.

Ingredients

The Crust:

• 1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
• ¼ cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons butter

The Filling:

• 1 8-ounce packet of cream cheese, softened
• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• ¾ cup pink lemonade concentrate (not mixed with water)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh or bottled)
• AmeriColor Red Red food coloring or equal

Directions

The Crust:

1. Mix the crumbs, sugar, and butter in a nine-inch pie pan or spring form pan. Mix until the crumbs have absorbed the butter and the mixture is uniform.
2. Press the crumbs across the bottom of the pan and up the sides.
3. Bake for eight to ten minutes at 350 degrees.

The Filling:

1. Using the whip attachment and your stand-type mixer or with a handheld electric mixer, mix the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk together on medium high-speed until the mixture is smooth. (If you place the sweetened condensed milk in the bowl first, the cream cheese will not stick to the bowl and you will have little need to scrape the sides.)
2. Add the lemonade concentrate and lemon juice and continue beating. Color with red food coloring as desired.
3. Pour the mixture into the pie shell and place it in the freezer while you mix the topping.

Wait wait wait. Look what I stumbled upon… An actual Pink Lemonade Layer Cake that looks pretty awesome as well. Now that I found the actual cake version, you are allowed to call the above recipe a pie. See how that works? The birthday girl gets whatever she wants. However, when it comes to these sweeties, I am not quite sure which one I want to eat on my actual birthday, plus I am not a big fan of decisions, so I think I will take both please.

Ingredients

• One box of strawberry cake mix (plus oil, water and eggs as directed on box)
• 8oz. Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1 packet of Kool-Aid Lemonade (0.23oz.)
• Yellow food coloring gel, as desired for color
• 2 cups Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme
• 8 oz. Cool Whip Topping
• Fresh strawberries to garnish

Directions

1. Make cake according to box and bake in 2- 9 inch round cake pans as directed. Turn finished cakes over on cake racks and allow to cool completely.
2. Cream together cream cheese, lemonade and yellow food coloring until smooth.
3. Mix marshmallow creme in and then mix in Cool Whip until completely smooth. Refrigerate until cake is cooled and cut.
4. Cut each cake layer in half.
5. Alternating layers of cake with layers of filling, assemble cake.  End with layer of filling.
6. Top with sliced strawberries.
7. Refrigerate and serve chilled.