Welcome to Day 2 of The Eight Days of Lamb Cakes! Today we have a great cake that was sent to me by Martha K.
Martha writes:
Dear Ruth, I decided today to look in my box of Mama’s recipes and I discovered that she too had been on a quest for the perfect Lamb Cake Recipe.I mean it is the “Mother Lode” of Lamb cake recipes.
I Also have a Lamb Cake Mold that my mother had, probably from the 1940’s. I think there is also a Santa mold and maybe a big egg mold. I have the original “Renalde”(that is the manufacturer name of the mold)Lamb Cake Recipe and Renalde Lamb Cake Frosting Recipe.
Best wishes, Martha K.
I have to confess, it really WAS the mother lode of recipe! I got some great stuff from Martha K. (Thanks so much, Martha!) but I was very excited to try out the Renalde Lamb Cake Recipe.
This one was a little bit more time consuming that Trish’s Lamb Cake because it required the addition of beaten egg whites, but it was early in my lamb cake making, and I was still up for challenges.
The batter turned out nice and light. I was pleased with the texture and, true to the recipe, it made enough extra for 6 cupcakes.
I have to confess that this was a great batter. It literally popped out of the lamb pan after it was baked. It was sturdy but not crumbly, and didn’t stick at all.
The Renalde Lamb Cake Frosting was another matter entirely. It was really disgusting. And it was totally my fault. The recipe calls for raw egg whites, but like I am going to frost a cake with raw egg whites. So, I substituted pasteurized egg whites from a carton. Sometimes in vintage cooking I can get away with those, like in the Vintage Bakery Frosting, but in this case it was not going to happen. The “frosting” curdled and slid off the lamb almost as soon as I got it on. As I was frantically sticking coconut onto the sliding frosting, for once I was thankful I don’t make videos of the Mid-Century Menu. Because a video of that it would have been ridiculous.
Testing lamb cake around here is a serious, serious business.
From the lamb testing notes:
Very good. Good cake texture. Springy, good flavor. Surprisingly good with coconut.
From the frosting notes:
Terrible.
The Verdict: This was by far my favorite lamb cake, and the one I thought most resembled my grandmother’s recipe. Tom liked this one a lot, too. I would definitely recommend it highly for your Easter Lamb Cake! Don’t bother with the “frosting” unless you have access to pasteurized eggs in the shell. Use a better frosting, like the Vintage Bakery Frosting from the first post.
Vintage Birthday Cake Frosting
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1 lb powdered sugar
- 2 pasteurized egg whites (I use egg whites from the carton, measured to equal 2 egg whites)
- 2 T cake flour
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 T milk
- Cream shortening and sugar well.
- Add egg whites and blend well.
- Add flour, vanilla and 1 T milk at a time until right consistency to spread.
- Will frost a three-layer cake.
Small Disclaimer:
As with everything we make on the Menu, The Eight Days of Lamb cakes contain recipes for lamb cakes that turned out along with the ones that didn’t turn out so well. Please read each description carefully before choosing your recipe. The recipes we tested were not altered by us in any way, and were prepared according the the directions provided with no substitutions so we could judge each recipe fairly on its own merit.
If you have never made a lamb cake before, please see my tips on making a vintage lamb cake before you attempt one of these recipes. Also, these recipes are scaled to fit a vintage lamb cake pan. Modern lamb cake pans are much larger, and more cake batter will be needed.
No matter what, they’re always SO cute though!
Ooohhhhh, this one looks like a real winner!!! I might just have to get a pan now! 🙂
I have always found this to be such a neat topic. Reminds me a little of those Coconut cut up cakes from back in the day. I wonder if it was a regional type dessert? I live in the south (New Orleans) and neither myself or mother have ever seen that type of cake. Always enjoy your posts!
OOPS! ps I wanted to add, here is a link to all recipes with 13 pictures. Number #12 I believe looks like a startled Persian cat.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easter-lamb-cake-ii/
This is interesting. However, I wanted to let you know that the link to the frosting recipe leads to your draft page and will not allow us to peek. 04/02/12 @ 1:00 PM
I am VERY interested in that recipe for frosting for I have been on a quest for a good cake frosting for a long time.
I can’t wait to see the rest of the little lambs. 😀
Love you, love your website, but it kinda looks like a “Silence of the Lambs” Easter cake…
Dear Ruth, I’m so glad the Renalde cake turned out so well. (If NOT the frosting.)
Now I have a very serious question for the taste tester:
If one made the Renalde cake with the Vintage Bakery Frosting, could one put the coconut? (I mean taste-wise would it be too much?)
Best Wishes, Martha K.
PS I’m eagerly awaiting DAY 3! I may end up making a whole flock of lambies. We can have a kind of Lambie Cake buffet insead of a regular Easter dinner….hmmm?
Mary – I think it might have been regional! I could see the lambie cake being a Mid-Western thing. 🙂 Oh, and thanks for the link!
I know, right??? That frosting made it look so creepy…
I had a Renalde cupcake with Vintage Bakery Frosting and coconut and I thought it was really good, so go for it!!
Go for it! You could totally do it with your HUGE stash of vintage lambie recipes. 🙂
Oops, thanks LorieB!!! All fixed!
My question is this: Did you use butter or shortening? It says butter in the list but it says to cream shortening. Thank you.
Hi Lou Ann! I used unsalted butter. There was a typo in the recipe.
I live in England and until this particular moment in time I never knew lamb cakes existed. My life is irrevocably altered. Roll on Easter.
I am trying this cake recipe with the Miracle Frosting. Don’t know what I did wrong (or right), but I got 3 cakes and 7 cupcakes out of one batch!
Whoa! Bonus!! 🙂
Fabulous recipe! My cake turned out exactly as described and pictured! Only thing is that it made one cake and like 2 dozen cupcakes, so then I was worried that maybe my pan was smaller than your pan and didn’t know if I should bake it as long. I baked it for 45 minutes per the directions and it was fine…just the amount of left over batter was confusing!
Thank you for posting this recipe, it was so amazingly buttery! And it held up perfectly in the 3D mold. My grandmother used to bake a traditional pound cake in lamb mold, and it never had flavor or crumb like this recipe does. Perfect. I’m so glad I came across it!
I wanted to thank you sooooo much for these posts. I wanted to bring this tradition into my family ans was so excited to find this recipe! I am tracking the making of our first Lammie Cake (my four year old daughter Chef Sophia is all about helping with this) on my FB page, please feel free to Friend up and follow along.
Thanks again!
John
I just made this today and am really excited how it came out. It has a delicious flavor (instead of vanilla, I used 2/3 rosewater and 1/3 almond extract). My lamb’s face side is a bit pale…most likely because I overzealously sprayed on the baker’s joy, but it’s done. My nordicware pan had some slight “exploding” issues, so I was REALLY glad I had taken your advice to tie it shut. I was concerned that my pan might be larger, so I multiplied the recipe by 1.5, and I had more than enough. Next time, the recipe as it stands should be enough. I had enough for a loaf pan…as well as everything that exploded out from the lamb (but hey, that’s how I got to taste it…). I did bake it about 15 minutes longer, because I could tell that my loaf wasn’t done yet, and that seemed to work well. Thanks so much for your detailed research and recipes!
Wonderful recipe, made yesterday and frosted today with seven minute frosting. I was very excited that it turned out in one piece. Will definitely be making this again with a bunny mold. Thanks for all your hard work in finding the best recipes along with tips and tricks on doing a molded cake pan!
How long and at what temp would you recommend doing the cupcakes?
Hi Kathy!
I would do 350 degrees for 20 mins, and then start checking for doneness. Cupcakes are done when you lightly touch them in the center and they spring back. Good luck!
Would you happen to have the recipe for the bunny cake? Same little book as the lamb cake, but I’ve lost it. :((
In the vintage bakery birthday cake frosting, do you use shortening or butter? I would like to use butter if possible. Suzy
Hi Suzy! It uses shortening. You can use butter, but it wont be as light and it won’t get the sugar “crust” on it. It will also be darker in color. If you are fine with that, then feel free to try it!
This Easter was my first visit to this site and I was very excited to see detailed instructions of making and de-panning a lamb cake, as well as many different recipes. I couldn’t wait until the 8th cake was made, to decide which one I wanted to try this Easter, so I went with the Renalde Cake recipe.
It was a bit dry and bland, but for the 1st time, I made my lamb cake correctly: with the molds tied together, in one piece! I inherited my lamb pans, with no instructions, and have been baking them in 2 pieces, glued together with frosting. I appreciate this invaluable information.
Your husband is a good sport being your taste tester. He clearly looks like he takes this responsibility seriously! I thoroughly enjoyed each day of 8 days of Lamb Cakes, and the whole site!
Thanks for the detailed posts! This would have been a fail for me for sure without your help. My gluten free Renalde is cooling now and he looks perfect
I hope you still monitor this post. That link for the frosting is broken again. I’m making my first lamb cake this year and hoped to use your instructions and recipes.
Sorry! Updated!!!
Vintage Birthday Cake Frosting
Ingredients
1/2 cup shortening
1 lb powdered sugar
2 pasteurized egg whites (I use egg whites from the carton, measured to equal 2 egg whites)
2 T cake flour
2 tsp vanilla
3 T milk
Cream shortening and sugar well.
Add egg whites and blend well.
Add flour, vanilla and 1 T milk at a time until right consistency to spread.
Will frost a three-layer cake.
Too funny, my name is also Beth Doyle and I am also making my first lamb cake!
I’ve always wanted to make one of these. A few years ago I picked up an aluminum lamb mold (maker not marked, no vents on back) at a church yard sale and stumbled across your lamb cake content.
It took a pandemic for me to work up the nerve to make one, and I used the Renalde recipe and your excellent tips.
The cake was really delicious and retained both ears! Thank you for all your investigation into lamb cakes. We wouldn’t ever have done it without your insights.