Thank you, MM (and Ina Garten)! --

My mom's birthday is today and we've been thinking of a nice gift to give her.  Like me, she likes to buy things for herself because she has very specific preferences in clothes and shoes.  And she's not a techie (and actually gets horrified at the cost of some of our gadgets) --

We decided to just make her something --

I found this really simple recipe from MarketMan's blog for a Fresh Mango and Pecan Cake --

We made it yesterday -- and gave it to my mom this morning.





The most difficult part of this was the prep -- but I'm glad I had the help of our cook and helper who peeled and cubed the mangoes (and quietly watched, without complaining while chunks of butter were flying out of our bowl while we were creaming it.)

While it was baking, the house smelled so, so good.  (I love, love, love the smell of cinnamon.)

My sister delivered it there this morning and I was so anxious about how the cake tasted -- Johann got tired of my fretting that he called up my sister to ask her about the cake.

She brought home a few slices:



And it was really yummy.  (I zapped it in the microwave for 20 seconds.)  I could imagine this with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.