When you host your next dinner party, and want something easy yet impressive and a bit out-of-the-ordinary to serve, try this 7 Up Cake with Orange Sauce.

7 UP Cake is not new. I think the recipe first circulated in the late 1960s. But this particular recipe for 7 Up Cake is a bit different (most other recipes call for lemon flavoring) and most of them don't include the Orange Sauce. The cake is delicious plain too, but the orange sauce makes it even better.

7 UP CAKE

1 c. butter, softened

1/2 c. shortening

3 c. sugar

5 eggs (at room temperature)

3 c. flour, sifted 3 times

3/4 c. 7 Up

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. butternut flavoring

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream butter, shortening, and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Add sifted flour and 7 Up (alternately), beating well. Add vanilla extract and butternut flavoring. Mix well. Pour into greased bundt pan or angel food tube pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.

Let the cake completely cool before serving.

ORANGE SAUCE

2 c. powdered sugar

1/4 c. orange juice (more or less)

Put powdered sugar in a saucepan. Add enough orange juice to make a paste. Heat the mixture until the powdered sugar dissolves and the paste becomes more of a sauce. Add a little more orange juice, if needed.

Pour a tablespoon or so of warm Orange Sauce over each slice of cake right before serving or put the orange sauce in a heat resistant pitcher and let everyone pour the sauce over their slice of cake themselves.

M-m-m...your family and guests are sure to be pleased and impressed.

Suzanne Lieurance is a freelance writer and children's author whose books and some of her articles can be seen at http:// http://www.suzannelieurance.com

Lieurance also owns the Three Angels Gourmet Co. Read her daily food tips at http://www.threeangelsgourmet.blogspot.com and visit the Three Angels Gourmet website at http://www.threeangelsgourmet.com for a line of "heavenly gourmet mixes."