This Thing Called Cake

This Thing Called Cake

When my mother told Dad that she was going to make a cake, we all knew to go someplace else. She could not make a cake if her life depended on it. I remember two birthday cakes. If the top layer didn’t fall off before I cut it, it was a miracle.

When my father came home from overseas, she made a beautiful chocolate cake for him. Lordy, lordy, it was just beautiful. Little did we know why. As usual, the top fell off when she had tried to frost it. She had been devastated, so she piled frosting upon frosting on the lower layer, got some marshmallows, and placed them around the perimeter of the first layer, and then…secured them with toothpicks! After she was through frosting it with more frosting, it looked very handsome. It was the first time she had received oohs and ahs for a cake. Dad took the first bite…and, guess what? He was nailed with a toothpick!

Another time: Mom, Dad, and my brother Jim all lived in Hawaii. I was visiting. It was Jim’s birthday and Mother decided to make a failsafe cake for him. All the ingredients were in a tinfoil pan. All you had to do was to add water, stir, and bake for 35 minutes. When she took it out of the oven, it was cookie thin. We went over the directions with her, and she had done everything right. After my brother stopped rolling on the floor and gained his composure, he said he knew what she had done. He asked her what temperature she had used and for how long. Her retort was, “Just what the directions said.” She had used mountain instead of sea level instructions. We celebrated Jim’s birthday with a large cookie and tons of frosting.

Connie Campbell lives in Seattle and wrote a funny book about a stray cat that adopted her church. The Life and Times of Toby: the big ol’ yellow cat https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P35J12U.

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