A LeJenD'(airy) Birthday Bash Blog

Day 5 - Have Your Cake

Day Five: MUCH ADO ABOUT CAKE

         Having cake on one's birthday is a fun concept. Something sweet to eat to go along with the gifts and well wishes of friends and family. But sometimes, it seems the people buying the cake for the birthday person don't take into account the tastes of the person they are buying for. Then there are those outrageous cakes that look like they aren't cake at all, the fondant blanketed creations almost look like plastic replicas of cake all dressed up and are too pretty to eat.

         Which was the case with my oldest daughter, Kat. Once my girls were old enough to tell me, I would ask them what kind of cake they'd each like on their respective birthdays. My youngest, Lucy, was always easy. She, like me, likes simple not too sweet cakes such as strawberry, carrot, or plain vanilla. Lucy would tell me whichever one she was in the mood for right before her birthday and I would bake it for her, easy-peasy. Kat was a little more difficult for a while. When Kat was little, she always wanted those fancy cakes with all the decorations and inches of thick icing so sweet it made your teeth ache, she didn't care what flavor the actual cake was as long as it looked pretty. And I bought them for her - but she never ate much of any of them. The cake would sit, all the icing and fondant melting with each passing day until it was hard to make out what it was supposed to be decorated as, and we would have to throw it out to the chickens. One year, my nephew asked for a cookie cake for his birthday. Kat took one bite of her piece of his cake and decided right then and there she would have cookie cake for her birthday every year. At Twenty-five, Kat still gets cookie cake for her birthday, only now her boyfriend buys them for her. But this term, cookie cake, there's nothing cake about it except for the icing they use on top of it to write the birthday wishes. It would make more sense to call it a cookie pizza (that's what it looks like), or even better yet, a giant cookie. But hey, that's my opinion.

         Like I said, Lucy was always easy to bake for. One year, however, Lucy decided she wanted to have a tie-dye party for her birthday, with tie-dye balloons and decorations and an activity where her guests could tie-dye their own shirt to take home. She also wanted her cake to be tie-dye. In case you aren't familiar with how to make one of these masterpieces, you use a general vanilla cake batter and separate it into a few different bowls where you add drops of food coloring, different colors for each bowl, so you end up with a few bowls and a rainbow of colors. Then you pour a little of each into the cake pan at a time, alternating colors, until you have placed all of the batter into the pan, then place it in the oven like any other cake. This was the messiest cake I have ever had the privilege of baking! I would have been cleaner if I had actually been tie-dying pieces of clothing. But we had fun and she loved her cake - and the memories totally made up for the mess.

         When Lucy first became engaged, we pretty much adopted her fiance into our family and I began the birthday cake tradition with him as well. The first year, I asked him what kind of cake he would like and he was surprised that someone would ask. His mom always bought him chocolate cake for his birthday every year. So I asked, "So you want a chocolate cake?" He looked uncomfortable and then told me, "No. I don't like chocolate cake. I think my mom just buys it because it is her favorite. I'd rather have a carrot cake." So I made him a carrot cake. He said it was the best birthday cake he'd ever gotten. I'm glad that he enjoyed it.

         But whichever direction you choose to go when acquiring a birthday cake for someone, it always helps to remember that the cake is for them - even when they want outlandishly decorated fondant creations. It is about helping them celebrate their day with cake and goodies and friends and family. The cake isn't what's important, after all, the person you are there to celebrate is. Live, love, and celebrate life's milestones.

Word Count: 768

Golden Apple Writers - LeJenD'