The birthday Cake

          I'm a twenty-seven almost twenty-eight year old woman and have I made my first cake from scratch. I  am a good cook and a good baker, I've made cookies, breads, cinnamon buns, truffles, peanut brittle, and many other delicious treats and received the highest praise. This cake was a disaster and this is my story.

          Let us start at the beginning, I have been unable to spend a birthday with my big brother Tim. His wife charged me with making his cake, and I was happy to oblige: delighted even. I spent many hours researching cake recipes and after much effort I came to the decision that an ice cream black forest cake would suffice. I came across the recipe on-line and it seemed like it would be simple to make.

          I went into my kitchen and found that I had next to none of the ingredients. I walked to the local grocery store, half an hour away and spent an hour and half finding all that I needed. I was pleasantly annoyed as I'm asking a pimply seventeen year old clerk who looks at me like I'm speaking a different language when I asked for canned cherry pie filling and the response I received when asking about baking powder and baking soda was:

          "There's a difference?"

Surprisingly, I'm not stifling some sarcastic remark; I'm smiling, it's been a long time since I have had someone to fuss over and in my head I'm thinking: this is fun.

          After my grocery store adventure, my brother is already home from work and being a night owl, I decide to make the cake after he goes to bed. A sound decision in theory, however; a couple of glasses of wine later, and now 10:30 at night; I find myself making a cake. Going into auto-pilot, I place all of my ingredients in front of me and proceed to diligently follow the instructions, taking for granted that the instructions were written correctly. Everything is going swell: I have my ice cream layer in the freezer and I have my cake layers baking in the oven. Curious as to how long it should cook I read:

          "bake until cooked"

Bake until cooked? Helpful. Checking on the cake half an hour later, as most box cakes take about that long to "bake until cooked," the cake is still liquid. I check that the oven is on the correct setting and wave at a passing thought that says, perhaps there should be more flour. Promptly ignoring this premonition, I wait another half and hour, and then another. After being in the oven more than two hours, I take my beautiful, black goo out of the cake trays and realize that they are not fit to be served. It's now 1:30 in the morning. I don't have enough eggs. Off to the corner store I go.

          Obtaining my eggs and some extra flour, I make my way home. When looking at my ingredients again, I realize that there's still the same amount of flour in the original bag. Now, I'm not a fruit cake, I do know that cake requires flour, but auto-pilot and glasses of wine caused me to overlook this fact the first time. While flour is listed on the ingredients list, it does not say to add it to the bowl;  obviously, I didn't add it to the bowl. I refused to make the same mistake this time and remade the cake. It turns out beautifully and I am proud.

          Once again, referring to the recipe, it tells me to wait ten minutes after taking the cakes out of the oven to cool. They still seem hot to me, and I am working with ice cream, so I wait longer. Thirty minutes longer. I place my bottom layer on the cake dish, add my ice cream layer and then add the top. It's stunning. It looks like a great big ice cream cookie. I'm patting myself on the back as I'm adding the cool whip. Wait a minute-it appears as though my cool whip is melting. What to do? I know, I'll just place the air tight lid on top and place it in the freezer. It's now approximately 4:30 in the morning. I'm starting to get tired.

          Five o'clock in the morning, and I'm humming with absolute confidence, I waltz up to the freezer, remove my pristine home made cake and attempt to remove the lid. It feels as though it's been suction cupped on. After about five minutes of tugging on the lid, it finally comes free. Not only did the lid come off, but the blindfold of delusion that this cake was going to turn out came off as well. All over my counter top, the floor and me was the liter of ice cream I placed between my layers of cake. I look down on my beautiful masterpiece, I place the lid back on the counter, take a breath and laugh. What else could I do? I left my cake sitting on the counter and the floor, went out side for a breath of fresh air and then proceeded to clean up my second failed cake. This was enough for one night.

          Upon waking, I bring down my first attempt at birthday cake, present it to my brother and say:

          "This is for running over my tricycle when I was two."

I bring out the second cake and say:

          "This is for squishing my smarties and making me cry. You'll have to wait for your real birthday cake, as it still needs to be made."

          Thankfully, my third attempt at the black forest ice cream cake was a huge success after all I did have enough practice at it.





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