Baking the Cake

(Hello Folks! If you're here to read about Jamie's party, it's the next blog entry below this one. This entry is my egocentric experience of baking the cake..)

Baking the Cake

Though my husband calls me “Cake”, this nickname does not live up to my baking skills. In fact, my first inkling when offering to bake the cake for Jamie’s birthday was to purchase one from Price Chopper. It’s fast, easy and for the most part, tasty. My second gut reaction was to buy a box cake and pray that nobody asked me if it was made from scratch.

It’s not that I didn’t want to show effort, it’s just that I wasn’t sure if I could abandon all of my fears, and I wasn’t sure if I had enough courage to take the risk of baking one from scratch….What if everybody hates it! What it if it’s gooey inside!

Thinking about how Jamie has been the “real deal”, (no pretense or phoniness here), I just couldn’t let her eat a cake made by a factory or faceless baker. Plus, she makes just about everything from scratch – muffins, cookies, granola, you name it!

I decided to take the risk, and knowing how much she loves pineapples, I decided to try out a pineapple/carrot/coconut cake that I found on a baking website.

What if people don’t like pineapple? What if I screw up? But like a skilled culinary therapist, I tried to dispute my dysfunctional beliefs, replacing them with positive thoughts…this will be the best cake ever!!

I wasn’t so sure.

First, I didn’t have all of the tools necessary. I don’t have a food processor. (well there is one in my attic picked up at a yard sale, but I don’t know how it works) What if I didn’t chop the carrots small enough and an innocent child spontaneously began choking on a carrot bit? Boy, this recipe called for lots of carrots. What if it tasted more like a salad than sweet?

I don’t have a sifter. (I’m not sure what one even looks like). So I combined the flour, baking powder and baking soda as best I could, creating a lightly coat of freshly fallen snow on the table. Then, I looked more closely at my measuring spoon. Ooops! I realized that I had a ½ teaspoon, and not a full teaspoon, so I had to add and mix again….

The recipe called for “crushed pineapples” Another oops. I contemplated digging through my attic to search for that food processor.

Finally the 3 mixing bowls of ingredients were combined together, and I poured the batter into a large rectangular cake pan. I'm supposed to pre-heat the over? The recipe said that the normal “tooth pick test” would not work for this cake, because it is too moist. My anxiety level increased. How will I know it’s done!

I set the timer, and walked out of the kitchen, urging Alan to stop eating carrot bits off the floor…..

45 minutes later, I peeked into the oven, and the cake looked pretty good. I let it cool for the rest of the day, and started mixing the ingredients for the frosting. Once the cake was frosted, I sprinkled the top with nuts and took a heart-shaped cookie cutter. I placed it in the middle of the cake, and sprinkled the remaining coconut creating a white heart in the middle.

If you’re with me this far….I thought it came out delicious, but I can’t say for sure how everyone else felt. But nobody choked. Nobody died…and the children had a nice helping of fruits and vegetables under that frosting……Love, Cake