Whomping up a cake

Now, baking a cake is not all that hard. Not when you've been doing it for as long as I have.

But then, I had a working stove. Usually. This time my new oven was gracing the patio waiting to be installed and the gas oven was still very much in place.

My stoves and I, stand-alone ranges actually, have quite a history. But I never had trouble with cakes.

I am a Mom. I bake cakes for birthdays. Big cakes. In the lower-level tier of the wedding cake pan set. Each layer takes a full 2-normal-layer cake batch. Enough to feed a classroom of grade-school aged rug rats.

Usually white with five eggs whites per layer. Six if I feel like it. No mixes. Bake from scratch. "Your cakes taste better," my kids tell me. They have my number.

Sometimes I do chocolate - but then I have to be allowed to arm-wrestle the kids for a piece. So, I usually settle for yellow cakes and white cakes. And combinations of same. Polka-dots.

And icing. I went to the National 4-H Club Congress in 1959. I was the 4-H Regional award winner at Demonstrating cake decoration. I have blue ribbons.

I'm trained for this.

Of course, these days, I do use canned frosting (Oh, be quiet! It's not that bad!)

And I do resort to other aides on occasion. Like the sugar-plum cake my youngest wanted one year. Covered in gum drops. Icing 1 inch thick. Sugar coma. Never mind climbing the walls. Those kids were on the ceiling!

One year it was real strawberries (in February! - accept frozen strawberries, kid! Some things Momma can't change.) and pink frosting. And strawberries inside the batter. Fussy little kid.

And there were the Matchbox car cakes. Real cars. I think I washed them first.

I even made a cake for my brother when he couldn't get home to the East Coast for Christmas. (He took my big knife - 14" long - and whacked it in half. I have pictures. He was in the army.)

They ordered, Momma baked.

With the oldest now 21, I have had a lot of practice.

So, it did not seem to be too much of a reach to fix a cake for someone at work. Like the senior VP of sales. He's seen my cakes before. Even the one with the two malt balls on it I made for a co-worker. (Don't go there!)

I made my usual cake. Five egg whites. Normal layer pans. Icing ready.

The cake fell. It had to happen someday. Why now! At 9PM in the evening, a fallen cake is not a nuisance. It is a disaster!

So, I made another one. Carefully checked my measurements. I am getting on in years.- little print is easy to misread. Beat it just so. Double checked the temperature setting.

Plop. This one had one layer OK. The other fell slightly.

Hey, this is for guys at work. Enough already. I took my big knife - 14" long - and whacked the fallen layer in half - not too bad. A damp spot in the center. Good enough. I went to bed.

Next morning, I rushed the 15 and a half year old to high school (not an insignificant feat) and came back home to paste the cake back together with icing and calmly decorate it. I stuck on the top layer. I swirled the icing over the top. I resisted licking the spoon. And dribbled spreckels all over the top. Looked good.

Then I reached for one of those little tubes of icing to add words.

It belched. I now had an ugly red blob on my pretty if slightly soggy in the center cake.

Not to be daunted (it was now 8AM and I was due at work already,) I sopped up the offending crud with a napkin, scooped off the damaged icing and used the last little bit of icing from the can to "fix" the spot. So much for words. Good thing I didn't lick the spoon. I threw on more spreckels.

I then got the red-pink-white M&Ms out of my candy dish and ringed the top. I added tiny streamers. And a lent it my two big question-mark candles my son had graced my birthday cake with. (Funny child.)

Made it. Pulled on panty-hose, stuffed the cake in a box to survive the trip to work down the 880 freeway along with matches and my big knife - 14" long - and took off.

The candles fell over.

I was not to be disturbed. I propped them back up. I smeared the icing back into place. I washed my hands first. I think.

At 3PM we lit it and served it to the VP.

He took my big knife - 14" long - and whammed the cake into 16 pieces in 2 minutes flat.

No body noticed the center.