Birthday Month

In our family, we have 8 birthdays in July. Since there are so many, we have a tendency to put them all together and just celebrate once. And so we did, on July 4th when the whole family was here anyway. We had parade candy by the bowlful, all the food you would care to eat, snacks and beverages all day long, and even red, white and blue bomb pops to have during our fabulous front yard, front row seats to terrific fireworks. After the fireworks ended, we came in to allow the traffic to thin. We sang and had birthday cake. A rather special cake.

It was a milestone birthday for me this time, and I really didn't feel like making a big deal out of it. My kids kept asking me what I wanted to do, so I finally just said I would make a birthday cake to have for the 4th...and maybe we could eat out later or something.

I had a craving for German Chocolate cake. I haven't had one for a long time and decided to try it. Right after my decision, I was watching TV and Bobby Flay had a "throw down" with the best German chocolate baker on the east coast. I watched as they each baked their best, then put them to the test with the judges. Bobby's won--no surprise there--but one of the judges had taken a bite out of the "loser" cake and declared, "this is my mother's cake!" She was impressed. I went on Bobby's website and printed off the recipe for the winner.

I made a list of what I would need to make the winning cake. I could not believe the ingredient list! There were 2 kinds of sugar--a brand name I have never heard of. The recipe included goat's milk, coconut milk, a vanilla bean that you must scrape out the seeds to use, a coconut liquor of some type, special flour, special leavening, special butter, special chocolates, special pecans, special everything. It would have cost me $100 to make!

So I decided to make the "loser" cake instead. Imagine my delight when the recipe called for flour, sugar, eggs, butter, German chocolate, and other things I had already!

When I was a young bride, I thought I was a decent cook. I tried to make a layer cake out of a boxed mix. It was a disaster I never forgot. I could not get it right. It broke apart, crumbled, and generally didn't do what a cake should do. It didn't even look like a pretty good try. It looked like someone had dropped it and picked it up in pieces. And that was my best work! I did not try another layer cake again from sincere humiliation....until now....
Ta Da! My birthday cake was fun to make, beautiful to look at, and very, very delicious. I'm glad I decided to give myself a birthday present of a second chance! So happy birthday Justin, Dad, Dave, Erik, Jason, Mia, and Jaxon...and me!