Thursday June’s 14th, 2018
“The actual lyric was If I’d known you were coming I’d a baked a cake”. Today I’m baking a cake. It is H’s birthday today and everyone else is working. So, cake duty falls to Pop Pop. You are thinking about a box cake from Betty what’s her name, no I’m going to make it from scratch. Where did that saying come from? From scratch I assume. The origin of starting from scratch (so the googlizer people say) is from sports where someone would scratch a starting line or a goal line in the dirt. So starting from scratch, or starting from nothing. Seems to describe this task for me.
I will be starting from nothing. I’m thinking of a yellow cake with really good chocolate icing. What could go wrong? It’s not like I could destroy a newly minted 3 year old’s birthday by messing up the cake. I did think about shaping some Styrofoam and icing it up, but I was worried the candles might ignite the foam… Nothing like a fire extinguisher to spice up a birthday fête.
What flavour is yellow? My research indicates the yellow comes from using the entire egg? I guess the shells bake down during cooking? At least the ingredients look to be less flammable than the Styrofoam.
I need a recipe. The first one that popped up is from that ex-con woman Martha Stewart. It might be the right recipe for me, she had to make do with limited and simple ingredients that could be smuggled into prison. Is she still in jail? If not hopefully she got early release for having a good yellow cake recipe. My first searches for yellow cake lead me to read a bunch of stuff about of all things, Uranium?
I’m thinking about a one layer cake. I worry that the application of something between the layers might act as a lubricant and they might separate curing the singing of ‘Happy Birthday’. I considered putting money in the cake. That was always a hit at parties and in cakes when I was young back in the ’50s. Choking hazards had not been invented yet. We also sat in ‘car seats’ up front… Perhaps children weren’t as valuable as they are these days.
I’m unsure how I will manage my time today to get all this done. I’m also going to make this cake without any help (other than the internet), no calling a friend. No seeking out the cake lady to save the day at the last minute. My biggest worry so far is how to keep the cake batter and the frosting separate while it bakes… Stay tuned