Cake!


Back when this old crone was about eight years old my mother came across an Easter egg dying kit with a twist. The twist was that it included a cake decorating "project" to do with the colored eggs.

The cake was to be angel food and on the box of the egg coloring kit were punch out "stands" to place the eggs on top of the cake...

I was never really into dying eggs, it was boring and I hated hard boiled eggs. I didn't mind doing the "pin" method, where you stuck a pin in both ends of a raw egg and blew the egg out of the shell But my little sister wanted to boil the eggs...oh happy day. So we colored boiled eggs and the next day after the eggs had dried and mom had gotten them into their "stands" she began on the cake.

I have always loved cake batter and couldn't wait for that part. My mouth watered for cake and smooth butter cream frosting that melts in the mouth, (no not the canned or boxed kind, but from scratch).

It would take mom almost all day to bake the cake and then let it cool for frosting...Yes I could almost taste it. Well worth the eggs.

Easter dinner was great, glazed ham, sweet potato casserole, baked potatoes, green beans I ate carefully saving room for cake, and butter cream frosting and once our plates were sufficiently clean we got desert.

I could hardly wait! Mom went to get the desert plates and forks, back into the kitchen for the knife and then...

THE CAKE!

In she walked with the cake on the pedestal eggs in their stands, set the pedestal on the table and cut first my sister a slice then me...but wait a minute...the frosting looked different...Butter cream did NOT have a "sheen" to it and although sweet and sticky it didn't have the consistency of butter cream. What was That stuff on top of the cake?

It was…FLUFF! MARSHMALLOW FLUFF!

I had spent two days salivating over a cake topped with FLUFF? She knew I disliked marshmallows so she put FLUFF on the cake! That was Sacrilege! No self respecting baker would frost a cake with...

FLUFF!

Seems the recipe for the cake and instructions called for fluff so the "stands" wouldn't topple over with the eggs in them. But really...FLUFF?

My appetite for cake disappeared, my mouth dried up. I pushed the plate away, pushed my chair back from the table, rose and walked away.