What is it about kids and cakes? It's so much fun, so magical to bake a cake with a child.Duncan Hines
I can still transport myself back to our kitchen with the green table in Dumont. It's a Saturday afternoon, and I'm baking a cake with my mom. It's from a mix. It doesn't matter. We're happy. She lights the old white Slattery oven. I watch the crafty way she cuts waxed paper circles to line her two layer-cake pans. It seems so adult, like a skill I'll never achieve. She saves some batter for my mini pan and doll-sized cupcake tray.
She liked the "butter recipe" mixes you added a stick of butter to. [And my Dad has liked to remind me that when cake mixes were first introduced, the companies were aware that women felt better about using them if they were adding their own eggs or other ingredients rather than dumping out a box and pouf--a cake!]
She baked a yellow cake with chocolate frosting every Labor Day weekend, when her friends and their families congregated at one friend's house in West Saugherties. She made an excellent cheesecake. Sis baked a tender lemon Bundt cake for the family across the street when their beloved daughter died--she asked me to deliver it, and Mrs. L. was so happy to see me at the door with the cake plate. Mrs. Blake made us fruitcake every Christmas from her special "Mystery Chef" recipe, and her daughter, my friend Nancy, carried on the tradition last year. H.'s Grandma Millie always baked pound cake, and I have her recipe, written in her hand. And for special occasions, my grandma made an apple walnut cake.
The Beaters Go On
I've been trying not to buy too many sweets, but baking--and reading dessert recipes--is one of my greatest joys.
So when Figgy asked, "Mom, can we bake a cake today?" I was quick to get my tube pan from the house. We made Ina's Barefoot Contessa Sour Cream Coffee Cake Mix [web: barefootcontessa.com or amazon.com, but I bought mine at Kings supermarket]. Our visiting Shrimp--Punch & Judy--knelt on a stool next to Figgy, helping to hold the mixer, sprinkle the streusel. She had me open the oven to check on the cake. She went home with a third of that baby for her and her mommy. She was so excited to be taking it with her.
It was delicious. And the fact that those two girls were stirring, blending and sprinkling in extra spoonfuls of love and happiness made it much, much better than if I had been baking or eating it alone. It sounds corny, so corny, but mothers and daughters have been baking together forever, and it feels really nice to carry on the tradition.
P.S. I'm not the only one who celebrates the art of the slice. The painting above is:
Pies, Pies, Pies by Wayne Thiebaud
1961
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 in (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
©Wayne Thiebaud
Posts
check out this link:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.artchive.com/artchive/t/thiebaud/thiebaud_cakes.jpg
I have this print framed and hanging in my dining room in Long Island!
Oh, thanks, Kim....i love that....i think have a journal with that on the cover but had forgotten....would have been perfect for cake post...are you still selling the L.I. house? how is it going? alice
ReplyDeletewe are still selling. It's been on the market for about 2 months and there has been an alarming lack of interest. It is a very sluggish market out in LI.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand, it's a blessing. We don't HAVE to sell until this time next year and if it had gone fast, it would have been a little...breathless. We for sure will get this summer there and maybe even another round of holidays. So we get to enjoy it more, but also we are getting very used to the idea of not having it, too. And, sort of anxious now for it just to happen.