37. Bake a cake from scratch.
I carefully followed a recipe called "Lady Jane Boles' Chocolate Sponge" from a book entitled, Time For Tea. The results, I'm afraid, were a little disappointing. Very chocolaty, but dry. I won't let it put me off though. I'll just seek out another recipe next time.
When I was growing up, my mother always used cake mixes and mixes for icing, such as Pillsbury or Duncan Hines, whenever she baked a cake. I didn't know there was any other way to do it. Until a friend of my parents came one day and ....
"Auntie Kay", as we called her, was a nurse who worked at my father's company (where my mother also worked for a time) for many years and they became good friends. My parents invited Kay to come and celebrate my brother's Eighth Grade Graduation with our family. Due to the large number of students attending the graduation, only our parents could attend the actual ceremony, which left Kay at home with my sister and I. To pass the time, Kay decided it would be fun if the three of us made a cake. Not finding any mixes in the closet, I thought we would have to abandon the idea. Nonsense, announced Kay as she began to look for a recipe and the necessary ingredients.
Her enthusiasm was catching. My sister and I were able to help her find all she needed and a short time later, there were two cake tins in the oven and a bowl of icing on the counter. If I recall correctly, the cake was white and the icing had a hint of pink. After all was assembled, Kay invited us to have a quick taste of the icing and a bit of the cake.
To put it mildly, it was awful!
I held my breath, thinking Kay would be upset or at the least, very disappointed after all her work. But the most amazing thing happened. Kay laughed! A hearty, deep belly laugh.
What to do? Kay didn't hesitate. She said we should just simply throw the cake away. "Oh well" was her attitude about the whole endeavor.
I absolutely marveled at her ability to just shrug the whole thing off. My poor mother used to get very upset in situations like that, so Kay's response was new to me. Whether Kay observed it growing up or it was simply her nature I don't know. But there was certainly something valuable to be learned from her attitude.
Come to think of it, maybe the cake above would be better placed in the bin (aka garbage can) too.
No comments:
Post a Comment