Minkgirl Muses

CAKE

Gman turned 3 yesterday. But we've actually been celebrating all week: he had his party in the park with 6 friends last Sunday (you're supposed to invite one kid for each year of life, but hey, Gman has always been a "more more more" kind of guy), he had a special outing and present-fest with his Amma (aka Grandma) on Wednesday before she flew back to America after a long visit, and then on Friday he celebrated with his classmates at preschool with cupcakes. And because as a 3-year old he seems to finally be fully conscious of the world around him, I figured it was time for me to step up to the plate (so to speak) and learn to bake.

My mom says that cooking is an Art and baking is a Science. Let me say that I was never any good at Science - too precise and persnickety. In fact the only things I remember from my 10+ years of biology, chemistry and physics are:

1) Entropy - a component of the second law of thermodynamics which describe how the universe is constantly moving toward chaos "defined as a change to a more disordered state at a molecular level." (Wikipedia) I remember this seemed like a good reason not to clean my room when I was in 7th grade. It now seems like a apt explanation for the kind of destruction a child can wreak on any room in under 3 minutes.

2) Schrodinger's Cat - a conceptual experiment designed by German physicist Erwin Schrodinger to illustrate some point of quantum physics that I have never fully understood. In the photo in my textbook, the poor feline was trapped in a box with a shotgun attached to it, thus proving something about how you can know where the cat is, but only if you kill him.

3) If you "accidentally" drop sulfuric acid in Chemistry class, it burns cool holes in your jeans.

I remember quite clearly the cakes my mother made me for birthdays when I was a child. Weeks ahead, we would pick a theme and do sketches together. Then she would surprise me with a cake that exceeded my wildest imagination - a three-dimensional zoo cake with animals made out of marzipan, a cake with cascading chocolate fondant ribbons, a rainbow cake covered with crescents of fresh edible flowers.

I was not so foolish to attempt such grandeur with my first cake, but I did think I should try to make something that would please Gman's three-year old imagination.

Me: "What kind of cake do you want for your birthday?"

Gman: "Dinosaur!"

Me: "What about an animal? A giraffe? A zebra?"

Gman: "Dinosaur, Dinosaur, DINOSAUR! RAH!"

Me: "Got it."

So I headed over to the ultra-posh-super-pricey cookery store on the high street to see what I could find. To my pleasant surprise, they rent cake molds for cheap AND they had a dinosaur one. I got the mold, a pastry bag and tips (for the icing), and explicit instructions from the shop lady about every step of the baking and icing process. I even planned well enough so that I could de the deed while Gman was asleep with enough time left to do it a second time if I totally screwed up.

I purchased 2 boxes of organic chocolate cake mix (I wasn't crazy enough to start from scratch), mixed them up, poured them into the greased, floured cake pan and waited for magic to happen. 30 minutes later I removed a gorgeous looking cake from the oven, which even after it cooled WOULD NOT COME OUT OF THE PAN. I finally chipped it out in 3 pieces. But no matter, icing hides all mistakes. Later that night (with my mom advising), I began the icing process. Of course all my recipes are in cups (which are volume), and all British food is sold in grams (which is weight). But after some complicated mathematical calculations, I managed to mix up reasonable quantities of butter, sugar into a frothy mass and I was ready to add the food coloring. Gman had requested an orange dinosaur (his favorite color), but no matter how much red and yellow foodcoloring I added, I could not achieve any color stronger than pale salmon (okay, honestly it was pink). And by this point, because it was an unseasonably hot night, the icing was also starting to melt. I quickly filled my pastry bag, and started decorating. But I discovered that icing is nothing like paint in consistency - it slithers here, it squishes there, it defies all attempts to carefully place it. After several false starts, I decided to go with the blob method - the result was something reminiscent of a Carvel ice-cream cake from the 70's. But no matter, it did resemble a dinosaur, and even though it took me about 5 hours to make (ridiculous, but I had to keep putting it back in the fridge every 10 minutes so it wouldn't dissolve into a puddle), it was delicious.

And the look on Gman's face when I showed it to him was exactly what I was aiming for:

"That's MY cake! You made that cake for me? MY dinosaur. MY cake. I'm going to eat it all up!"

And he did, along with his 6 friends. Later in the week, emboldened by the success of my first baking attempt, I made 3 dozen cupcakes for him to take to school and share with his class - also from box mix, but who's counting? They were also well-received, and Gman was pleased and proud that his cupcakes were chocolate and that everyone had sung to him.

When Gman was only a few months old, my husband and I had a philosophical conversation about how we were going to raise him - one of the very few we've had on this point. We talked about what memories we had of our own childhoods, about what had made an impression. We both agreed that the things we best remembered were the ordinary things that happened all the time (reading a definition from the dictionary before dinner every night, or going to temple every Saturday) and the special things that happened only occasionally (a river-rafting trip, looking for the first flowers of spring, staying up late to see a comet.) And we decided that we would spend our effort on creating a few solid family rituals and on occasionally doing something really unique and memorable.

I don't know if Gman will remember his 3-year old dinosaur cake (or any of his life up to this point), but I think I will. It taught me a lesson about extending myself out of my comfort zone and how simple gifts can bring the greatest pleasure.

Be well.

Labels: Family Life, Mamahood