Bespoke Birthday Cake

Grace ate cake at an early-summer birthday and declared, "She can make this cake for my birthday." "She" was Wanda, and when Grace's birthday rolled around, she did. It's a glorious angel food confection, delivered on Aunt Minnie's Fosteria cake plate. Talk about eye candy. Perhaps my favorite part was the Alma Cronin icing, a seven-minute creation that pre-dates marshmallow stuff from a jar. I like this icing on lots of levels, and not just because of the way it sticks to my fingers. In my apprentice cranky days, I spent a lot of time watching elderly women (crones over 40) making funeral dinners in the church basement, and Alma had an engaging prickliness that spoke to the cockles of my cranky little heart. 

The Alma icing makes me mentally review the recipes I refer to by a proper name. My mother's recipe box is lousy with them: Berta's Fan Fan rolls. Ruth Ann's White Mountain Ice Cream. My system is less colorful, but mentally, I insert the name of the person who introduced me to something fabulous: (Mark's) Hummus with Pomegranate Seeds on Top. (Laura's) Carrot Soup. (Liz's) Soup with Spinach that Small Children Eat. Recipes come with baggage, not to mention responsibility. Let's just hope that I'm not remembered by posterity with (Toxic Mom's) Scorched Broccoli.

--MCG