Monday, July 30, 2007

A Tale of Two Cakes



It was the best of cakes, it was the worst of cakes. On Father’s Day this year we had a gathering at Jeff and Bethany’s house. Misty was to cook the hot dogs and Bethany and Carmen made desserts. Both decided on chocolate cake because I am a confirmed chocoholic. Bethany used a recipe she had found and cooked a super chocolate cake, it had cherry pie filling in the batter and a frosting made of semi-sweet chocolate. It was a plain looking cake on the outside, because the thick frosting didn’t spread real well, but Bethany was very proud of her work.

That is, she was proud until Carmen brought in her cake. Bethany said, “You baked a cake too? Let me see.” She was anxious to compare her handiwork with Carmen's (she tends to be slightly competitive). Carmen lifted the cover on her cake. It had a beautiful creamy frosting done in a meticulous swirl with little chocolate rosettes all around the top edge. Bethany took a long look at Carmen’s cake and said, “Well, I think I’ll just throw mine in the trash!” Carmen tried to console her by explaining that her cake was just made from a mix and simply had fancy frosting, but it was no use, Bethany’s cake was overwhelmed.

I had to sample both of the cakes and brag a whole lot on Bethany’s, before she finally agreed to not throw her cake away. It really was a delicious cake for a chocolate lover, but it was sooo chocolatey that it set off a round of heart palpitations in me that took several days to subside. On a scale of 1 to 10 for degree of chocolate in the ingredients, it scored about 13.

Jeff noticed a few days later that the cake had a remarkable quality. It was a dense, moist, heavy cake, and he swears that it gets heavier as it ages, even when it was being reduced in size as he and Bethany ate a little each day. If Jeff is correct, and I am afraid that he might be, what is left of the cake is probably in a lab in Los Alamos, where a two inch square of the cake now weighs four hundred pounds and is gaining. Scientists are probably secretly preparing for the next Big Bang or for a Black Hole to form. If the power could be harnessed it might be a solution to so called global warming.

Anyway, it’s good to know that my daughters love me so much that they would try to kill me with chocolate.

1 comment:

the scrappy chic said...

That is hilarious! Bethany didn't tell me that story. I'm gonna have to give her a hard time about it:)