Let Them Eat Cake!

Exactly two weeks after Christmas is my birthday.  Eleven days later is Noah's.  Two weeks from that, Tina's.  So for six glorious weeks we are surrounded by birthday cake.  And with our birthday-fests, lasting days as they do, cakes are in no short supply!  This week begins our last scrumptious days with the frosted delightful desserts. 

My all-time favorite is red velvet but only if it is made from scratch, super moist, with a note of deep, dark chocolate, and perfectly tart cream cheese frosting.  A few years ago Tim surprised me with one he'd ordered from a friend of a friend.  It was A-mazing!

Noah's favorite is classic.  White cake, vanilla icing.  He actually scoffed that I ordered 1/2 of his sheet cake this year in chocolate (because that's the favored kind of the family).  Not that he had any room to complain considering we also had a cookie cake and ginormous cupcakes from GiGi's his birthday week!  Tina's fave, I have discovered, is strawberry.  Tonight, her actual birthday (#13), we're having strawberry shortcake.  What she doesn't know is that I've also ordered a from-scratch-strawberry cake complete with strawberry filling and strawberry cream cheese icing.  I can't wait for Sunday's party!

All this cake thinking and ordering reminded me of our birthdays growing up.  For us, Mom always made our cakes.  Mine was normally vanilla.  I love chocolate but in a "teenage phase" I thought it cool to be pro-vanilla.  I distinctly remember my 13th birthday cake like it was just yesterday.  It was pink and maybe it was strawberry inside too.  I just remember the pretty pink frosting, pastel candles and candy letters.  Sorting through photos, my memory was pretty spot on!

I also remember posing for a photo, even though I couldn't find it.  That photo is actually why I remember the cake.  Mom had pencil curled my hair for my birthday and I was wearing a soft pink sweater that matched the icing.  I normally hate any photo of me but I remember this one being cute because I actually posed.  ....of course it would be the one I can't locate!

What I'm glad I do have though are the memories of those simple, close family birthday memories complete with homemade cake and icing.  And, I'm thankful I took the time a few years back to scrapbook all those family recipes to keep for generations to come, many in the actual handwriting of the cook.

From my family scrapbook cookbook