Roy's Cursed Birthday
Once a year a certain dreaded event roles around: my husband's birthday.
The first birthday I celebrated with Roy was in 2005. I was still living in SD at that point. I think he came to visit the weekend before his birthday. I made him a carrot cake but I accidentally doubled the butter (don't ask me why) and so it really stuck to the top of your mouth! I love butter, but I couldn't even eat that thing! He politely had seconds! Then I tried to drive down to visit him, but became terribly ill before I even reached Colorado. Roy and his mother had to come get me from Sidney, Nebraska and by the next day, his birthday, I was in the hospital. So we'll call the first birthday together a disaster.
Let's move on to Roy's birthday of 2006. By that point I had moved to Colorado. I made a Shoo Fly cake that year - that's a molasses cake named after the Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo Fly Pie. I was inspired to make it after going to Roy's family reunion in Pennsylvania the previous summer and having a bad Shoo Fly Pie. After that, Roy and his dad told me all about a cake recipe in a church cookbook that never failed. It was a simple and simply wonderful cake. His birthday that year must have been perfect because I barely remember it.
Birthday 2007. This was the year that Roy requested a Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting - no joke. He had made this particular cake before and so he directed me to the recipes. The cake and the frosting recipe were again from church cookbooks, but they were two independent recipes. So I made him the cake and slathered that frosting on! What he neglected to tell me was that he didn't use all the frosting on the cake. Hm. It turned out a little rich, but good if you scraped off about half of the frosting!
Birthday 2008. Ah, the year my baby was born. This time Roy requested a Chocolate Oatmeal cake - you guessed it, out of a church cookbook. Sounds easy enough. Well, we were all busy and stressed out because a certain baby was overdue by almost a week. My mom was visiting, so she helped my big-bellied-and-very-anxious self bake the cake for Roy. We threw it together, put it in the oven, and kicked our feet up! When it was done, I tried to make the "broiled coconut frosting" that was supposed to top the cake and I totally burned it to a crisp! So I scraped it off. When Roy saw the cake later he looked right past the bits of char and said, "It looks too flat." He thought it should be very raised-looking. So we baked another one. Same problem. Then we researched, made phone calls, looked in every cookbook we had to make sure that was the only Chocolate Oatmeal cake recipe around. And we baked two more cakes! You may be wondering at this point why I kept banging my head against the same wall. Well, I have this stubborn notion that birthdays should turn out perfect, no matter how many tries it takes! Anyhow, we made four cakes in total without a single one turning out right. We finally called it quits. We made more coconut frosting without broiling, spread it on two of the flat cakes and then tipped the other two on top of those and frosted again. We ended up with two decent layer cakes that lasted weeks!
That brings us to yesterday - Birthday2009! This year I opted to go back to the Shoo Fly Cake. I thought,no muss, no fuss, just the perfectly wonderful cake - the ONLY cake that hasn't failed me! So I whipped it up and threw it in the oven! When the timer went off, I went to the kitchen to find Roy waiting with anticipation by the oven. I gave him the nod to take the cake out. He opened the oven door and said, "What happened to the top?"
Roy took it all very well. He couldn't stop laughing at his own jokes about the cursed cake! We packed up the first cake and took it over to his parents' house because they made us supper. Roy's mother took it upon herself to place candles on the cake. She didn't have enough candles, so she placed some number candles on the cake and said we were to add all the candles to make his age. The effect of her candle design was so very fitting!
Oh, if you're wondering why there is a big chunk taken out of the corner . . . Roy and I were taste-testing it to figure out what went wrong. All we learned is that it wasn't poisonous and it was just good enough to be addictive.
I invite anyone who is interested in any of the above cake recipes to try them out and show me up! Seriously, I'd love to see it done right. And I want pictures to post of it done right! Just email me for the recipes: susan@ourhaxtunlife.com
The first birthday I celebrated with Roy was in 2005. I was still living in SD at that point. I think he came to visit the weekend before his birthday. I made him a carrot cake but I accidentally doubled the butter (don't ask me why) and so it really stuck to the top of your mouth! I love butter, but I couldn't even eat that thing! He politely had seconds! Then I tried to drive down to visit him, but became terribly ill before I even reached Colorado. Roy and his mother had to come get me from Sidney, Nebraska and by the next day, his birthday, I was in the hospital. So we'll call the first birthday together a disaster.
Let's move on to Roy's birthday of 2006. By that point I had moved to Colorado. I made a Shoo Fly cake that year - that's a molasses cake named after the Pennsylvania Dutch Shoo Fly Pie. I was inspired to make it after going to Roy's family reunion in Pennsylvania the previous summer and having a bad Shoo Fly Pie. After that, Roy and his dad told me all about a cake recipe in a church cookbook that never failed. It was a simple and simply wonderful cake. His birthday that year must have been perfect because I barely remember it.
Birthday 2007. This was the year that Roy requested a Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting - no joke. He had made this particular cake before and so he directed me to the recipes. The cake and the frosting recipe were again from church cookbooks, but they were two independent recipes. So I made him the cake and slathered that frosting on! What he neglected to tell me was that he didn't use all the frosting on the cake. Hm. It turned out a little rich, but good if you scraped off about half of the frosting!
Birthday 2008. Ah, the year my baby was born. This time Roy requested a Chocolate Oatmeal cake - you guessed it, out of a church cookbook. Sounds easy enough. Well, we were all busy and stressed out because a certain baby was overdue by almost a week. My mom was visiting, so she helped my big-bellied-and-very-anxious self bake the cake for Roy. We threw it together, put it in the oven, and kicked our feet up! When it was done, I tried to make the "broiled coconut frosting" that was supposed to top the cake and I totally burned it to a crisp! So I scraped it off. When Roy saw the cake later he looked right past the bits of char and said, "It looks too flat." He thought it should be very raised-looking. So we baked another one. Same problem. Then we researched, made phone calls, looked in every cookbook we had to make sure that was the only Chocolate Oatmeal cake recipe around. And we baked two more cakes! You may be wondering at this point why I kept banging my head against the same wall. Well, I have this stubborn notion that birthdays should turn out perfect, no matter how many tries it takes! Anyhow, we made four cakes in total without a single one turning out right. We finally called it quits. We made more coconut frosting without broiling, spread it on two of the flat cakes and then tipped the other two on top of those and frosted again. We ended up with two decent layer cakes that lasted weeks!
That brings us to yesterday - Birthday2009! This year I opted to go back to the Shoo Fly Cake. I thought,no muss, no fuss, just the perfectly wonderful cake - the ONLY cake that hasn't failed me! So I whipped it up and threw it in the oven! When the timer went off, I went to the kitchen to find Roy waiting with anticipation by the oven. I gave him the nod to take the cake out. He opened the oven door and said, "What happened to the top?"
| Oh lord,what should have looked like a beautiful crumb-topped cake looked instead like it had frothed and caramelized all around the edges. We stood staring at the cake trying to figure out what went wrong. Finally we decided that it was because I had used butter in place of shortening. So I made another, this time behaving and following the recipe to a T! But the birthday curse would not let go. Same result as the first cake. |  |
Roy took it all very well. He couldn't stop laughing at his own jokes about the cursed cake! We packed up the first cake and took it over to his parents' house because they made us supper. Roy's mother took it upon herself to place candles on the cake. She didn't have enough candles, so she placed some number candles on the cake and said we were to add all the candles to make his age. The effect of her candle design was so very fitting!
Oh, if you're wondering why there is a big chunk taken out of the corner . . . Roy and I were taste-testing it to figure out what went wrong. All we learned is that it wasn't poisonous and it was just good enough to be addictive.
I invite anyone who is interested in any of the above cake recipes to try them out and show me up! Seriously, I'd love to see it done right. And I want pictures to post of it done right! Just email me for the recipes: susan@ourhaxtunlife.com
Posted by Susan at September 22, 2009 
Categories: Rural Living
Tags: chocolate oatmeal cake pie cooking carrot cake Banana cake Shoo Fly cake baking peanut butter frosting
Categories: Rural Living
Tags: chocolate oatmeal cake pie cooking carrot cake Banana cake Shoo Fly cake baking peanut butter frosting
lol, please don't make me any birthday cakes!!!
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But Mark you so deserve a satanic cake!
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You are very persistent! Kudos! What about Melise's cake? I hope the curse is not hereditary?
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