Murder cake
June 18th, 2008 by Besha Rodell in Cooking, Food & LifeWhen I was little, my mother used to make the same birthday cake for everyone in the family. It was a chocolate fudge cake with pink peppermint buttercream icing. Usually, she would use the brownie recipe from the Joy of Cooking, and make two nine-inch rounds of solid brownie, with the cotton-candy colored stuff in between the layers and stickily slathering the top. I still remember the birthday I had when she picked delicate tiny violets and crystallized them in sugar to top my cake. I think I was 9.
In the following years, our family grew; my brother and I were joined by two younger sisters, and my mother’s cake-making time became less leisurely. My sisters grew up with the same cake but not always with such a time consuming procedure, and the nostalgic birthday cake of their youth involves cake made from a box. But still, chocolate with pink mint icing.
It’s been a long time since any of us had one of those cakes. My youngest sister recently turned 18, and my middle sister, Grace, turned 22 this month.
Grace is in college out of state, but she has lived with me since she was 17, and comes home to my house during the summers. For years I’ve been planning to make her one of those nostalgic pink mint and chocolate birthday cakes, and this year, with three of her friends visiting for her birthday, I decided it was time. I was also making a labor intensive risotto for dinner, so I opted for the cake in a box option. That’s what she grew up with anyway.
As I chopped and stirred and obsessed over the risotto, one of Grace’s friends mixed up the cake batter. I popped it in the oven, set the timer, and began work on the frosting. As I recall, my mother used a couple of drops of red food coloring and a couple of drops of mint extract. Perhaps my drops are too liberal, or perhaps red food coloring is much stronger than it used to be - but my icing instantly turned blood-and-guts red. Not just deep, pretty red, but a garish, murder red. Oh well, I thought. No pretty pink fluffy cake for us. But at least it will taste nostalgic.
The timer went off just as I was serving the risotto. I asked another of our guests to see if it was done. “Yep, it’s done!” she chirped happily as she removed it from the oven. Distracted, I took her word for it and we sat down to eat as the cake cooled.
Of course, I returned to the kitchen 40 minutes later to discover a cake completely raw in the center. A brownie cake is delicious a tad undercooked, a box cake is not. It had to go back in the oven.
Meanwhile the girls were busy getting ready for their night on the town. I could tell they were anxious to go out and I wouldn’t have time to let the cake cool completely again. After it was cooked, I held them with champagne and conversation for as long as I could, but eventually I had to give in and ice the cake. It was still too hot. The homicide colored icing melted immediately, running down the sides of the cake like minty lava. There was no going back. I stuck the candles in and we sang the song.
Grace says she liked her murder cake, but I know she’s just being nice.
(Photo by Kathleen Leary)
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