I baked a cake last Saturday. A lemon bundt cake with lemon glaze. When I saw the recipe at Katrina Kenison’s place, I knew I had to make this cake, in part because I admire Katrina Kenison and I want to be just like her, and in part because it was a cake-baking kind of day, all drizzly and cool and gray.
I bake a cake about once a decade. Brad is the baker around here – he makes the boys a homemade birthday cake every year, in fantastical shapes like Thomas the Train and Nemo and Bowser Jr. I’m the birthday cake dish-washer. Twice a year I sigh at the eight bowls of frosting in every color of the rainbow scattered across the kitchen and I wonder why we can’t just head to the bakery department at Hy-Vee. For Rowan’s second birthday Brad worked on a Winnie the Pooh cake for about five hours, and when he lifted Rowan up to the counter for his first glimpse of the masterpiece, Rowan yelled, “Elmo!!!” We still laugh about that.
Katrina claimed the lemon bundt cake was super easy to make. But I think that might be a relative term. Maybe super-easy for a person who makes a cake more than once a decade. Still, even though my glaze looked a little funky, in a slightly curdled kind of way, and even though Brad and Rowan sucked the juice from the lemon and made lemon rind lips before I realized I still needed the freshly squeezed juice for the glaze, the cake tasted good. So good, in fact, I ate two slices one right after the other, and then promptly cut a generous slab, wrapped it in tin foil and gave it to a friend. Some cakes, especially those with two and a half sticks of butter, are simply too good to have around.
Katrina wrote a beautiful story about her cake. She baked it every day when a friend was dying. He couldn’t eat much toward the end, just a forkful or two of this cake, but that was enough to keep Katrina baking and delivering cakes to his door until she didn’t need to anymore.
My cake story is a little more mundane. I made a cake on Saturday, and as it baked we read our books, curled into the couch, the sweet aroma settling into every corner of the house, the rain pattering on the windowpanes. We admired the cake as it cooled on the rack. I took pictures, because that’s what you do when you make a cake once every ten years. And then we cut huge slices when it was still faintly warm, and sat at the kitchen counter eating cake in the middle of the afternoon. I even made a pot of coffee, because you can’t eat two slices of lemon cake one right after the other without a cup of coffee in your favorite mug to go along with it.
And as I pressed the back of my fork to the crumbs on my plate and let the last remnants dissolve on my tongue, I leaned back on the kitchen stool, satisfied. Because sometimes, once every ten years or so, you have to make a cake for no reason.
So tell me, what was the last fun or decadent thing you did for no reason?
{And about those multiple birthday cake pictures … I apologize – I got way carried away on the cake nostalgia!}
My friend Evi has a brand-new link-up, and I’m sharing this post over there,
because I’m sure God smiles when we bake a cake for no reason:
I have a friend who is known by all of her sons friends for, “if we go to Matt’s house his mom will make us a cake”
She always has a cake on hand in case the boys come over. I love this so much!
Wow, that’s a mom! I hand out Goldfish crackers when my kids’ friends come over!
I don’t think you ever have to apologize for nostalgia or celebrations or remembering beautiful times spent with beautiful children. I’m so glad you shared all those wonderful photos. You are such a precious mother. If my daughter wasn’t nearly twenty-one, I’d say I want to grow up to be just like you!! I was a mother flying by the seat of her pantyhose, but I did bake cakes–just about the only thing this undomesticated mother *can* do!! My husband is the chief cook and bottle washer around here and calls me his high-maintenance wife. Your cake looks splendid, and I’m so glad that you emerged from your decade-long cake-hiding cave to concoct it…just for no reason, except that it was a cake-making kind of day and you had little ones to share the joy with you. Glad you savored the experience, Michelle, down to the very last crumb. I love how you told this story, and I hope to share a slice of cake and a cup of tea with you someday–maybe at the next JT retreat!
Love
Lynn
Or maybe you’ll be going to Allume and we can meet up again there? 😉
OH, you’ll be there? I am really praying about this. Are you speaking??
No, no, not speaking — just attending. 🙂
Your comment is so funny! I never had home-made cookies and such on hand. And I will never forget a friend asking me what I made for Mike’s breakfast when we were first married (she was the mom of a friend and made full-course breakfasts for her husband). I was surprised and said, “Well, I just stick a grapefruit in the frig the night before!” Simple as Goldfish crackers, huh?! 🙂
This made me laugh, Lynn!
mmmm.,.. Cake
Oh my, you made me laugh out loud with this post. Thank you! Elmo and Winnie the Pooh are close relatives, aren’t they? 🙂
I love it that your husband bakes. That lemon cake looks so yummy. I must add it to my list of 10 thousand pinterest recipes that I will someday create… You “almost persuadeth me to bake” with this post. Hope you have a fabulous weekend. 🙂
Lemon cake is my favorite, Michelle. When are you coming over? Come on, it’s only 900 miles!
I was with Dena this weekend, and she inspired me to start cooking again. Maybe I’ll make a goal to bake something this summer.
Don’t apologize about the amount of cake photos, Michelle! I loved these and truly admired the creativity that went into all these luscious desserts. I must admit, it hasn’t been a decade since I baked a cake, but it’s probably been two since I attempted to make one from scratch. Mixes are my friends!
The lemon cake looks like a great one to try, though.
Thanks for sharing!
It all sounds perfect to me Michelle – even the rain. It wouldn’t be nearly as special if you baked more often 🙂
Good point, Linda – I like your perspective!