How to Make a Cake

This story takes place in late July 1982. Mom and Dad got in the car and went to town. They took Cory and Kerianna with them. They left Cade and me at home alone. I was 14 (almost 15) and Cade was 13 (almost 14). Mom and Dad did not specify a time when they would return home. Before they left, no one mentioned that it happened to be Cory's birthday on that particular date. (It was Cory's 12th birthday.)

At some point, Cade and I had finished the chores Dad left for us to complete. We were sitting in the kitchen in the house and realized it was Cory's birthday. We concluded that Mom and Dad must have forgotten his birthday. We decided that we would make a birthday cake for Cory so that he would not be forgotten. 

We got out the cookbook (Better Homes and Garden with the red/white checkered pattern on the cover). We found a recipe that looked good and started mixing ingredients. The recipe indicated we should cream together butter and sugar. We measured and added butter. We measured and added sugar. However, the recipe did not say how much cream to add. So we just added some. 

As we continued following the recipe, it asked us to add lemon flavoring. When we went to the spice cabinet, we discovered we did not have any lemon flavoring. We looked in the fridge and discovered we also did not have any lemon juice. We did find some lemon extract in the spice cupboard. So we decided we would use it instead. 

When we finished mixing the batter, we discovered it did not taste quite right. But we reasoned that was because it was not baked yet. We dumped the batter into a pan and placed the pan in the oven to bake. 

While the cake baked, we found a recipe for butter frosting and made the frosting. We wanted to make the frosting a cool color. The box for the food coloring bottles had a guide for how to make different colors. We chose turquoise. 

As soon as the cake came out of the oven, we tried frosting the cake. However, the frosting kept melting and running everywhere. In the end, we dumped the frosting on the cake, spread it the best we could to make sure the whole cake was covered. 

When the rest of the family returned, Mom was pleasantly surprised that we had made a cake!

After we add dinner, we brought out the cake. We put in candles, sang "Happy Birthday" to Cory, and removed the candles. Then Mom served the cake. 

I do not remember exactly how the cake tasted. I seem to recall that everyone tasted the cake. But no one really liked it. 

When I tell this story to my kids at bedtime, I always say we threw the cake out for the dogs to eat but the dogs would not eat the cake either. But that is just something I say to make the story sound fun.

I wrote a short essay about this experience in my 9th Grade English class.

How to Make a Cake

by `Jon Jasperson
Fall 1982

Experience is the best teacher. In July this summer my brother and I decided to make a cake. We got out the cookbook and looked up a cake. We added some ingredients and was doing pretty good, when the recipe said to gradually add sugar and cream until light and fluffy. So we added the sugar and then looked to see how much cream to add, it did't say, so we just added some. We went on and got the batter all ready, but it didn't taste right. We baked it anyway, it turned out kind of bad. Mom got out the recipe and we went over it. Through this experience I learned that the word "cream" has two meanings. It's not just the stuff that comes of (sic) the top of the milk, it also means to mix together.