The Birthday Cake
by
Madelyn Shields
 
 
 
We live on Waterloo Street in a two story house that fit in between two other homes. The England's lived on one side of us and on the other side of us, the Ganson Avenue side, was Mrs. Holiday, an older lady, who kept track of the neighborhood. We had grass and flowers in our yard and so did Mrs. Holiday but the England's had a bunch of kids and no lawn what-so-ever. Their yard was bone bare!
 
The three of us had a dog named Cap, a brown and white long haired Brittney Spaniel and we all love him. He would go between the three house to be fed and would sleep on which ever porch offered the most comfort at the time.
 
In Michigan, February was a cold month that brought very little comfort, weather wise, In fact, there always seemed to be lots of snow. Anyway, it was the month that my Mother was born in. Yep! the 15th day of February. the day right after Valentine's Day.
 
Well, this was Mother's birthday so Karen and I decided that we needed to do something special for her. Karen was ten and I was eight and we got our heads together and started making big plans. We decided that we would make Mother a beautiful Birthday Cake. Oh, we were so excited as we talk about her birthday and all that we were going to do.
 
In the afternoon, after the daily newspaper had arrived, Mother would go upstairs to her bedroom, carrying the newspaper, because she needed her rest. Really she loved to read the funnies. We decided that that would be the perfect time to bake the cake and when she came down for supper she would be so surprised.
 
We had a swinging door that went into the kitchen, so we made sure the door was closed and we could get started. We put aprons on, and got the Betty Crocker cook book out and started looking for cake recipes. We got the electric mixer with its own bowl out, the measuring spoons, and began reading and measuring. We were working hard and everything was going great. We lit the oven and turn the temperature to 350*F just like the recipe said. We measured, sifted, scooped and mixed.
 
We got two 8 inch cake pans and smeared them with shortening and floured them. We talked and giggled about the party.  We both were feeling big time important. Finally, we had the cake in the oven and all we had to  do was wait for it to cook. This gave us time to clean up the mess we had created and when the cake was done all we would have to do is frost the cake. That was really going to be the most fun part.
 
We got out Mother's cake platter out and waited. Pretty soon, we decide that the cake was done, so  we broke a straw off the broom, just like Grandmaw Grace always did, and tested the cake. Sure enough the straw came out clean.  Well, so far so good. The cake was doing fine and we took it out of the oven to cool.
 
We mixed our icing and decide that it needed to be pink. We got the food coloring out and squirted the red coloring into the icing and beat it into the powered sugar with the milk and butter and a dash of salt. Karen put the first layer of the cake on the plate and we put out some icing...it ran off the cake...it was too runny...so we added more powered sugar...still runny...we added all the powered sugar we had. Karen put the second layer on top of the first and the cake started sliding so we decided to use toothpick to hold it together. I held the cake in place so Karen could insert the straws. That seemed to work! Now for the rest of the icing...I scooped it on the cake for Karen to smooth it out and it ran; the more icing we put on the cake the more it ran, until the icing was running off the plate and onto the cabinet. We tried to catch it and scope it back on and it kept going and running and oh my, what a mess!
 
About that time Mother decide that she was ready to get up from her afternoon rest and here she came into the kitchen.It seemed that our surprise Birthday Cake was turning into a slippery, sliding monster that cause us so much chaos. We were chasing icing everywhere; all over the cabinet trying to put it back on the cake. Scoping it up with spoons; we just couldn't scoped fast enough!
 
What a surprise Mother got for her Birthday and what a surprise Karen and I got for making a MESS!
 



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