This year I've taken over the responsibility for making my kids' birthday cakes (a position previously held by my mom, who loves doing it, but she hasn't been around for the festivities lately). Annie wanted white cake with white frosting, and I made a white chocolate lemon cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting and lemon curd filling for her birthday party. It was a really pretty cake, and a labor of love on my part. It was also really, really good-- with a great mix of sweet and tang and total decadence. The kids, when they dug into the cake, ate happily until they got to the lemon curd, when their noses curled up almost in unison. After the party was over, Annie commented, "you know, the cake was really good Mom, but what was that yucky sour stuff in the middle?"
When Bryce's birthday rolled around, he requested white cupcakes with chocolate frosting. He's pickier than Annie is, so I knew that I couldn't be too adventurous. I made the cupcakes from our favorite birthday cake standby, the aptly named "Best Birthday Cake" from the Perennials cookbook. Then I frosted them with an amazing whipped chocolate ganache. But after "Happy Birthday" was sung and the Blue Bell ice cream cups were consumed, I was left with a whole bunch of barely nibbled cupcakes.... Today I threw away about a dozen of the leftovers when I realized I was the only one still eating them.
I don't think I'm trying to be a snob, or striving to be the next Martha Stewart when I bake overly gourmet cakes for my kids' birthdays-- I just want to show them that I love them. But then I wonder if I'm screwing them up for life by giving them the impression that things have to be fancy and gourmet and well-made in order for them to be good. Is it my own insecurities as a mom that has me spreading sour lemon curd into a cake that I'm serving to six-year-olds?
Annie, my godmother, was asked to bring a cake to a wedding reception last year. She's a fabulous cook and a wonderful baker, yet she brought a funfetti cake to the reception. Why? Because funfetti is the bride's favorite kind of cake. I aspire to be the kind of mom who can make a funfetti cake for her kid's birthday and not wonder about how it will reflect on her. My kids always come home from birthday parties singing the praises of the Wal-Mart cupcakes-- would they have happier birthdays if I just went to Wal-Mart and threw a pack of 24 cupcakes into the cart and called it good? Can I do it and hold my head up high and not cringe as I serve them? Smartmama suggested that I solve the funfetti issue by adding sprinkles to the Best Birthday Cake mix, but would the hybrid satisfy either the mama or the kids? I'm not sure.
For Bryce's family party, I made a very basic banana cake (an enhanced cake mix cake), with very basic (yeah, homemade) chocolate frosting. He's been loving it-- eating a piece every day after school and savoring every bite. So I think I'm starting to get it right, at least until someone requests funfetti.
10 comments:
I don't have your baking skillz, but my kids happily eat up the Duncan Hines boxed cakes that I frost with the Duncan Hines canned frosting and are none the wiser. This keeps the cakes off of my hips as well.
I think kids like things to be simple --or maybe it's just my simple kids, heh. There's actually a box of funfetti cake in my pantry, Scooter picked it up at the store when they were 3 for $5.
Basic, uncomplicated dinners also go over much better here than fancy stuff. I improvised a vegetarian fried rice on Monday night and they loved it. Since I already had cooked rice, this meal took me all of 15 minutes to conceive and cook. Meanwhile, time-consuming feasts get barely a nibble.
Kids. I guess they are teaching me to simplify.
I had a great cake the other day. The baker whipped up a lemon cake mix (doctored per Anne Byrn) and then took a can of lemon pie filling and dropped spoonfuls into the cake. The result was awesome! The filling sank to the bottom. The cake was topped with whipped cream.
I love to cook and eat gourmet stuff, but I'll admit that I usually make easy cakes for my kids since they don't care. Sometimes I do cake mix, but I generally don't buy it because I'm trying to cook with fewer processed foods these days. THe one thing I draw the line on is canned frosting because it tastes so awful to me. I kind of figure that I want my kids to feel like I gave them what they wanted on their birthdays; I have issues with having a mom who never listened to me (and still doesn't) and did things like buying me a My Little Pony for my 16th birthday, so I'm a little sensitive to ignoring what they want :)
I just googled funfetti! I am so making myself one this weekend.
I'm with Kermit here. The Boy (like his father) just like it simple. So simple it is. So they would be ok with the lemon, not so much with sour.
I work full time. If I need a special cake I call the bakery. (Really.) Their cakes are really good. They freeze amazingly well. And good god can they decorate. (I have trouble with stacking the layers of a baked cake.) The cake is always good. The kids love it. And I just have to go pick it up. The boy likes plain cakes. So that's he gets.
I love to cook and try new things. New complicated extravagent things. But as Kermit said, they force me to simplify. (Besides no one ever remembers the cake.)
Hey just think of it as training them in the food aesthetic- one day they appreciate the gourmets you've made of the.
I will admit we stopped to new lows when allen requested cherry chip this year- a flash from his childhood- it was nasty stuff--
I'm telling you whatever you nake just all sprinkles and its all good- actually bbc makes a good gourmet funfetti- allen actually thought it was the best bbc he'd had-
My nightly treat -- reading your blog. I did make the Funfetti cake, but I really did want to put a disclaimer on the place card that I CAN make from-scratch cakes! I didn't, but I wanted to!
Love, Annie
That birthday cake you made our crazy boss lady at Study Abroad (I'm blanking on her name) is the best birthday cake I have ever had. If your kids don't appreciate it now, they will in 20 years when their new MIL makes them a plain old boxed cake with canned frosting.
Is there anything you DON'T excel at? Sheesh. :) I want your recipes though. Those cupcakes you made for the VT Cnference were amazing!
We all have that area where we can't help ourselves. I think it's sweet and like you so perfectly described, a labor of love.
Btw, have you tasted WalMart's cakes? They are pretty dang good! Lol.
i think you'll find the right balance for you. i'm not sure where it came from, but I make cakes for my kid's birthdays every year. i have no special training or skillz, just a tiny smidge of creativity, and an awareness of what they're interested in at the time.
i love to see their faces when they first see their cakes. i think for them it's more about the "WOW" factor than taste. Honestly, sometimes the simpler cakes have been the biggest hits (light saber, anyone?). I kind of get an idea in my head of what i want to do, and then just wing it. the fairy-land scene was HANDS DOWN the biggest hit in the history of kid-cakes, from boys and girls alike. i think it's because it was so "candy-land-esque". isn't that everyone's childhood fantasy?
i don't have a mixer...just a little hand blender. for my DH's birthday (next week!) i'm going to do something chocolate-to-die-for though. rich, decadent and sophisticated looking. at least that's my hope. ♥
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