February 18 Valley Life Column

February 18 Valley Life Column in AG Weekly

Celebrate Mardi Gras by baking a cake

My husband loves spice cake. He doesn't get it often, just once a year for his birthday. This year, since his birthday falls on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), I'm thinking about making one of those New Orleans King Cakes instead.

The reason I want to try something new is simple. As far as I’m concerned, my husband’s traditional spice cake is a pain in the butt to make. The first time I tried to make it, I made a mess.

We were newly engaged and I offered to make the official birthday cake. I could cook. I knew how to bake -- it would be simple, a piece of cake.

Wrong. His mother’s recipe called for buttermilk. There was no buttermilk in the refrigerator, but I found a box of powdered buttermilk in the cupboard. Instead of mixing the powdered milk with water first like the box suggested, I dumped it in with the dry ingredients and for some reason only the cake gods know, the cake never set. It looked more like spice pudding after it baked the required 35 minutes, and I left a trail of the messy concoction on his mother’s carpet on my way to the bathroom to dump the mess down the toilet.

The next time I tried to make the cake, I mastered the cake part, but had trouble with the brown sugar frosting. The ingredients are simple: sugar, butter, milk and a pinch of salt. But the trick is in the cooking. If you remove the frosting from the stove too soon, it turns stringy and syrupy. If you cook it too long, it sets up before you can frost the cake.

I've been making this cake for 35 years, and by now, you would think I'd have that cake mastered. But every year, it's still a mystery as to how the official birthday cake will turn out.

That's why I'm thinking about trying something different this year, like that New Orleans King Cake, which is decorated with colored sugar instead of cooked brown sugar frosting. A "baby" is hidden in the cake before it is served, and the person who gets the baby is considered lucky and responsible for providing the cake the next year.

Since I will be serving the cake, I could make sure my husband gets the baby. I could even whip up some gumbo or jambalaya. We could celebrate Mardi Gras along with his birthday, and he would be surprised when I bring out the cake. But it would be just my luck to get the baby.
©Bonnie Dodge