HOW IT USED TO BE

I recently baked an Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake from the recipe I found years ago. It was a birthday cake and it reminded me of one of my mother’s birthdays.

My mother’s birthday was also in July and one year my brother decided to make a cake for her from the recipe on the back of the Hersey’s Cocoa can. He had never baked anything before but that did not deter him, after all he could read. It was going to be a surprise so as soon as my mother left he began. I was the gofer again. (Go fer the flour, go fer the sugar, etc).

My mom was going to my dad’s store so we figured we had plenty of time. Bubba got out the bowl, put the ingredients in, and took a mixer to all of it. The mixer flung some of the batter on the wall and the flour dusted the counter but all in all it went pretty well. He put the batter into the cake pan, slipped the pan in the oven and noted the time. We didn’t have a timer so we had to pay attention to the clock. Everything was on schedule.  My brother was very proud of himself and I was pleased to be a part of it all.

While the cake was baking we decided to make party hats out of newspaper. We didn’t care that they weren’t party colors like the hats you buy nowadays. It was the truly only the sentiment that counted back then. So we were very occupied as the cake began to bake. And in the baking it began to rise. Rise, rise, rise right up over the sides of the pan. An 8 inch pan that was holding enough batter for two 8 inch pans! In reading the directions Bubba missed the fact that it would require two - 8″ pans.

With the oven at 350 degrees and enough cake batter for another pan the only thing that could happen did. The batter rolled up over the sides and down on the hot oven floor which I guess caught fire and burned to crispy hard cake rocks. This in turn caused an awful burn smell to fill the kitchen and then the whole house. Meanwhile the old saying ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ held true here too. The smoke came pouring out of the oven. It filled the kitchen and the rest of the house. By the time we realized what was happening the smoke was escaping out the open windows. (it was July) Panic set in. We didn’t know what to do. And then mom drove in the driveway.

I was so glad she was home. I knew she would know how to handle this. What I didn’t know was how my brother would react. As soon as he heard the car he ran to each of our three doors and flipped the locks. I couldn’t believe it. Of course when my mother saw smoke coming out the windows she panicked. She ran to the door and tried to turn the knob. No go. She started yelling for us to open the door because the house was on fire. Bubba looked at me and held his finger over his lips. Then he calmly told mom not to worry. He explained he was just baking. By this time she ran to the other 2 doors and found them locked as well. Smoke continued to pour out of the house while my mother began to scream. It wasn’t a fear filled scream. No, this was a rage, killing kind of scream. Occasionally in the midst of it I heard words that made me think I was not going to survive this standoff.

But Bubba never wavered. He knew she wouldn’t kill us and he was confident that once she saw the cake and party hats she’d be delighted. He was right. The smoke cleared and what was left was the sentiment that ‘It’s the thought that counts.’