Grandma's Birthday

{Bella and I sporting our Molly-made aprons}

Yesterday would have been my grandma's 84th birthday, and it's hard to believe that it has already been 6 months since she died. Emily and Denise had the fabulous idea to bake one of her cakes in celebration of her birthday every year. Perfect. I didn't know about this plan however until about 4 pm, so I madly started searching my pantry to see what ingredients I had on hand since I wasn't about to bike over to the store for a second time. I decided to make chocolate cake with White Mountain frosting, since it is my all-time favorite and I had it for at least 24 of my first 25 birthdays. (The exception being my first when my mom made a cake with whole almonds in the frosting, causing me to choke, and grandma to quite possibly have saved my life when she gave me the Heimlich maneuver.) Since my 25th birthday I have not lived with or near someone willing to make it for me. Somehow I have made it to 29 without making it for myself I don't know know why. I didn't have the ingredients for the usual chocolate cake that accompanies the frosting, so I used this amazing cake recipe of hers. It is unsurpassed.

Bella learned to sift flour.

Disclaimer: I screwed up. I am not a total idiot in the kitchen, I swear. I do some dumb-a things sometime, but overall I think I do okay. Sometimes better. I have been taught by the best after all, and I am not new to baking. Nevertheless, it was kind of a mess. First of all, I just greased and floured my pans, I didn't use wax paper. 

So this happened to the first layer I turned out:

Yikes.
Not great, but if I put that layer on the bottom, face down, no one will be the wiser. 

Time to carefully turn out the second layer:

Oh good hell.
Hell's bells.
Good hell almighty.

I thought about throwing it in tribute to grandma, but I couldn't afford the time or ingredients.

Almost an entire half of the cake was ruined.

Unsalvageable, right?

Nope.

I made it work.

I had already invited friends over to share the cake, so I was kind of stuck. I used a lot of licence in frosting liberally and creating illusions. What's a little extra frosting, especially when it's White Mountain? I had one great thing in my favor: My friend Trish had never even tasted a cake from scratch. How is this even possible? I can wrap my mind around never having baked a 'real' cake if I try- but never having tasted one??? There is so much wrong with that I can't even begin.

I didn't take a picture of the final product because everyone had been not so patiently waiting and needed to get to bed. 

It was de-li-cious.

If I don't mind saying. 

And I don't.

And I even pointed in out and logged it.

(18 points for 1/8th of the cake. Better than I thought actually.)

Happy Birthday Grandma.

I'm so thankful for all of the lessons she taught me and still does, both in the kitchen and out.
I love that I have someone on the 'inside' now, taking care of things and taking care of my baby.
I love that I can celebrate because I know I will see her again.