Let Them Eat Cake

Oh the things I do to make myself feel good. Late last week, early this week an email circulated from our current class mother asking if anyone was willing to volunteer to make a cake, buy a cake, steal a cake, whatever, for Natalie's teacher who will be celebrating her birthday on Friday. I am pretty sure my response to the email was, "Of course, you know I will volunteer to make a cake." That's what I do. It makes me feel like I am flying with the supermoms.

Natalie and I talked about a cake, what we thought Mrs. Anderson would like, and we decided Natalie would ask her what her favorite cake is, and we would go from there. Well, in true Early Education fashion, Mrs. Anderson told Natalie that she would like to be surprised. I hit the cookbooks, because I wanted to make this cake 100% from scratch. The classic birthday cake recipe calls for two sticks of butter, TWO STICKS, that is 1/2 a pound of butter and that grossed me out. TWO STICKS! Like two sticks of KitKats are one thing, but butter - groda.

I found a sponge cake, that used only two tablespoons of butter, and it was titled "Foolproof Sponge Cake." Foolproof? Perhaps, but not time proof. The cake took two hours to make, and when I was done with this lemon filled foolproof sponge cake, a test cake at that to see if I could even make the thing, I decided that Mrs. Anderson would be receiving some very delicious cupcakes with a little help from Betty Crocker herself. Because while I am for flying with the supermoms, I just don't have another two hours to give to a cake.