I decided to bake (yes you read it right…BAKE!!) a birthday cake for my son’s birthday today. We were going to dinner tonight and I thought it would be nice to come home to a fresh home baked cake. I’m not sure where the motivation came from – perhaps it’s left over energy of procrastination related to report time at work.
Anyway, my husband (not known for following my instructions well) left home grocery store bound to pick up a Betty Crocker’s Butter Cake packet mix. I wasn’t quite prepared to do the ‘from scratch’ thing this time. He also had frosting and M &Ms on the list.
Arriving home from the store he presented this to me. Brand correct but it’s not quite the butter cake I ordered. The explanation he gave was there were no butter cakes. As it’s a real large supermarket he went to I suspect male blindness was more the issue.

I read the instructions for cooking as I was determined this would work out well. In the back of my mind I was also thinking about the yummy beaters I’d get to lick when the mixing was over. But NO!! I read instruction number 2 telling me not to eat the batter because it contained real eggs. After a life time of batter eating I was devastated.

Click on this to enlarge the print!!
Plodding on I decide to change things a little to that of the box instructions. As my son supports a blue and gold football team I thought I would be creative and make a blue and yellow marble cake.
I had heated the oven correctly, adjusted the layers of the oven so the cake could sit right in the middle. I was even prepared while it was cooking to try to stop the large dome my cakes usually display. With about 10 minutes left of cooking time I plunged a knife into the cooking cake releasing a little of the extra air. This paid off with an end product of a flat near flat cake.
When it was cool enough to ice I iced smothered it with the Betty Crocker chocolate frosting. Luckily for my daughter and me this incredibly loaded with sugar product has no health warnings so equal amounts went straight to our mouths as was put on the cake. Then we used our M & Ms to rainbow cover the frosting.

It was a hit as it tasted delicious. I did learn that swirls of blue and yellow would in some parts make green, but it was all good in the soft lighting of the Forbidden Room where it was served.


Glossary
Forbidden Room – this is the formal lounge dining room of my house. Initially it frightened the other members of my family as this room has no TV!! This was too strange a concept. It was also the room that it was always tidy, and presented almost magazine style which could only happen if they were forbidden to enter it. I , on the other hand, spent many a free quiet hour alone or with friends draped on the lounge reading with music playing in the background. Needless to say this room eventually lost its forbidden status but still retains the name (and I try often to restore the calm to it and it never has had a TV added!!)
Reflections
**Eating copious amounts of frosting with M & Ms should carry a warning!!! Drink lots of water after and be prepared to sit down saying “Ughhh I feel so yucky!! “ while you devour the final M & Ms and lick the remaining frosting from the spoon.
** I did google the stats on salmonella and raw eggs before putting the empty mixing bowl into the dishwasher and decide to live dangerously and have a lick. That was almost 12 hours ago so I think I survived.
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