TheBanyanTree: [UpperBranches] it's officially Spring, because I made the cake

[Julie Anna Teague]

There are certain traditions I don't really care a hoot about. Like the 
whole Christmas tree thing. I know many people are really into 
Christmas trees and pulling out the ornaments they've had for years and 
years, but I just don't get into that. I'm not as good at holding onto 
"things" as I am holding onto memories.  But there are certain moments 
from my childhood that I cherish and am a little obsessive about and 
will repeat every year at the same time till I am dead and gone. Like 
making the decorated Christmas cookies exactly the same way we made 
them when I was a kid--same recipe, same colors, decorated the same 
way. Christmas isn't the same for me without those cookies.  And dyeing 
Easter eggs in four colors the way my dad taught us, crafty fellow that 
he was.  Dip half in yellow, dip half in pink. Turn the egg the other 
way and dip half in blue. So we'd end up with an egg that was pink and 
yellow and purple and green. You can do this at home.  I've passed the 
trick on to my own kids. We make the plaid egg.  Every year.

And the cake, too. My mom found this idea in a Family Circle or Woman's 
Day or some such magazine, circa 1970. Here is how you do it--Make an 
angel food cake. Cover it with fluffy icing tinted pale pink, pale 
green, or like I did this year, light blue. Then, with a clean pair of 
scissors, snip several marshmallows into five pieces like this: Hold 
the marshmallow with the round part towards you, snip all the way 
through like you are snipping a thin slice off the top of it. Do that 
three more times to the same marshmallow, turning it into five thin 
slices. The marshmallow slices curl up a bit and look like flower 
petals. Arrange them on the cake into five-petaled flowers. Use 
mini-marshmallows (or this year I used pastel m&m candies because I 
already had them) for the center of the flowers. The original recipe 
called for cutting another marshmallow into little bits and dipping the 
bits into yellow food coloring for the daisy centers. I ad-lib this 
part. I'm not completely compulsive.

I've been making this cake, with my mom and then on my own, since that 
first time in about 1970. I might've missed a few years when I was in 
college, but I make it every year now, religiously.  And I mean that 
word "religiously" quite literally.  The cake is a tiny shrine I build 
to my mom, to my childhood, to my own family.  Every year I parade it 
through the house, carrying it like I'm carrying a statue of Shiva to 
the holy river, showing everyone the beautiful cake. "Look at my 
beautiful cake! Look at my beautiful cake," I implore them.

Will my kids remember how to make the cake?  Will they ever want to 
make the cake?  My mother never told me to keep making the cake.  There 
is just something child-like and comforting about doing it.  People 
smile when they see the cake. I can't say to my sons, "Make the cake. 
Do this silly thing in remembrance of me."  Maybe it will be some other 
small thing that I'm not even aware of that they carry with them like a 
holy relic into their own homes.

You can see a picture of The Cake, if you really want to, on my blog 
at: http://one-womanadventures.blogspot.com/

Julie