My grandaughter Zoe recently reminded me that she isn't two - she is almost three and that pretty soon she is going to have a birthday party and invite her friends from playschool.
My daughter was feeling some stress around the event because buying a fancy store-bought cake was out of the question. You see some of the children have allergies they struggle with and she wanted to be sure that they were not excluded from the food and festivities of the day. Typically in these situations the mom brings the 'special cupcake' that her child can eat without fearing anaphylactic shock.
Martha and I share the same birthday. I was up for the challenge and told my daughter I would make a cake for her and would find an inventive way to make the cake a special memory. Trouble is, I'm not particularly good at that sort of thing. I'm passionate about gardening, I can cook an awesome meal, but baking, well not so much.
In order to create an allergy-friendly confection I sourced out a recipe for Egg-Free Dairy-Free Nut-Free Chocolate Cake. I suspected that it might not be the most delicious cake ever, but I was sure that lots of brightly coloured icing could mask that.
The theme was Tinkerbell and I had as much fun as a kid making it. Definately the most tacky and most awesome cake I've ever made, it had a meadow, waterfall and pond made out of icing and fairy figurines I bought at the Disney Store. Clearly it was created with a lot of love, but not much talent.
The cake will never be featured in Martha Stewart Living, but it was admired and enjoyed by everyone at a three year olds birthday party and most especially by Zoe.
And, that's a good thing.
