By Susan Shanklin

Ahhh…birthday cake. Don’t you just love birthday cake? Oh, it’s just not another day. It’s your day! There is no other day like the day you were born. It’s a special day and we here make birthdays special.

Tom’s birthday was last week and he had to have the “special” birthday cake…and that would mean carrot cake! Not just carrot cake, but carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It’s his favorite and I usually only make it once a year and that is for his birthday. Everyone in the family looks forward to Tom’s birthday because I make the best carrot cake ever. Ha!

It’s a recipe I got a very long time ago from Virginia Schroeder way back when we lived in Black Hammer Township in Houston County, Minnesota. The recipe card is kind of brown, faded and well-stained. I know I should rewrite it but I’m afraid the anointing will leave and the cake will never be the same.

Knowing that I have to make the cake ahead of time so that it can sit in the frig and mingle it’s flavors together, I look for the recipe card. It’s way back in the recipe box. I place it on the fridge, so I can start to mediate on it and think through the whole process.

Carrots…mmm. Mine aren’t ready yet, so I will have to go buy some. Corn oil (Yikes). Olive oil won’t do it, but I will get canola oil. Just can’t make myself buy corn oil. And I see I need a can of crushed pineapple.

Once at the store, I gather my needed ingredients. Carrots, organic carrots, that is. I’m sure that will make this cake healthy, wink wink. Canola, crushed pineapple and cream cheese, the 8 oz. size.

Once home, I set out the needed items, check the recipe and select my cake pans.

“This is going to be the best ever birthday cake,” I tell myself. “It’s Tom’s 65th birthday cake.” Ruth is coming, I think Nathan is coming. Heidi’s on vacation. The spouses are coming and the precious grandchildren. Oh, I can’t wait!

Grate those 2 cups of carrots. Mix up the oil and sugar. 3 eggs it is. Add the can of pineapple and the flour mixture. Hummm, the batter looks kind of runny. Why? I have made this many times before and it didn’t look like this!

I squint at the brown stained card AGAIN and read the faded words, “8 ounce can of crushed pineapple.” Oh dear, I fish the can out of the garbage and read the label, which says the can held 15 1/2 ounces of pineapple. Now what do I do!!!! Help! I call Heidi, my master cook adviser, like she will have the phenomenal answer to a quick fix.

Nope, no answer. What am I going to do? This is a special cake! I need it in 3 days. My eyes are rather wide at this point and I decide to double the recipe! In the bowl is one soupy cake mix, so I better move fast!

I whip out carrots and wash and grate. Oh, a little less then 2 cups. I have to move. “This will have to do,” I tell myself. 2 more cups of sugar! Oh my gosh, I’m freaking out about this “healthy” cake. Another 1 1/2 cups of oil. Man, I’ve used the whole bottle. The more I freak out the less I concentrate on the order of ingredients. By the time I think I’m done, I start to question—did I add this or that?

I think I forgot the salt. Or did I? If I add more salt and I did add the salt, it will be too salty. I don’t remember. I grab the salt shaker and just give it one shake for good measure and call it good.

I now assemble the cake pans, four in all. You would think I was making a wedding cake! I ladle the cake batter into the pans.

What? The four pans don’t fit on one oven rack. I guess I should bake two first, but they take 50 minutes to cook. I know. I’ll use two racks. Happy days, the cakes are in the oven. All is well.

I open the oven door to check for doneness and see the bottom two cakes have risen through the top racks and are stuck to it!

Somehow I get the cakes out without ripping off the tops totally and figure the frosting with be a great disguise.

I want to prepare the frosting ahead of time, and to again let the flavors mingle. I hunt and hunt for my confectionery sugar, I know I have some, but I don’t often use it, so I can’t find it. Off to the store I run. I come back and walk into the pantry and note the confectionery sugar in a jar just where I HAD put it.

Man, this special cake needs a special touch from God.

I put all the CAKES in the fridge with the container of frosting and wait for the big day.

I assemble the night before on a cake stand and wonder. Wonder if I had enough salt. Wonder if it will taste ok.

“Happy Birthday, Tom!” We sing, we slice the cake and Max says, “Grandma, you make the best carrot cake ever.”

NOW I would say that is a miracle!

Happy slicing!

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