The Icing on the Cake

It’s my birthday tomorrow. I’m not big on birthdays these days. I’m not ashamed of my age (53 years and 364 day, since you ask) but I don’t really enjoy them as an adult. I was definitely spoilt on my birthday and I’ve never recovered…

I’m sure they weren’t all unadulterated bliss, but my memories of them are idealised, Crawling into my parents’ bed way too early in the morning, presents and cards (the joy of a pound note falling out of the card when you opened it!) and later in the day, the meal of my choice and CAKE!

It was the same cake every year (Caterpillar Cakes hadn’t been invented, kids of today, don’t know they’re born!): mine was chocolate banana cream sponge. My mum would make it from scratch, (ie Mary Berry cake mix), whipped cream and sliced banana. Then the candles, which I’d blow out after the song, of course, and only then, grated chocolate on the top. She couldn’t put the grated chocolate on until after the candle-blowing, for obvious reasons.

When I was a child, I’d be special all day on my birthday. It would feel shiny and I have a memory of my mum looking at me and smiling lovingly and she gave me the spatula to lick as the cake went into the oven. It’s not the same nowadays. I’m supposed to be the grown-up now, so after the morning ‘happy birthday’s and the birthday breakfast that I make myself, everyone does their own thing and I feel a little empty. And a little ashamed. I’m 53, for goodness’ sake, I shouldn’t need this.

And this year it’s that much sadder, because she’s gone. So I thought I’d make myself the cake this time, that’s the adult thing to do, isn’t it? I haven’t had it for years and years (there’s Caterpillar Cake now, for sophisticated ladies like me) but it felt like a nice thing to do.

I just made the cake. Horror of horrors, they don’t do Mary Berry cake mix any more (ridiculous when she’s way more famous now than she was then) so I had to google a recipe and make it from scratch-scratch. Here’s a thing: it was no harder than the mix, really.

I just got it out of the oven. It looks…

…a bit shit. Oh well. Ain’t that the icing on the cake…