Jodi: Yesterday was my dad's birthday. When he was little, my grandmother would make him a maraschino cherry cake each year for his birthday. I used to make it for him with my mom when I was little. It was just a white cake mix with maraschino cherry juice instead of the liquids called for in the cake mix. Then Mom would ice it with store-bought vanilla icing and decorate it with cherries and walnuts. This is the cake I always knew and didn't love, but it was Dad's favorite and we only made it once a year.
It has since become the bane of my existence.
The last time Mom and I made the cake together, it looked like this:
See all the toothpicks sticking out? The cake mix cake was so moist, the cake couldn't hold itself together and the top literally split into three pieces. Mom and I tried in vain to keep it together with icing and cocktail picks.
Randy: Let me be honest... it is very nice of Jodi to make this cake, but the cake is gross. Why can't Jodi's dad just like what I like?
Jodi: When I started taking the Wilton classes for cake decorating back in 2009, I decided I was going to take on the Cherry Cake for Dad's birthday, but do it my way. Based on the year before, I was going to make it from scratch so the cake wouldn't fall apart. I made a vanilla cake and covered it with buttercream flavored with cherry juice. It turned out like this:
Can you see the bumpy texture to the icing? The cherry juice didn't mix in nicely with the butter. Dad wanted to know why it was mottled, and complained that it wasn't the right cake.
I took a year off, and then last year, I went back to the basics and did the box mix (ugh) and store bought vanilla icing (double ugh). I went with the Smurf motif since my brother affectionately refers to my dad as "Smurf" (he's 6'7").
Besides getting my hand in the icing when filling in the apples with red sugar, I forgot one major thing. Can you see what it is?
Dad's beard! You know, the one he has had since before I was born.
Oops.
And the cake was gross. Way too sweet, and I hated the store icing. So I'm starting to see why Mom and Grandma were both happy to pass along the birthday-cake-making duties, and I'm complaining to Grandma about this cake and she says, "There's a from-scratch recipe." She adapted it to a box mix when Dad was a kid! The sky opened up and angels started singing. I swear.
Fast forward to Valentine's Day, Grandma's card arrives and inside is the recipe for the cake. Hallelujah!
So Sunday night, I get the recipe out to try this cake. I read the recipe. 1/2 cup spry. Spry? What the heck is Spry? So I call Dad, trying to be all sly, sly about spry. In the meantime, Randy googled it. Guess what Spry is?
OK, so I mix up the batter and chop up the cherries and walnuts because they go IN the batter!
I even drain my cherries so they don't drip all over the cake (like in past years).
I make the icing and smooth it on the cake and I get this piece of loveliness.
Oops.
The icing called for more Spry and butter, so it was slippery and dried too fast, so my icing slipped and then got crunchy. I tried to push the top layer back on top of the bottom and I got my fingers stuck in the cake. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it got. So I had to apply a tourniquet. Not one of my prouder moments.
Randy refused to eat it. He thinks it's gross and tastes like Sucrets.
Randy: Ok, I didn't really refuse to eat it. I went to the bathroom after dinner and when I came back, Jodi was kind enough to not give me a piece. I would have eaten it as a courtesy to Jodi, but the cake is gross. And do you want to know what's worse? They eat maraschino cherry ice cream to go with it. Seriously, that's like fruit cake with fruit cake flavored ice cream. I ate potato chips and was happy.
But do you want to know the worst part?! So Jodi is making cake, right, and she is complaining and all. She cuts off this edge and says, "Here, try it." So I tell her that it tastes like cough medicine and she gets all mad. So I call her a "hypocrite" because she always wants me to be honest with her about her baking. And I love her baking... except for this cake. It's gross. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
Jodi: But Dad loved the cake. It was actually pretty good. VERY sweet, but yummy. It would be a good Valentine's Day cake, which I believe it was originally meant to be. Don't worry, I won't be making one for Randy this year.
It has since become the bane of my existence.
The last time Mom and I made the cake together, it looked like this:
See all the toothpicks sticking out? The cake mix cake was so moist, the cake couldn't hold itself together and the top literally split into three pieces. Mom and I tried in vain to keep it together with icing and cocktail picks.
Randy: Let me be honest... it is very nice of Jodi to make this cake, but the cake is gross. Why can't Jodi's dad just like what I like?
Jodi: When I started taking the Wilton classes for cake decorating back in 2009, I decided I was going to take on the Cherry Cake for Dad's birthday, but do it my way. Based on the year before, I was going to make it from scratch so the cake wouldn't fall apart. I made a vanilla cake and covered it with buttercream flavored with cherry juice. It turned out like this:
Can you see the bumpy texture to the icing? The cherry juice didn't mix in nicely with the butter. Dad wanted to know why it was mottled, and complained that it wasn't the right cake.
I took a year off, and then last year, I went back to the basics and did the box mix (ugh) and store bought vanilla icing (double ugh). I went with the Smurf motif since my brother affectionately refers to my dad as "Smurf" (he's 6'7").
Besides getting my hand in the icing when filling in the apples with red sugar, I forgot one major thing. Can you see what it is?
Dad's beard! You know, the one he has had since before I was born.
Oops.
And the cake was gross. Way too sweet, and I hated the store icing. So I'm starting to see why Mom and Grandma were both happy to pass along the birthday-cake-making duties, and I'm complaining to Grandma about this cake and she says, "There's a from-scratch recipe." She adapted it to a box mix when Dad was a kid! The sky opened up and angels started singing. I swear.
Fast forward to Valentine's Day, Grandma's card arrives and inside is the recipe for the cake. Hallelujah!
So Sunday night, I get the recipe out to try this cake. I read the recipe. 1/2 cup spry. Spry? What the heck is Spry? So I call Dad, trying to be all sly, sly about spry. In the meantime, Randy googled it. Guess what Spry is?
OK, so I mix up the batter and chop up the cherries and walnuts because they go IN the batter!
I even drain my cherries so they don't drip all over the cake (like in past years).
I make the icing and smooth it on the cake and I get this piece of loveliness.
Oops.
The icing called for more Spry and butter, so it was slippery and dried too fast, so my icing slipped and then got crunchy. I tried to push the top layer back on top of the bottom and I got my fingers stuck in the cake. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it got. So I had to apply a tourniquet. Not one of my prouder moments.
Randy refused to eat it. He thinks it's gross and tastes like Sucrets.
Randy: Ok, I didn't really refuse to eat it. I went to the bathroom after dinner and when I came back, Jodi was kind enough to not give me a piece. I would have eaten it as a courtesy to Jodi, but the cake is gross. And do you want to know what's worse? They eat maraschino cherry ice cream to go with it. Seriously, that's like fruit cake with fruit cake flavored ice cream. I ate potato chips and was happy.
But do you want to know the worst part?! So Jodi is making cake, right, and she is complaining and all. She cuts off this edge and says, "Here, try it." So I tell her that it tastes like cough medicine and she gets all mad. So I call her a "hypocrite" because she always wants me to be honest with her about her baking. And I love her baking... except for this cake. It's gross. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
Jodi: But Dad loved the cake. It was actually pretty good. VERY sweet, but yummy. It would be a good Valentine's Day cake, which I believe it was originally meant to be. Don't worry, I won't be making one for Randy this year.
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