Blame The Nightingale

Sibling rivalry is alive and well, even if Sis doesn't know it. Two years ago, my niece Nightingale told me that her mom made the best Red Velvet Cake. Ever since, about once a week, I've thought about that cake lovingly made from scratch. I figure Sis's cake might be good, but if I made a Red Velvet Cake, it would be better. This weekend, I have my chance to beat Sis. Big Guy and I are invited to a Sunday dinner. I volunteered to make dessert and I found Southern Living's Red Velvet Cake recipe. It calls for six layers, two bottles of red food coloring, 24 ounces of cream cheese, plus a bunch of other stuff. Immediately on the heels of Southern Living's Red Velvet Cake recipe is a half-page listing all the reasons cakes don't turn out. That's wasted paper in my kitchen. Not so much because I'm an expert cake baker as because it's my turn to win. When I was 13 years old, I entered a cake baking contest at our church. I made two spice cakes, a light and fluffy practice cake a week in advance that was followed by a heavy as lead contest cake. My mom never called my cake a dog of a creation, but I'm pretty sure she let me take full credit for it. And shortly thereafter, we moved. I left cakes alone after that, until I had little ones with at home birthday parties. Daisy was turning three. I carefully baked and iced a chocolate cake the night before her midmorning birthday party. I left the cake on the counter. The cat tongued a huge furrow through it. I carefully cut around the furrow, filled it in with icing and fed it to three-year-olds. They seemed to like it. So yes, it is my turn to shine. My Red Velvet Cake will be fantastic. It will be better than Sis's cake. After all, she won the "who can scrub their feet the cleanest" competition when I was eight and she was five. I think the competition was rigged as she had three fewer years of dirt to scrub from between her toes and my feet were the cleanest. I should have been the one who got to pick the first popsicle for dessert, not her.