good enough to wish on

The first birthday cake I ever made was for my friend Jen’s thirtieth birthday. I’m not sure where I found the confidence to make that first cake, but Jen had just given me a scale for my birthday, and that, along with The King Arthur Baking Companion she’d given me for the birthday before, made me feel equipped. She chose a recipe for a chocolate mint cake that became my standard chocolate birthday cake, and over the years I’ve morphed and changed it in so many directions. Last week, I made a cake for her 37th, and sure enough, it was based on the framework of that same recipe.

This year on Jen’s birthday, it snowed (like almost every day before and since). And although I had intended to have this cake ready and beautiful and photographed when Jen stomped off her boots in the mudroom, the reality was (as always, especially in the case of cake) different. The cake was undressed, unassembled, and scattered around the kitchen when she arrived. The light, still short, had nearly left the kitchen, and the kids all went sledding in the field while we drank vodka and blood oranges and St. Germain. The kitchen got darker, I lost hope for a photography, and I got less picky and stressed about a beautiful and finished cake.

I say all this as if it’s a different story than usual. In truth, I assemble most of my cakes quickly in a dark corner of a party. I am always less careful, less skilled, and less agile with the pastry bag than I promise myself I’ll be. Years ago (four this week, to be exact), I even made a wedding cake for a dear friend, and although I drove it up to New Hampshire along with my KitchenAid and my candy thermometer, made real Italian Meringue Buttercream, and dreamed about frosting the cake for days, in the end it was the rose petals that saved it from being a mess. (Roses will can often save any cake, as long as the inside tastes good.) Last year I made a white cake with mango curd and whipped cream for Joey’s birthday, and I got cocky and improvisational and ran out of time. One layer slipped off the other, and we had to call it a trifle. I’m not kidding. I can make one messy birthday cake.

But last week, standing across the island from Jen, just feeling lucky to get to be with her on her birthday, I stacked the cake without even thinking about it. Jen has had a really hard month, and I got my first laugh from her in quite a while when I poured the glaze overtop the cake. Once the glaze was there, it was easy to see how unapologetically lopsided the whole thing was. From there, I gave up on prettiness entirely, and I pushed ricotta mousse out of the pastry bag with my signature lack of finesse.

Birthday cake making is a particular exercise in vulnerability. Of course there are the questions of structure and engineering–will it stand? Or will it slide? There’s the taste, perhaps most important of all, sweet but not too sweet, hopefully perfectly suited to the recipient. But really, when else do we create food that holds the wishes of the people we love? We set it on fire, sing our birthday prayer, set it in front of them. Then they close their eyes and wish! This year… this year will be filled with so many good things. And next year, if we have the good fortune to pass another year together, I will make you another cake.