{Baking} Memorial Day Cake

This cake was equal parts impressive and infuriating.

The task was simple: provide a festive dessert for my family's Memorial Weekend barbecue. Due to scheduling conflicts, we couldn't do it on Memorial Day itself, so we did it on Saturday instead. And it turned out for the best, since we are currently being hit by a tropical storm.

And it started out simple enough. I wanted a white layer cake with dyed layers. I combed through recipes and finally landed on one that turned out to be a bust. I didn't read the fine print and it required a meringue method... which totally goes against the concept of colored layers since you can only fold in egg whites.

So that batter went into the trash.

My wonderful, handsome, doting husband dashed out to WalMart for me at 10:30 that night to replenish my stocks. He is overly protective of me (our one-year stint living in the worst part of Tallahassee made me stop fighting his manly instincts) so after a certain time of night, he doesn't like me to run out for essentials. While he was gone, I cleaned up everything and re-prepared to make my white cake.

During his trip, he got a mood-killing phone call that we were going to have a... ahem... unwanted guest staying at the house that night. Yep. At 11:00 that night. It put a strain on Mr. Cheddar and a damper on the night. I baked tensely and worriedly and completely forgot to take baking pictures.

And that sucks because at one point I had six fabulous bowls of red, white, and blue batter. I wish I could go back in time and snap that picture.

I wrapped up the layers for the night and then on Saturday, I made the vanilla icing. Mmm!

The other infuriating part of this cake was the way I over-simplified things. I've made multi-layered cakes before, and the thin layers came out crunchy on the ends. So my genius idea was to simply double the recipe and split it into six separate layers. But that made for a very tall cake... a tall cake that didn't fit into my carrier.

But it still had that wow-factor. And it was deemed moist and delicious.

Our barbecue was a hit, too. My dad started smoking a pork shoulder at 7 AM and by 7:30 PM it was tender and delicious. My mum put together a lot of her trademark dishes as well as a salad bar, and I was the mixologist (my extended family fell in love with the Jamaican Smiles). 

A lesson for non-southerners: It's not a barbecue if you're not smoking something. Cooking burgers on a grill is called a "cookout." Failing to make that distinction is one of the quickest ways to rile up a southern man. 

As far as southern women, if we say "Oh, bless your heart!" it means we think you're doing something wrong. I'm sorry. It's just the way it is.

I did not take a single picture of my family barbecue but I will remedy that next time.

Please take a moment to remember our fallen, and for everyone in the Southeast, please stay safe if you're in Beryl's path.