Money Cake

My grandparents didn't have a lot of money, maybe that's why as an adult I remember this so well.

I was pretty young, maybe turning seven and it was my birthday. We happened to be at my grandparent's little two bedroom, one bathroom house in Idaho Falls and I remember it being cold. Like the kind of cold that makes you leave your car running at the gas station while you're filling up kind of cold. Of course that isn't unusual for South-Eastern Idaho, the wind seldom stops blowing and it is legit winter for about nine months out of the year- but that's beside the point. The point is, that I was at Grandma and Grandpa's house for my birthday!! And as a little girl I couldn't be more thrilled.

Grandma was baking my birthday cake in her teeny kitchen, not just any cake, but a Money Cake. I was just as excited as I would have been had they given me a unicorn for my birthday. What is a Money Cake, you ask? Money Cake was my grandma's special gift to whatever little person she was baking a cake for in lieu of a traditional gift. Mine happened to be a caterpillar this year. She was baking several round cakes that would then be turned out of their pans and arranged in a curvy line down the table. I don't remember the flavor of the cake, I'm guessing vanilla, but the frosting was a beautiful pale green. After frosting all of the round cakes, she then decorated it with candies of some sort, embellishing the little bug body and giving it eyes and antenna.

Now the special part about a Money Cake is that there is literally money baked into the cake. Eeew! In a time where they won't even accept cash at most stores, it is crazy to imagine. It's not what you think though. I remember vividly that morning soaking a bowl full of coins in white vinegar, which were then scrubbed clean and washed. From there my grandma, mother, aunt and I wrapped each coin and a couple of dollar bills in aluminum foil. Presumably this kept the money from ever touching the cake you were going to eat after dinner, we all survived so it must have worked.

Now this is the exciting part if you're six, you cut into the cake and hope upon all hopes that you end up with the dollar bill. I don't know how much cake actually got eaten, the goal here was to kind of pick around the hard lumps in your slice because what it felt like as a little one was digging for treasure. So you pick around your cake, eating a bite here and there, but really you were pushing those hard lumps out of the way and making a pile of loot that you just couldn't wait to unwrap and put in your piggy bank.

I don't know where the tradition came from, maybe from one of my great grandmothers who lived through the depression. I even remember my own mom baking us Money Cakes on occasion when I was a kid, it really is such a fun memory. I can't imagine the cake and frosting mess that Grandma had to clean up after my little celebration, but I do know that she must have gone to all that trouble because she loved us so much. Now I am feeling horribly guilty, I have never done this for my own children. Most likely because we get so caught up in the party with a bunch of their friends and the games and the gifts and the chaos. If there is anything that this year has taught me, it's that less is more.

I think I'll surprise them each this year on their birthdays with a Money Cake.