It's the simple things.

Thinking back on all the beautiful dishes I’ve had throughout my life, I could write about chicken and dressing, tamales, pumpkin pie, or many other entrees I have had. Fancy dishes that would have your mouth watering like crazy. Instead, I will write about a simple, plain chocolate cake made for me with so much love.

Growing up, we were not very well off and had nine kids in the house. My mother worked out of the house and was away from home much as we kids were growing up. The raising of me fell to my older sister, Vickie.

One day, I came home from the fourth grade, upset that a larger, much older child was bullying me. I was almost inconsolable. I wanted my mother. I did not want to go to school anymore. I wanted to move to a different town. I may have even said I wanted to die that day. I can say for sure that I was one miserable little girl.

I can remember my sister trying to comfort and stop me from crying. My big sister hated tears and snot and expected girls to be strong. She fumbled with the right words before saying, “Fuck it.”

Going to the pantry, she opened it up and grabbed the first cake mix she found. It was a Devil’s Foods chocolate cake mix.

She called me to the kitchen island, and I helped her mix it up. She talked calmly to me the whole while she made the cake. She poured it from the bowl into a cake pan and handed me the bowl to lick (yes, people did lick it back in the day and didn’t die). She put the cake pan in the heated oven, and about the time the smell was driving me crazy, she removed it from the oven.

Normally, she would have waited for the cake to cool and frosted it for us to eat, but while it was cooking, she went to get the frosting out of the pantry and saw that our dad had already eaten half of the container, and she did not want his germs on our fresh cake. I had to agree with her. So she served two huge, warm slices of freshly baked chocolate cake with two ice-cold glasses of white milk.

I could feel the love in the heat of the cake. I can remember the taste of the plainness of the chocolate, unpolluted by any frosting. To this day, I can remember how that piece of cake made me feel.

To make this cake just like my sister did, you must first get these ingredients:

• Duncan Hines Devil’s food Chocolate cake mix
• Three large eggs
• 1 Cup of water
• ⅓ Cup Vegetable Oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Grease the bottoms and sides of pans
3. Blend all ingredients until moist.
4. Beat medium speed for about two minutes with a mixer or six minutes by hand.
5. Pour into pans and bake immediately.
6. The cake is done when the toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.
7. Serve immediately with whipped cream and chocolate syrup or plain.

These instructions are for a 13x9-inch pan.

I line my pans with wax paper, aluminum foil, or parchment paper. It makes clean-up effortless and the cake firmer.

This is just a plain recipe in a million recipes entered into this challenge, and probably not what was wanted, but it’s what I was inspired to write. It’s a simple pleasure that my family and I still enjoy, as I am sure many other families out there have eaten cake without icing.

My sister made us many a cake after that without frosting several more times throughout the years. She’s passed away now, but every time I have a piece of plain Devil’s Food chocolate cake fresh from the oven, I think of her.

I hope that when you eat a plain Devil's Food chocolate cake that you and your family feel as warm and loved as I do when I eat one.