Daddy's Favorite

My father’s favorite cake was German chocolate. Not devil’s food, not red velvet, not double chocolate, not regular chocolate. German chocolate. And not the kind you buy in a grocery store, where they take a regular chocolate cake and slap coconut pecan frosting on it and call it a German chocolate cake. There’s something special in the German chocolate cake that takes extra work, extra care. The cocoa is different. But German chocolate cake has been so altered by so many bakeries and mixes, a lot of people don’t know, or care. But Dad did.

Don’t get me wrong. He’d eat other chocolate cakes and enjoy them. But there was something about that rich, German chocolate cake that he just craved. So, every year for his birthday, his mother would make him a German chocolate cake. From scratch. Including the frosting. That thick, sugary, coconutty frosting, spiked with pecans. It smelled so good and looked so pretty on her crystal cake stand with the beautiful dome. But for a kid who hated both pecans and coconut, it was an immense letdown.

“More for me,” Dad would say. And he would eat it all, both his and my slices. Often with a large glass of ice-cold milk.

After his mother died, Mom took over the making of the cake, using Grandma’s recipe. It wasn’t quite the same. We suspect Grandma left something out, whether intentionally or accidentally. He was still happy to have the cake every year, but we all knew it wasn’t the same. It was drier, the cake wasn’t as rich, the frosting wasn’t as gooey.

Now, he’s gone, and there are no more German chocolate cakes being baked once a year. No more struggling to get it right, because no one cares anymore. But we still want to remember him, and his love of chocolate, in our own way. So, every year, we do something different.

I opened the door into the kitchen and set my grocery bags on the counter, looking around for Mom. She was standing at the refrigerator pulling things out.

“I’m here,” I said, pushing the door shut behind me.

“Oh good. I have some sour cream, but I don’t know how old it is.”

“Too old, throw it out,” I instructed.

She pried the lid open and peered inside. “We can scrape the mold off and use the part underneath,” she protested.

I gave her a look. “Mom.”

She looked at me. “You don’t think it’s ok?”

“I think it’s gross. Throw it out. I brought everything we need. Throw it away.”

“Well, ok.” She reluctantly tossed the container in the trash can and closed the refrigerator then turned to me expectantly. “What do I do first?”

“Boil the margarine with some water and cocoa,” I told her, pulling the cookbook out of the cabinet under the counter and flipping to the recipe. I pointed out the measurements as she dug through the bags I’d set on the counter and found the can of cocoa and the box of margarine.

“I can’t remember boiling something for a cake before,” she mused, looking over my shoulder at the recipe.

“Well, how often have you used sour cream for a cake?” I asked.

“Not often,” she admitted. “I guess it’s kind of the same as buttermilk, though.”

“Maybe. You work on that, and I’ll measure out the other ingredients.”

“All right.”

We went to work in her bright, cheery kitchen, moving in harmony around each other. Soon, we were mixing the butter and cocoa into the dry ingredients, then adding in the eggs and sour cream. Once everything was well incorporated, we spread the batter in a large shallow pan. Mom watched as I carefully smoothed it to the edges.

“Well, with a cake that thin, it’ll bake fast,” she remarked.

I laughed. “Yes.”

“I suppose we do the frosting while it bakes?” She turned back to the stove, picking up the pot we’d boiled the butter and cocoa in and taking it to the sink to wash.

“Yes. We can just use that same pot, too.”

“Oh.” She looked down at it. “Well, do I need to wash it first?”

I shrugged. “I mean, we can. I don’t think it matters much.”

“I might as well. We have a few minutes.” She washed it quickly, then returned to the stove. “You know, Dad would have been in here, bothering us, asking if it was ready yet before you’d even unpacked your bags.”

I grin, measuring cocoa and milk into the pot. “Yeah, and asking if we were sure that’s how to do it, even though he had no idea how it was supposed to be done.”

She chuckled as she dropped the margarine in and stirred it around. “He would have loved you coming over to make him a cake.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice. “I know,” I finally managed.

A few minutes later, we were mixing in powdered sugar and a little of Mom’s homemade vanilla, the mixture quickly becoming thick and viscous. White powder puffed into the air as we stirred and settled on everything, making the air smell sickly sweet. I coughed a little and waved my hand in front of my face.

“Maybe don’t stir so fast,” Mom offered helpfully.

I gave her a look. “I’ll do that, thanks.”

She grinned at me and brushed a little powdered sugar off my cheek with her thumb. “It’s in your hair. You look like old like me,” she teased, brushing at my hair.

The timer on the oven went off and she carefully slid the pan out of the oven and onto the countertop. I turned with the pot of frosting and poured it carefully, making sure to distribute it somewhat evenly across the top of the cake, using a rubber scraper to scrape all the frosting out of the pot and then to spread it as evenly as I could across the top without tearing the warm cake. It had domed somewhat, so the corners of the cake were going to have thicker frosting than the center would, but I didn’t think that either of us would care.

“We need to let it cool a bit,” I said. “We can clean up while we do that, and then have a piece.”

“All right,” Mom agreed. She took the pot and crossed to the sink to wash it.

I gathered up the other dishes we’d dirtied and carried them over to her. I got a clean dishcloth out of the drawer, wet it, and started to wipe down the counters, trying to erase the traces of all the powdered sugar we’d blown all over the kitchen.

“I tell you what, we would be terrible if we ever resorted to a life of crime,” I remarked. “We would leave evidence everywhere.”

“What?” Mom turned to look at me, startled. “What makes you say that?”

“We can’t even make a chocolate cake without making a huge mess. I think we even got powdered sugar on the ceiling.” I gestured to the fine white powder dusting the vent hood over the stove.

“Well, obviously we would do something else than bake chocolate cakes, goodness. There’s no crime in making cake.” She paused. “Unless we were poisoning them to kill old men for their money, like in Arsenic and Old Lace.”

“I don’t think they were trying to get their money in that, were they? I think they were just killing them because the men were lonely, and they thought they were doing them a kindness.”

She frowned, thoughtful. “We should watch that again.”

I laughed. “For what, tips on how to kill old men?”

“No,” she protested “to see which of us is right. It’s a good movie. Plus, it’s a young Cary Grant, and that’s not too shabby.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll watch it with you if you promise not to drool over Cary Grant.”

“Well, I can’t make that promise. He was one of my first crushes,” Mom grinned at me as she set the last dish in the drainer and wiped her hands on a towel. “Old crushes die hard.”

“Mom. Gross.”

She laughed and looked at the cake. “Think it’s cooled off enough we can eat some?”

“Think we care enough to wait any longer? I think that’s the real question.”

She pointed at me. “I do not. Get some plates and I’ll get the spatula and a knife.”

A few minutes later, we were sitting across from each other at the island with big slices and cold glasses of milk, digging in to the rich, chocolatey cake, savoring the way it melted on our tongues. She sighed softly.

“Oh, that’s good,” she said after a moment.

I nodded, my mouth too full of chocolatey goodness to say anything. It was moist and tender and perfect. I took a sip of the milk, and it was heaven.

“You know what Dad would say?” I ask, stabbing another piece on my fork.

Mom grinned as she set her glass down after taking a drink. “That it’s good, but it would be better with pecans. And maybe some coconut.”

I laughed and nodded, putting my fork in my mouth. “And he would be wrong,” I managed around the bite in my mouth.

“Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” she admonished.

I rolled my eyes but waited until I swallowed to reply. “Well, then I guess I’m going to be quiet for a while, because I think this cake is going to be my dinner.”

“You should eat something healthier than this for dinner,” she chided.

“I’m a grown up now, I can eat chocolate cake for dinner if I want,” I protested.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Eating chocolate cake for dinner isn’t good for you.”

“Fine,” I huffed. “I’ll pick something up on the way home.” I took another bite and hummed happily.

“I’ve got plenty here. Let me cook you some dinner.”

I narrowed my eyes at her playfully. “You just want my cake.”

“Well, of course. That’s all I really care about. I figure if I can distract you with a home cooked meal, I can hide half that giant cake and you won’t notice.”

I laughed. “I’m planning on leaving half of it, you know.”

“Oh, well, then, fine. Go ahead and eat fast food garbage.” She grinned at me and took the final bite of cake on her plate.

I drained my glass of milk and set it down beside my own empty plate. “You know, I’ll bet we can rent Arsenic and Old Lace online and watch it on your TV while we eat more cake. After your home cooked dinner, of course.”

“You don’t have plans tonight?” she looked surprised.

“Not tonight.” It was Dad’s birthday. I didn’t have any plans.

“Well, why don’t you look and see, and I’ll double check what I’ve got in the fridge. That sounds like a nice evening to me. If you’re sure.”

I smiled and stood up, gathering up the dirty dishes and carrying them to the dishwasher. “Of course, I’m sure, Mom. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be tonight.”