What should one write on a cake celebrating the 80th birthday of an eminent social psychologist, a respected professor emeritus, a man who taught at your own alma mater and was universally beloved? In recent months Elliot Aronson has become a good friend of my husband’s. We’ve been invited to Elliot’s birthday party this Sunday and I have offered to make the cake. I have a crowd-pleasing carrot cake recipe (even people don’t like carrot cake like mine) and as a former professional baker I have the skills, oversize pans and love for baking to provide a ginormous 3 layer cake for what is bound to be a large gathering.
As I prepare the cake the day before the party, my husband Jerry is in the adjoining room watching the San Francisco 49ers playing a major post-season game. He claims that every time the mixer is on the 49ers play well. “The Saints have the ball,” he yells from the other room. “Turn the mixer back on.” The 49ers win and move up the brackets toward the Super Bowl. I don’t want to take too much credit, but…
That night I have trouble falling asleep. Elliot’s cake has been baked, butter cream laid between the layers, and adorned with cream cheese frosting and coconut. All that‘s left to do is write a birthday greeting on top. I’ve set aside enough butter cream for the birthday message, but at two in the morning I’m lying awake trying to remember where I’ve stashed my food colors. It‘s still dark out when I finally haul myself out of bed and start rummaging around the frigid storage area that most folks would call a garage. Eureka! I find the see-thru plastic shoebox holding a painter’s palette of blues and pinks, oranges, yellows, and purples that make up my collection.
I should note that the food coloring used by professionals and serious hobbyists are not like the watery stuff available at grocery stores. I like gels, which are extremely concentrated and come in little pots resembling those used for eye make up. In the words of an old hair goo jingle, a little dab’ll do ya.
But then the dilemma: What to write? I love the fact this distinguished gentleman and scholar signs off his emails as “Ellie,” and I start playing around with cute phrases like “Ellie’s 80!” and “We heart-symbol Ellie.” But Jerry had suggested simple is best, and now I’m inclined to agree. I decide on a straightforward “Happy Birthday Elliot,” double-checking the correct spelling of his name (2 l’s , one t) on the cover of “The Social Animal,“ his seminal social science textbook.
Unfortunately Elliot has recently become legally blind due to macular degeneration. Though he can still see out of his peripheral vision, he can’t drive any more and has qualified for the companionship of a seeing eye dog. If I write the message in bright red lettering it might give the guy a fighting chance of seeing his name on his cake (and people LOVE having their names on their birthday cakes). Also “Atomic Red” will look great as contrast against the snowy cream cheese icing.
So. It’s about 6 am, dark as Hades and cold outside because it‘s January. I stick a toothpick into the little pot of Atomic Red; the amount that sticks should be enough to color the two cups of frosting I‘ve set aside to write the birthday message. Hmmm. The frosting turns a girly pink. I add more. Still pink. Even worse, the butter cream is coagulating. The consistency resembles texture of clam chowder, which is hardly an appetizing effect. The only thing I can think to do is add more red and turn the mixer n high to whip this mess into shape.
Bad idea. Soon the countertop, walls and floor are covered with what looks like a CSI blood spatter pattern. With a wire whisk I try by hand to coax the color and icing to come to some sort of détente. Eventually the lurid mixture looks good enough so I scoop some of the mess into a pastry bag to practice writing on a sheet of wax paper. The letters seem to be holding up nicely…but wait. The writing begins to hemorrhage out of the edges. And if it’s bleeding out on the practice run, imagine the effect atop a cake….
There’s a website dedicated to such disasters called “Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Wrong.” This might end up on the site if I’m not careful. I panic, and decide to throw the entire mess away and start over.
Easier said than done. The kitchen really does resemble a crime scene. I imagine Jerry stumbling into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and having a heart attack. With fingers stained bright red I attempt to dislodge a roll of paper towels from the dispenser, leaving visible prints on every available surface. I scrape the goop left in the bowl into the trash can lined with a white bag. The effect reminds me of “Dexter,“ the Showtime series about a friendly neighborhood serial killer who likes hacking to pieces his deserving victims. A severed hand would feel right at home in our kitchen trash can right now.
Like Lady Macbeth I try in vain to scrub my hands clean with Bon Ami and decide I don’t have the time or energy to make a fresh batch of butter cream. I rummage around in my color kit and discover a tube of sparkly yellow writing gel left over from some kid’s party held during the Bush administration (which Bush I’m not sure). Unkindly I think, “Oh, hell, the guy‘s blind anyway,” so I write the message on the cake in a substance unbecoming to the stature of the man whose birthday we are to celebrate. The damn thing goes back into the fridge to set and I head out the door to walk the dog, who has been waiting patiently during this entire ordeal.
Once I get some fresh air in my lungs, the oxygen returns to my brain and I realize what went wrong. Most baking and cooking activities are basic chemistry experiments. I needed all the ingredients to be the same temperature to mix properly. Erroneously, I had added a chilled substance to a warmer one and the result of the experiment resembled a blood bath.
Then it occurs to me that Elliot, the social scientist, will find this entire episode hilarious. I had my ego so wrapped up in making this cake perfect that when the project went south at the 11th hour I experienced a psychological dilemma that Elliot has written and lectured about extensively. The theory is called “cognitive dissonance,“ which he writes about in “The Social Animal.” The theory goes that a state of tension arises when a human is faced with 2 simultaneous but inconsistent concepts, which is a lot of
theory to lay on cake frosting, but bear with me. The first cognition is I want my cake to be perfect; the second, dissonant cognition is I’ve failed Frosting 101.
I try to make myself feel better by reasoning, “Oh, he can’t see it any way“, and “his grandchildren will love it.” There you have it; cognitive dissonance resolved, to some degree. You may use this example in the next revision of your textbook, Elliot.
Upon returning home I finish cleaning up the kitchen, and take the garbage out, the racket of which must have thrilled my next door neighbors early on a Sunday morning.
Of course nobody at the party thinks anything is amiss. Elliot looks radiantly happy as he blows out the candles on the cake. The next day he sends an email generously describing the cake as one of the highlights of his birthday celebration.
Star Wars Reference O’ the Day: On “The Colbert Report,“ Stephen Colbert compares himself and Jon Stewart as twins who share the same thoughts and feelings, “like Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker.”
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