My mom loves cake! Sponge, triple chocolate, strawberry, banana, almond…she isn’t picky. But her favorites are a lot like her, uncomplicated and sweet; angel food and white cake with vanilla frosting.

My mom loves cake and everyone knows it. When she’s at a family celebration, a church gathering, or a party of any kind, she always leaves with an overflowing plate of leftover cake, carefully prepared just for her by the host or hostess. And when the birthday cake is cut at a family party you’ll hear, “Make sure Aunt Janet gets a big piece!” Or a piece of each if there are multiple flavors. My mom loves cake!

From an early age my mom loved baking. As a child she hand crafted miniature baked goods with the help of her fully functional miniature toy oven. While other kids were playing outside, mom was left to her own devices, creating new delicacies complete with homemade frosting.

Mom’s love of baking continued into adulthood when she began getting recognized for her craft. Her baked goods were adorned with blue ribbons year after year at local competitions and she was crowned not once, not twice, but three times, Grand Champion Cake Baker of the County Fair! She was featured multiple times in the local newspapers, was interviewed on the radio, and everyone requested her recipes.

Every year my mom would lovingly bake me a homemade, multi-layered cake for my Christmas birthday. Creatively decorated by my dad, and with my birthday angel announcing my age in the middle. In 1978 the cake had three layers, one red, one white, and one blue, for the bicentennial. Looking back the cakes were truly a labor of love, taking hours to complete. One year I did the unthinkable. I boldly declared, “I wish I had a store bought birthday cake like everyone else!” In that moment it was as if I had taken a cake knife to my mom’s heart and that was the end of my decadent homemade multi-layered birthday cakes. From then on I had nothing but store bought cakes. As a young tween I didn’t know my mom’s love language was baking, with an extra emphasis on cake, something that has taken me 40 years to realize. Like Jenna, from the Broadway musical Waitress, mom puts more than just sugar, butter, flour into her baking. She adds lots of love and bakes from the heart! I loved the special birthday cakes you made me. Thank you, mom.

I have happily been on the receiving end of many scrumptious treats over the years but I never inherited my mom’s gift of baking or her passion for it. I simply don’t have the patience. Mom doesn’t bake as much as she used to but that hasn’t stopped her from teaching the next generation how to bake. A few times a year she will enlist the help of her only grandchild (my daughter) and the two will spend an afternoon in the kitchen baking cookies or cupcakes or banana bread with chocolate chips. Giggles flow from the kitchen, secrets shared. Memories are made as my mom shares her gift, her love with her granddaughter. Reminding me, “It’s amazing what baking can do!”