I may have been three or four years old and my baby brother was - well - a baby. Uncle Marcus came to stay with us for a couple of months after his tour of military service.
My parents went on a date night (bowling, I believe) and Uncle Marcus stayed home with us little ones. I remember thinking he was a super-hero. I didn't have that word in my vocabulary yet and had never read a Superman comic book, but I thought the sun rose and set in Uncle Marcus' back pocket.
To thank my mother for letting him stay with us, Marcus decided to bake her a cake. He tracked down a recipe for chocolate cake and started mixing ingredients. Flour, sugar, and baking soda went in, all carefully measured according to the recipe. But then he couldn't find the cocoa. There wasn't any anywhere. So Uncle Marcus shifted gears in the middle of the recipe and changed to a yellow cake.
Although the recipe proportions were a bit different, this went along swimmingly until the recipe asked for vanilla - and once again, he couldn't find any. Instead of giving up or changing to another new recipe, this time Marcus opted for a substitution. In place of vanilla, he added rum. (Since that wasn't something ever kept in our house, I have no idea why that was easier to find than vanilla, which I can't ever remember being without.)
The cake went into the oven and baked rather successfully considering what it had already been through. Somehow, Marcus got the cake baked and frosted before my parents came home.
I vaguely remember having a small piece of it on a plate at the kitchen table and stuffing a bit of it in my mouth with my fingers. I've been told that both my baby brother and I thought it was a scrumptious cake.
My mother, however, was a tougher audience. She took one bite and said, "You put something in here." And that was her last bite. Uncle Marcus shared the rest of the cake with us little ones ... and we enjoyed every mouthful.
My parents went on a date night (bowling, I believe) and Uncle Marcus stayed home with us little ones. I remember thinking he was a super-hero. I didn't have that word in my vocabulary yet and had never read a Superman comic book, but I thought the sun rose and set in Uncle Marcus' back pocket.
To thank my mother for letting him stay with us, Marcus decided to bake her a cake. He tracked down a recipe for chocolate cake and started mixing ingredients. Flour, sugar, and baking soda went in, all carefully measured according to the recipe. But then he couldn't find the cocoa. There wasn't any anywhere. So Uncle Marcus shifted gears in the middle of the recipe and changed to a yellow cake.
Although the recipe proportions were a bit different, this went along swimmingly until the recipe asked for vanilla - and once again, he couldn't find any. Instead of giving up or changing to another new recipe, this time Marcus opted for a substitution. In place of vanilla, he added rum. (Since that wasn't something ever kept in our house, I have no idea why that was easier to find than vanilla, which I can't ever remember being without.)
The cake went into the oven and baked rather successfully considering what it had already been through. Somehow, Marcus got the cake baked and frosted before my parents came home.
I vaguely remember having a small piece of it on a plate at the kitchen table and stuffing a bit of it in my mouth with my fingers. I've been told that both my baby brother and I thought it was a scrumptious cake.
My mother, however, was a tougher audience. She took one bite and said, "You put something in here." And that was her last bite. Uncle Marcus shared the rest of the cake with us little ones ... and we enjoyed every mouthful.
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