My son has been seduced by that ultimate femme fatale and symbol of female stereotypes, Betty Crocker. Yes indeed, the advertising that made an indelible impression upon him was not the campaign for the latest in Transformer toys. It was for a specialized cake pan called a “bake ‘n fill”. It’s a collection of 4 cake pans which enables one to make a bowl-shaped cake to be filled with whatever the heart desires. Personally, I’d fill a chocolate cake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries, but that’s me. My son fell in love with ice-cream cakes, and that’s what he wanted me to make for him to assemble and decorate. I looked at the thing, and concluded that I really couldn’t improvise effectively. But we were getting ready to move, and I did not want something being delivered just in time to be moved.
On the other hand, what better way to make the new house a thing of anticipation rather than fear than to tell him that the object of such intense desire would be obtained when we arrived at the new house. And so it was. Yesterday in the midst of shopping for school supplies, getting a back-to-school haircut, meeting the teacher and all the other chaos attendant upon the resumption of academic endeavor, we stopped at an emporium noteworthy for the number of products available within its walls originally advertised on television. So we searched the premises of Bed Bath & Beyond and indeed found the magic device. Then we picked up an appropriate cake mix (having not yet unpacked my mixer, flour, etc.) and brought it all home.
And so today we have made the cake, which is even now cooling in preparation for being filled with ice-cream. It is indeed a lovely bowl-shaped thing, with a cookie-like base layer ready to complete the enclosure. And I have just two words for the next endeavor I have in mind, since I have already indulged in the gadgetry. Baked Alaska.