Food is such an intrinsic thing to being who we are. Everyone has their own favorites, and everyone has something that reminds them of growing up. When I was a child, my mother ran a bakery out of our house. She closed down when I was five, but I can still remember sitting at the kitchen doorway, watching her make butter cream icing while a cake was cooling on the stove. We always had exciting birthday cakes, even after my mother closed the bakery down, and my mother even baked my sister's wedding cake. She's promised to do mine one day, too.
One of my favorite things about the cakes to this day was the cake tops. When my mother would bake a cake, there always is this little poof in the center, where the cake rose more than at the edges. This poof had to be trimmed off so that the cake would sit flat on a cake board. My mother would take a long, serrated knife and carefully trim off the cake poof. Since the poof was extra that was not needed for the cake, Mom would put it on a plate and offer it to my sister and I when it was cool.
I don't often make cakes, and when I do, I rarely trim off the poof, since I don't decorate like my mother does. So, the last time I had a cake top was when Mom was baking the cake for my sister's wedding. I came into the kitchen and there, on the counter, was a plate piled high with tasty chocolate chai cake tops. I picked up a piece and nibbled on it, then another, and another.
The cake pieces reminded me of being a little girl, sneaking into the kitchen to take more cake tops while my mom decorated the cake it came from. There are few things to me that are better than the smell of a baking cake, and I think that cake poofs will always remind me of my childhood.
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