Angel Food and Cool Whip

Angel Food cake box mix, Cool Whip, food coloring, and sprinkles if desired...The result? A festive, delicious, and quick birthday cake.

Yes, it's just a box Angel Food cake, but the topping makes it special--even though it's supremely easy. For years I've watched my mom mix food coloring (and maybe a bit of vanilla or almond flavoring) up with Cool Whip, and top in on the Angel Food cake with a spatula. However, yesterday for Jessica's birthday, I made and topped it myself. That proved to be even more fun than watching. No wonder my mom likes to make this cake every chance she gets!


A few weeks prior to almost every birthday in the Smith house, this conversation takes place:

Mom (Ruth): What kind of cake do you want for your birthday?
Child: Umm...I don't know.
Mom: Angel Food Cake with whipped cream?!
Child: No!!

The truth is, we kids don't abhor this cake. However, it's only keeping up with tradition in our house to deny that we appreciate it. :-) As the story continues, usually mom manages to fit her absolute favorite kind of cake--Angel Food with Cool Whip-- into every Smith birthday. I'm sure we would miss it if she didn't. :P

-Katie Marie, 3rd born to Ruth, favorite sister to Jessica

Ode to Toast

"When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender, of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries."

--Kenneth Grahame,
The Wind in the Willows