My Captain turned 49 today.
Forty-Freaking-Nine.
(I can say that with an obnoxious tone, because I am 46. Ha.)
This is a man who is so self-sufficient, he has absolutely no need of any gifts. Or, more accurately put, there is nothing I can buy him that he wants. If there is, he has already bought it, and bought the RIGHT one. So Christmas, Father’s Day, Birthdays….fugggetabout it. He is absolutely impossible to buy for.
But today, I decided my gift to him would be twofold. First, I wrote a series of “Top Ten” lists on Facebook in his honor. The subjects ranged from “The Top Ten Reasons My Captain Is A Better Kisser Than Fabio,” to “The Top Ten Reasons My Captain Will Thrive In Montana When He Retires.” Some of them are purty dadburn funny. Some are sickly sweet. One of them was about the second part of my gift to him: His favorite birthday cake…a Boston Cream Cake…homemade, baby!
That Top Ten list went like this:
***Top Ten Reasons My Captain Will Love His Homemade Boston Cream Birthday Cake***
10) Duh, it’s cake. But, it’s also his FAVORITE.
9) I made it with Xylitol, a natural sugar alcohol, digested in the lower intestine, it doesn’t mess with the glycemic reaction in your body. Also, in large quantities, it causes explosive diarrhea.
8) I made it with half regular white flour, half whole wheat flour. So it’s healthy-like.
7) I used Hershey Chocolate in the Ganache Icing.
6) I used real Vanilla Beans in the custard filling, with whole milk, because skim milk makes a sucky custard.
5) I used organic eggs in the cake batter.
4) I didn’t eat half of the batter before baking it THIS time, so there was actually enough cake batter enough for two layers.
3) I didn’t burn it.
2) I made it fresh TODAY.
1) It was made entirely with LOVE.
So, fast forward. Here is the cake when I finished baking it:
It looks fantastic, don’t you think?
I couldn’t wait for him to come home and taste it tonight. Everyone raved about how delicious it looked.
We did the whole blow-the-candles-out-oh-wait-they-are-the-trick-re-lighting-kind-so-blow-them-out-again thing. We sang The Birthday Song in 6 part harmony, which took talent since there were only 3 of us singing, and then we cut into that bad boy of a dessert.
It. Was. Awful.
Dense (thanks to the whole wheat addition). Dry (God knows why). Not very sweet (Thanks, Xylitol, you’re a peach). The ONLY good thing about it was the custard, and believe me, the ratio of custard to cake was not nearly large enough to offset the rest of that fiasco.
But you want to know what My Captain said? I mean, no one had to say it tasted bad. That was painfully obvious. And My Captain is not one to waste times with white lies. So do you know what he said?
“Honey, I can taste the love. Thank you for making me a birthday cake.”
I love that guy, I tell ya.
But next year, I’m sticking with my Top Ten Lists, and going to Safeway for the cake.
I just hope he can still taste the love.
Mama Boe 