Making flowers

While Susanne’s younger brother Kurtis was visiting us, his birthday rolled around. Given my penchant for enjoying producing confectionary creations, I asked what kind of cake he would like to celebrate the day. I was not ready for his response — an ice cream cake. While unexpected, I of course was not about to back away from a challenge. I thought about what I liked when it came to such things, and remembered many a frozen Carvel cake. Anyone from the Northeast of a certain age will recall the delights of Fudgie the Whale and Cookie Puss. Central to those cakes is the chocolate cookie layer, so I went about figuring out how to recreate it in my kitchen.

I cleaned out the filling from half a package of Oreos, crumbled up the cookies, mixed them in with vanilla and melted butter, and pressed it into the pan. I made homemade vanilla ice cream, Kurt’s expressed preference. I made whipped cream with a hint of vanilla, layering them and freezing them one layer after another into the pan. Then it came time, on the morning of his birthday, to decorate the top. I made some royal icing and colored it green and blue, two colors I know he likes. I wrote out his name and then attempted to make something from nature, an interest of his. I stood back and saw I had made a simple flower. Kind of girly. I needed to add something. I put down some more designs and stood back again and then realized my error. The cake looked like this:

ice cream cake

Oh dear. This would have been perfect if Kurtis was an 11-year-old girl, but not a grown man. He seemed not to care, declaring it tasty and just the thing he’d wanted.