Growing up in Manila, when any of us in the family turned a year older, it was tradition to buy a birthday cake. Our favorites evolved by the decade. The oldest top pick I remember was a delicious cake from Hizon’s. Then we discovered one from Sugar House. Years later we found a simple but delectable one from Red Ribbon, and the most recent one was Goodies n’ Sweets mouthwatering Decadence. All were chocolate cakes. All this exposure brainwashed me into thinking that birthday cakes must be made of chocolate.
Now that I live in Switzerland, I’ve abandoned the tradition of cake buying, as people here make their own sweet goodies. Before moving here, I didn’t bake (I had no oven in my apartment). Only recently did I learn to make chocolate chip cookies or flan—the two kinds of sweets I can claim I made from scratch. And so, for my fiancé’s birthday, I ventured to bake my very first chocolate cake.
I went through dozens of recipes online, scouring the ingredients to see if I had everything in our kitchen. I narrowed it down to two choices, went through the lists once more, and pulled all the ingredients out of the fridge and cupboard. I had only three hours to prepare, as I was scheduled to teach a yoga class at noon, then meet up with my childhood friend who was visiting Basel with her family.
And of course, anything that could go wrong did go wrong. I melted 225 grams of butter in the microwave, then turned on the water boiler, and in the process blew a fuse in the kitchen. Ugh. After changing the fuse I went back to the melted butter and realized the recipe I finally chose didn’t call for butter! Then after mixing all the ingredients and pouring them into my Springform Pan, the mix slowly began to leak! I put another pan under to catch the excess mix, hoping that the heat in the oven would bake the contents enough to stop the leak (to my chef friends out there, please do not judge me). I had my head in too many places: the kitchen, the yoga studio, and the zoo (where I was to meet my friend). And so I dismissed the last two locations and got my head back in the game. “Bake the cake. That’s all I need to do now.”
In the end, the leaking stopped, and the cake finally got baked (even if I kept sticking a toothpick in its center about 120 times). I taught my yoga class (with a spot of chocolate on my foot—I only realized that after I changed out of my yoga clothes). I met up with my dear friend (we had a wonderful time catching up). And I surprised my fiancé with the cake, and we each had a slice (he had two).
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