Cassata Cake and the Value of Friendship
Cassata Cake
A Sixtieth Birthday and Tribute to a Friend
Full disclosure: I’ve never heard of a cassata cake before this. Have you? If you’re from Ohio, there’s a good chance you have, because the author of Vintage Cakes, Julie Richardson, writes that it was brought to Ohio from Sicily by Italian immigrants.
This cake recipe called for two pints of strawberries. When that much fruit goes into something, you want to use it when it’s most flavorful and abundant. In fact, the recipe description even says to use whatever berries are in season.
It’s hard to pick one element as the star of this sweet show. The strawberries, macerated in brandy and sugar, were clearly the most prominent feature, and the brandy-infused juice drenched the vanilla chiffon layers in flavor. A chocolate bespeckled orange-vanilla ricotta cream provided a not-too-sweet complement to the sweetened berries.
I made this cake for a friend’s sixtieth birthday, where it sat between a cream-filled vanilla cake and a rich, chocolate cake. Steep competition, but I have to say, it held its own.
An Unexpected Change of Direction
I’m going to be honest. This blog post doesn’t follow my typical format, bringing the cake to life, leading to a life lesson or realization. Why not?
I completely lost my mind and memory of what I was writing. Not in a menopausal-Elaine-went-crazy way. In mid-sentence, I was jolted into a sixty-five-or-so-minute sweaty, panicked “Where’s Waldo” foot race. The consequence was a complete change of direction for my day and this post. The only breadcrumb I’d left myself (the last word I typed) was “friend”.
The catalyst for this launch into a different story was the disappearance of my daughter’s dog, who was entrusted into our care. Two immediate thoughts sent panic coursing through me: “Oh my gosh, where is he, and what if…the worst…happens to him”, and “Oh my gosh, what if we have to tell our daughter her baby is gone?” It’s going to make me cry now.
First, if you know Scooby…you know. You know how deeply this little guy is loved. This little guy, who flooded our house a couple of years ago, learned how to howl from his uncle greyhounds, and just has the most kissable, cute little head. My heart stopped.
As an aside, if you have dogs, check your deck, fence, and doors, because it’s shocking what a scared little dog can do in the moment. This little guy must have used a storage box to launch himself over the deck railing when unexpected fireworks sent him into a panic. It won’t happen again.
The Value of Friendship: The Transcend Moment
So, back to the word “friend”. If you look up the definition of a friend, supportiveness appears as one of the qualities. We were overwhelmed by the support we got from our friends in Operation Find Scooby. I sent out a text, and Kevin posted it on Facebook, and people came out in droves. Our friends immediately got in their cars, and together we all canvassed the town. One of the worst times turned into one of the best times as we were shown so much love and support. I should also mention this was a holiday. Midday on the Fourth of July, plans were frozen in search of a scared canine.
Ironically, it was the same sixty-year-old friend and his wife who actually found Scooby. Thank the stars in the universe! Almost ten cars converged outside our house to welcome the scared escapee home.
The obvious message in this post is the value of friends and community. We thankfully brought our sweet Scooby home safe, but we really brought home more than that. If people show up for us on a holiday, in the heat, to help us chase down an escaped pet, we know that they will be there through anything and that support is reciprocal. That’s a kind of security and blessing I don’t take for granted.
As for the cassata cake, you’ll have to grab the book for more information. Maybe you can make it for a friend. It was good, but it was a small thanks for the deep friendship we are lucky to share with friends.