Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Birthday cake nostalgia February 9, 2023

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Chocolate Crazy Cake. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo 2010)

WHEN MY ELDEST DAUGHTER asked me to bake Chocolate Crazy Cake iced with peanut butter frosting for her upcoming birthday celebration, I was delighted. I’d offered to make her birthday treat, but expected Amber to choose a simplified version of cheesecake or Chocolate Tofu Pie. So when she picked Crazy Cake, I was nostalgically surprised. This is the recipe my mom used for my birthday cakes when I was growing up. And it is the same recipe I used when baking cakes for my three kids.

Although Amber never asked me to craft the cake into a shape like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, snowman or Garfield the cat as I did when she was a child, I considered it. In the end, I’m going with a basic rectangular frosted cake. Maybe I’ll add sprinkles for the grandkids.

For his eighth birthday, Caleb’s sisters created a PEEF cake for their brother. PEEF is a fictional bear featured in books written and illustrated by Minnesotans Tom Hegg and Warren Hanson. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

February brings not only Amber’s birthday, but also that of her brother, just one day shy of eight years younger than her. Their sister, sandwiched between, is 21 months younger than Amber. Yes, I was a busy mom. I baked a lot of Chocolate Crazy Cake birthday cakes through the years, cutting them into designs typically fitting the birthday child’s interests.

A blogger friend gifted me with a copy of the cake design booklet my mom used when crafting birthday cakes. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)

My mom used the Baker’s Coconut Animal Cut-Up Cake booklet as her guide to creating animal-shaped cakes for me and my five siblings. Her handcrafted designs defined our birthdays because we didn’t receive gifts. Finances didn’t allow and the adage of you can’t miss what you never had certainly applies. My kids got gifts along with personalized homemade cakes. If I were to ask them, they would likely remember the cakes I made and not the gifts received.

Birthdays always cause me to feel reflective as in how the heck are my kids already adults and x number of years old? It seems like only yesterday that I was planning birthday parties with their classmates, mixing up Chocolate Crazy Cake and lighting candles.

And now here I am, looking through my stash of church cookbooks for a cherished cake recipe. I’m feeling all nostalgic, wishing there was a way to ship a Chocolate Crazy Cake birthday cake to Caleb in Indiana.

Chocolate Crazy Cake*

3 cups flour

½ cup powdered cocoa

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups cold water

¾ cup vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Stir the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Then add the liquids and mix. Pour into a 9 x 13-inch cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees.

#

Recipe source: The Cook’s Special 1973, St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Vesta, Minnesota

The recipe is listed as “Wacky or Chocolate Cake” in the church cookbook. I’ve always known it as “Crazy Cake.” Why is it called “wacky” or “crazy” cake? I don’t know.

Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Food stories from Minnesota as I celebrate my birthday September 26, 2019

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Assorted hot dishes, salads, desserts and more fill several tables at the annual Kletscher family reunion held each July at the city park in my hometown of Vesta, Minnesota. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

WHAT FOODS AND FOOD TRADITIONS do you consider unique to the place you live?

 

Assorted bars. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

Ask any Minnesotan and it’s surely not grape salad. Rather, the typical Minnesotan might respond with hot dish, walleye, chicken wild rice soup… Or bars. And we’re not talking the local watering hole here. We’re talking a sweet treat pressed or poured into a 9 x 13-inch cake pan. My favorite are peanut butter oatmeal bars.

 

Chicken Wild Rice Hot Dish with salad and bread served at an eatery in Park Rapids, Minnesota. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

Whatever your answer, food in many ways defines us. And food is the subject of a research project underway by a young Minnesota woman working on her Master of Fine Arts nonfiction writing degree from the University of New Hampshire. Lindsey phoned last week to ask about my food history, one rooted in my rural upbringing. We talked for an hour. I don’t envy Lindsey’s eventual task of condensing months of research into a succinct paper. But I do look forward to some day reading her findings.

 

My mother-in-law, who passed away in October 1993, often made Seven Layer Jell-O Salad. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

I expect she will include Jell-O, once the queen of Minnesota salads. Make that red Jell-O laced with sliced bananas. It is a signature food of many an extended family gathering from my childhood. Many Baby Boomers from rural Minnesota could probably say the same.

 

A friend gifted me with a copy of the book my mom used to craft birthday cakes.

 

But there’s one story likely unique to me and my five siblings. We grew up on a crop and dairy farm in southwestern Minnesota. With little money, our parents could not afford to give us gifts on our birthdays. The thing is, we didn’t know to expect presents. We were that poor. But Mom found another way to make our birthdays special. Days before our birthday, she would pull out her Animal Cut-Up Cake booklet and allow us to thumb through the pages and choose an animal-shaped birthday cake. Simple two-page spreads showed, for example, how to create a lion from a 9-inch square cake. Mom would follow the instructions in the publication by General Foods Corporation and create the chosen animal cake.

 

The clown cake my mom made for me in one of the few photos I have of myself from my childhood.

 

I cherish those birthday memories. I’m convinced that, had I gotten childhood birthday gifts, I would have forgotten those long ago. But my mom’s homemade birthday cakes, no. Whether a turtle, terrier or teddy bear, those cakes equated love.

 

I can’t take credit for this cake. But my daughters crafted this PEEF cake for their brother the year he turned eight. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.

 

When I became a mother, I followed the tradition of creating homemade birthday cakes—like Garfield the cat, a horse, a snowman—for my three kids. But they, unlike me and my siblings, also received birthday gifts.

 

Me with my mom. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo December 2017.

 

Today I celebrate my birthday. I don’t expect a cake, because who will bake one for me? I’m the mom. Rather I’ll remember and honor my mom, who is on hospice in a care center 2 ½ hours away. I doubt she remembers today is my birthday. I’m simply thankful if she recognizes me. But maybe, if I prompted her, she would recall all those special birthday cakes she baked for me and my siblings. The tradition was a gift of love from the mom I love. And miss.

© Copyright 2019 Audrey Kletscher Helbling