2835. Birthday cake

Ella and Justin Sudworthy had never had to go much without but they could never be termed as “well off”. And now it had all come to a pretty pass. There simply was no money left. They had retired with enough savings for a few years, but they had outlived their expected life span. Now they were retired and broke.

Justin’s birthday was coming up. Ella had always baked a cake. It was always a banana cake because in their younger days banana cake had been Justin’s favourite. It had become a tradition. But there were very few pennies in the kitty for the ingredients.

Ella decided to bite the bullet; to swallow her pride; to eat humble pie. She would simply  go to the neighbours on either side and borrow a bit of flour, a bit of sugar, a spoon of baking powder.  She had two over ripe bananas and could use lard instead of butter.

The neighbours were very gracious. They all said the same. “Return it? Don’t be silly!” Ella was ready. This was their 53^rd birthday together and 53^rd banana cake! She assembled all the ingredients on the kitchen bench. With a positive attitude she had conquered the lack of birthday money! The electric company had turned the electricity off.

2601. Takes the cake

It was January the first; time for New Year’s resolutions; time to turn over a new leaf; time to do something positive once again.

Mrs. Maureen McIntosh was no exception. She was a widow. Two years ago she had a huge disagreement with Mr. Stephen Donaldson who lived at the far end of the street. The disagreement was over whether Mr. Donaldson had the right to park his car on the curb side. It wasn’t a wide street and an argument ensued as to whether it was advisable both aesthetically and practically.

Mrs. McIntosh decided this New Year’s Day to bake a lovely chocolate cake and take it to Mr. Donaldson’s house. She would say something like, “This is to make amends for any rudeness I might have caused. Perhaps we could start again; after all we both live on the same street and life is better if we get on.”

Mr. Donaldson was delighted. He shook Mrs. McIntosh’s hand and said it was a brilliant idea.

After Mrs. McIntosh had left he had a brilliant idea himself. He would take the cake next door to the Partridge family of six and wish them a Happy New Year! They were always kind to him and this cake was heaven-sent. He would tell them he had baked it himself.

Unfortunately all six of the Partridge family succumbed to the poison.

2583. Licking the cake mixing bowl

Lydia was expecting family for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Naturally she was in the kitchen all day preparing. She had made various pies and cakes and desserts, and this all between looking after her three children and Cousin Victoria’s two.

As each dish was made Lydia would say to the three boys, “Now whose turn is it to lick the mixing bowl?” The mixture of uncooked sugar and flour and what-ever else was a delicious treat. The boys were very fair as to whose turn it was.

Naturally Lydia never offered to the two girls the bowl to be licked. It would have been unladylike.

2465. Let her eat cake

Some cultures eat cake with a fork; some with a spoon; some simply eat cake with their fingers.

Aileen had baked a cake for visitors. It wasn’t a fancy occasion. It wasn’t a particularly fancy cake. The cake was simply something to nibble on with a coffee or tea, or in Jackie Olwynn’s case, with a glass of water. The occasion was something that Aileen did every year, and that was to invite all the women who lived on the street in for a cuppa.

This was the eleventh year that Aileen had held such an occasion, but it was the first year since her husband had upped and left. He’d run off with a woman who lived two doors down the road. Penelope-Prue most certainly was not on the invitation list!

And then the worst happened: Jackie Olwynn arrived with Penelope-Prue in hand.  “She wasn’t going to come,” said Jackie, “and I said, don’t be a silly-billy.”

Penelope-Prue was from overseas. She was not a typical foreigner; she was loud, obnoxious, and did everything that was totally, socially proper in an ostentatious way. AND – she ate her cake with a fork.

The little afternoon tea began. Aileen had already divided the cake and placed the slices on pretty plates of delicate flowers. “And would any like a fork to eat their cake?”

Penelope-Prue did. “An educated lady is one who eats cake with a fork even if she dines alone!” joked Penelope-Prue.

Aileen nearly sniggered. “Aha!” she thought, “it is indeed very proper for that frump to eat her poisoned slice with a fork.”

1942. Mousy Cameron’s cake

Cameron’s personality could be described only as timid. In fact, years ago when he was at school, his nickname was “Mousy”, with his little spectacles resting on his little pointed nose.

These days he lived alone in a small apartment. Things were nice enough. He was content enough. His greatest interest was to attend theatre productions by the local amateur theatre society. Of course he never auditioned for a part; nor did he volunteer to help backstage or whatever. His way of supporting them was to attend the productions and to laugh and cry and applaud heartily, whatever the occasion called for.

One evening the organizers were raffling a cake. The evening was dedicated to productions of plays by youth. The cake raffle was to help one of the youth teams travel to a neighbouring town to stage a performance. It was a worthy cause, and Cameron took a generous number of tickets. He’d never won a thing in his life, but a donation is a donation!

He won! He couldn’t believe it! It was a simple joy, but it brought him great pleasure! A chocolate cake! He would enjoy a slice each evening for the coming week.

As he left the theatre a young guy from the local high school grabbed Cameron’s cake out of Cameron’s hands. Teenage boys began passing the cake to one another like it was a football. Ha! Ha! It was fun – that was all. Cameron stood there all timid and mousy. He said, “Please could I have my cake?”

One of the youths threw the cake and it smashed into a concrete wall.

Cameron went home. It was just a cake.

1937. Ayleen bakes a cake for Rodney

Ayleen decided to bake a cake. I mean, what else was there to do on a cold rainy day? Besides, her boyfriend, Rodney, was coming to dinner. There was nothing different or special about that but Ayleen thought that to finish with a delectable dessert might sweeten the reality that she was going to announce: as far as Ayleen was concerned the relationship was over.

Ayleen had good reason for it. They had never fallen in love; it was a relationship of convenience. It was “someone to take out”, especially if a group of friends went out partying. But now, Ayleen thought that having a relationship of convenience was a hindrance to finding the right person. Who is going to invite her out if she is already attached? This business with Rodney has to end to make room for whoever was around the corner.

The cake baking went satisfactorily. It was a blueberry yogurt cake. She’d used the recipe quite often. It looked nice enough. A slice of the cake with a dollop of ice cream would be an adequate introduction to her announcement.

Rodney was the fourth guy she’d baked a blueberry yogurt cake for in the last six weeks. When on earth would the right guy come along?

1688. An inconvenient visitor

Terrence had just finished putting his wife’s corpse in the back of his car and cleaning up the kitchen in the house when his wife’s sister knocked at the door. This was the last thing Terrence wanted. He had planned the murder meticulously, and a large part of the planning was to do with how to get rid of the body. He hadn’t planned that Rhona’s sister would turn up in the middle of it all.

“Where’s Rhona?” asked Astrid.

“She went yesterday to visit a sick friend,” said Terrence. “She’ll probably be away for a few days.”

“Strange,” said Astrid. “She usually tells me things like that.”

Terrence wished she’d leave. He had to invite her inside. He had to act normally. Thank goodness he’d cleaned up the mess in the kitchen where Rhona had been baking when the deed was done. It hadn’t been more than quarter of an hour since he’d killed Rhona. The body in the back of the car would still be warm.

Astrid volunteered to go into the kitchen to make coffee. “Sure,” said Terrence.

A few minutes later Astrid called out from the kitchen.

“Do you want me to take the cake out of the oven?”

“What cake?” answered Terrence.

“Well it hasn’t been in the oven for any longer than 25 minutes.”

Terrence now has two bodies to get rid of.

1664. You get what you pay for

Let this be a warning! A warning to those of you who think the recipes on this site are worth trying. It’s impossible to think of an explanation adequate enough to describe how this person has tried to pull the wool over our eyes. She calls herself a cook. A cook, my foot! I spent a lot of time and wasted energy, not to mention squandered costly ingredients, making this recipe. I followed everything almost to a tee. And what a disaster! She called the recipe “Shortbread”. Yeah right. She was spot on there. It certainly came out as shortbread, but I adapted it because I wanted a coffee cake. It was horrible. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to post.

1362. Flora’s foul mood

Flora was having a bad day. She lived in a house set on a sharp corner of a busy road. She hadn’t slept a wink. All night, well at least until 3 o’clock, teenage hoons were hooning* with speeding, burnouts, doughnuts, and screeching tyres around the corner next to her house. After that she was so angry she couldn’t sleep.

When she did rise she discovered she was out of toothpaste and cleaned her teeth using salt. She burnt the toast at breakfast, tripped over the cat, and couldn’t find her reading glasses for a good ten minutes.

There was only one thing for it; she would do what she always did when in a foul mood: she would get out her book of recipes from The Australian Women’s Weekly and cook something wonderful that she had never tried before. Flora settled on making an Apricot Sour Cream Pie. She had all the ingredients in the house already, and it looked delicious.

First she made the base with crumbled cookie crumbs and melted butter. While that was cooling in the fridge she prepared the filling – with apricots, sugar, flour, eggs, sour cream and so on. She sprinkled the uncooked masterpiece lightly with nutmeg, and placed it in a moderate oven.

Thirty minutes later she removed the pie and sat it on top of the bench. The smell was glorious! Flora’s foul mood had disappeared.

That was when a hoon’s car left the road, flew through the air, and plunged onto Flora’s front lawn. Taking the pie, Flora scurried out to investigate. It was the most satisfying pie she had ever baked.

* Hoons and hooning are common Australian/New Zealand terms meaning teenage louts with cars!

725. Marie Antoinette’s cake

Marie Antoinette was sitting at a table scoffing a plate of strawberries.

A male, splendidly dressed, approached and said, “Ma’am, the pheasants have no bread”.

Antoinette responded by saying, “Let them eat cake,” and handed the head poultry-keeper a cake dish piled with chocolate cake.

Listen the story being read HERE!