Perfection

Each year, at her husband’s request, my sister S makes a yellow cake with caramel frosting for his birthday.  The icing recipe was handed down to her from her mother-in-law.  I don’t think the general directions are particularly difficult to execute, but there are so many variables (including the weather), that the family is always anxious about the outcome.  There have been years when the icing was too soft and flowed right off the cake… or so thick that it lay in chunks across the surface… or, in some instances, hard enough to simply be served in a bowl next to a naked cake.  This year, however, for her husband’s 50th birthday, S created a masterpiece.