A and J Rings
When my younger sister, Michelle, was graduating from high school, my parents decided to throw her a graduation party. Amy and I decided that we would bake a graduation cake for her. Amy and I weren't the best bakers, but we thought it would be fun to try.
Amy and I usually relied on prepackaged mixes, but this time we would make the cake from scratch. This was a huge undertaking for us, but we thought we could handle the challenge. Amy wanted to bake an all-chocolate cake. I wanted to bake a vanilla cake with strawberry filling. We finally compromised and decided on a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, which we would decorate with lavender and pink flowers.
Amy and I gathered up all the ingredients and baking tools - bowls, sifter, spatula and baking pan - and then washed our hands before we started baking. I noticed that Amy still had her ring on so I reminded her to take it off. When Amy and I turned sixteen, our aunt gave each of us a beautiful silver ring with our initials boldly engraved on them. We called them our “A & J rings.” We hardly ever took them off, except when baking or playing sports, well at least I always did.
I put on the radio and preheated the oven to 350 degrees. Amy greased the pan, while I mixed the flour and baking powder. Then, in another bowl, Amy mixed the cream, sugar and shortening as I slowly added the eggs one at a time. We had our routine down pat.
Before we knew it, the cake was in the pan and Amy put it carefully into the oven. Then we began to clean up the kitchen while we waited the 45 minutes for the cake to bake. Suddenly, while I was busy washing the bowl, Amy yelled and started waving her hand around frantically, "Where's my ring? Where’s my ring? I don't know what happened to my ring!" I didn’t know if she took it off or not when I reminded her earlier so I said, “Maybe you left it on the counter somewhere after we washed our hands.” "No, I didn't take it off!” she said. “Why didn't you listen to me and take it off? I don't know where it can be!" I said. Amy started looking around the kitchen while I was looking in the sink with all the dirty bowls. This was so annoying, I thought. All of a sudden, we looked at each other with horror. We simultaneously stared at the oven door, and in that moment, we knew exactly where her ring was.
The cake had only been in the oven for a few minutes when Amy took it out, so it wasn’t too hot yet as we plunged our hands into the soggy batter and started digging feverishly. Finally, I felt something hard at the bottom of the cake pan and triumphantly pulled out the batter covered ring. Amy was so happy. "Thanks, twinny!”
I was glad that I found the ring, but asked, "Now what do we do?” as we pondered our options. Do we bake another cake, or should we just make some chocolate chip cookies? Or maybe we should just leave it to the experts and buy a cake at the bakery? At that moment, I was so irritated that I didn't want to do anything. Amy didn't seem bothered at all she was just so happy that she had her ring.
Without saying a word, Amy looked at me and nodded at the bowls, and then we rolled up our sleeves. "This is unbelievable that we have to start all over!" I said. Amy then replied, “It's not such a big deal, we get to lick the batter again and at least the oven is preheated.” "You're so right,” I said as I turned up the radio.