Purim Fun

The venerable Flea has already discussed Purim, calling it the "Jewish Mardi Gras" (although I have been known to call it the Jewish Halloween.) I wanted to share the final product of another very special interlude with my youngest nestling who wanted to bake a cake for "Esther's Cake Walk," one of the games at our synagogue's Purim Carnival. The game is basically Musical Chairs, where the winner of each round wins a cake; thus they need as many cakes as possible donated for the event.

Young Nestling began talking about it with me on Friday night: he wanted to make a jack-in-the-box cake. He couldn't quite convey the image he clearly had of it in his mind, but over the course of an hour's conversation (incredibly rewarding for its collegiality and total lack of rancor -- imagine that with a 17-year-old) it turned out he didn't really have all that clear an idea of what he wanted. After further discussion, it morphed into this, from the old Addams Family:

"Thank you, Thing."

The glove was filled with lemon jello, giving it the perfect disgusting fleshy consistency. The three layers were frosted so as to give the appearance of a table. The cake itself was made from scratch; my suggestion, thinking that a scratch cake would be sturdier to work with than a store bought "super moist" one (correct) though the frosting was store bought. Saturday was baking day (and jello-filled-glove setting day) and Sunday morning was the final assembly and picture taking. It was a wonderful project for us to share.

And a hearty Chag Purim Sameach to all!