Every year on November 12th we make a Pineapple Upside down cake in honor of my brother Bob's birthday. The kids start asking about it as soon as November rolls around. The cakes are usually hideous looking and sometimes fall apart- but they always taste good. When we moved to Hawaii, we tried fresh pineapple...It was interesting. All the kids really want is the cherries so we've amended the recipe to include crushed pineapple and a whole jar of cherries. This year we ended up with 4 extra kids hanging out, helping. Mostly they helped lick the bowl until Lily commandeered it for herself. Phil arrived home to find her face replaced by a bowl. After this point, no one else was interested in the bowl or Lily's literal interpretation of- who wants to lick the bowl?. I made pineapple cupcakes for each of them to take home as compensation. Phillip took an initiative and at one point I asked him to measure 1 cup of brown sugar for the caramelized bottom topping. hee hee. He decided that it logically went into the batter and dumped it in. The cake was extra sweet this year.
Kiera kept explaining to her friends that this was Uncle Bob's birthday cake, he's in heaven. We make it every year. My Grandpa is in heaven too. We don't make a cake on his birthday. Just Uncle Bob's. Allrighty then.
Then it is time to eat the cake. As the children "help" the cherries are not evenly placed as I would have done. Everyone has placed handfuls in hopes that would be their piece. Kiera looks at me and asks- can we sing Happy Birthday? I think that would be weird. But of course we just made a cake for their dead uncle's birthday...what's a little weird among family. So as I tried to cut haphazard pieces with equal amounts of cherry goodness, Lily and Kiera sang a rousing round of Happy Birthday.
