The truth is, Oh Reader, that I am not a very resourceful person.
Well, okay, in some ways I am. I am, for example, good at books. I like thinking of books, and Ideas in books, and ideas that connect to these ideas, and finding these ideas Elsewhere. And I’m not bad at thinking of blog entries. And I’m good at salads– you know, variety and what-not. But I am not resourceful when it comes to desserts.
But when, on Sunday afternoon, I was looking about me for a dessert to serve to a pending guest (Chris Danusiar, college-friend, who was making time in his less-than-twenty-four-hour-stop-in-Raleigh-Durham to come see us), I was coming up short.
Happily for me, Lynne called. And that, really, is all you need.
“What do you have?” she asked.
“Just a lemon cake mix,” I said.
“Do you have a Bundt pan?” she asked.
I do.
“Then make the cake in the Bundt pan, and make a little lemon glaze, and there you go.”
And lo, I had a lemon, and I had powdered sugar, and there I went.
I was So Pleased.
But it is One Thing, oh Reader, to pour the cake batter into the Bundt pan. It is Another Thing Entirely to Remove It.
Rest assured, before you go commenting and criticizing me for this, that I greased the Bundt pan. I greased it Well. I greased it thoroughly, making certain to get the Crisco into all the fluted grooves of this Bundt pan.
Nonetheless.
I stuck a knife around the edges. I poked it as far down as it would go. I used a fork, easing its curved tines around the cake. I turned the cake (and pan) upside down over the plate and Tapped Gently.
The cake Would Not come out. No.
What is one to do?
You cannot serve a Bundt cake in the Bundt pan. That ruins the whole presentation. It must needs be removed.
And so I removed it. And it came away, Piece by Piece, in a manner Unfit for presentation.
The result was what you see pictured here. It is what I called a Bundt Cake Deconstructed. In its pieces, crumbles, and misshapen lumpiness, it really gave Bill, Chris, and me pause in considering the Bundt cake in a new light. It made us reconsider the Form of Bundt, and the Idea of Bundt, and, ultimately, gave us a new and deeper sense of Bundtness.
Really.
Of course, in a situation like this one, what one must do is find Yet Another Resourceful Person, and this was my dear neighbor K.C., who is gardener and cook extraordinare, who brings the pages of Southern Living to life right next door.
K.C. commiserated with me about the extraction of my Bundt cake (although it must be said– and is it any surprise?– that she herself has never had this experience before), and provided me with Everything I Needed To Know to turn this Bundtness into a Trifle (and this is the dessert trifle, not a belittling kind of trifle). She even provided me with some fresh strawberries.
So my dessert was not a disaster, although the trifle was more of a Rebecca-trifle than anything that would pass on the pages of Southern Living as a trifle. We ate, and were satisfied.
And I have cleaned my Bundt pan carefully, and have put it away, and will likely sell it at my next garage sale.
I’m sticking to pie from now on.
