What do you do when your oldest friend in the world hits a milestone birthday? For that matter, what do you do when anyone you really care about has a birthday?

You bake them a cake, that's what.

Presents are wonderful, of course: diamonds, ponies, Eastern European babies, and whatnot. Whatever your choice, the recipient of these gifts will be pleased that you took the time out of your busy schedule to honor them.

But a cake? I think cakes are much, much nicer, thank you. Not a store-bought cake, though they can be very good, but one you make yourself. Baking a cake requires planning, it requires effort, it requires the surrender of personal time and energy. And, best of all, it demands focus-- at least, it does for me. You just can't multitask when there's a cake in the oven depending on you. Of course, I'm sitting here at my desk writing about making birthday cakes while the cake is baking away, but I've got my timer on. Since I'm doing nothing but think about this cake as I type, I think it is entirely allowable.

When Squid's husband told me he was having a small get together for her birthday, my first thought was about the cake. "Do you already have something in mind for the cake?" I asked. When he said no, not yet, I asked if I could make it. So here I am, fretting away about a bunch of flour, sugar, and butter.

I had such grand plans for the thing. Two tiers, 35 years of inside jokes together manifested in marzipan, butterscotch, and chocolate. I had everything planned to the last detail. Or so I thought.

Things don't always go as planned when a person like me, who isn't in the practice of baking giant cakes, decides to do so on a whim. When there is math involved, my ideas tend to take a major hit or two. Butterscotch frosting? Oh, just double the given recipe. That should be enough. And it was, except for the fact that I needed about a half cup more powdered sugar than I had on hand. Ransacking one's pantry while the stand mixer is whirring away is not always the best idea. Fortunately, there was vanilla protein powder on hand, so the frosting is now enriched with iron, phosphorous, and good old fashioned soy protein to support the bone and cardiovascular health of those who will ingest it. God bless the ability to improvise.

Baking a big cake? Super, but I can now tell you that merely doubling the recipe for 9" round layer cake doesn't cut it for a 14" square one. Unless you just want one, perfect little layer, without filling. So I will run back to the store early tomorrow morning for more flour, butter, eggs, and vanilla. It serves me right.

But I don't mind one bit. I happen to enjoy making mistakes. Especially tasty ones. So what if I have to bake another layer for the cake tomorrow? There is much to be said for the satisfaction I feel when a tender, vanilla-perfumed cake is first pulled from the oven. When cooling on its baking rack, I see it as a yellowish canvas-- not quite blank, but mildly blistered and neutral, upon which I can go to town, as it were, in terms of creativity.

Protein-infused Butterscotch frosting studded with bits of brutalized toffee slathered in the middle of two layers of cake baked a day apart. I wonder if anyone will know which layer is newer? Hopefully, everyone will be too drunk on beer and sidecars to notice. A thin layer of the icing outside covered in a perfectly smooth coating of chocolate. At least I hope it will be perfectly smooth. Do wish me luck.

The decoration of the thing will be the trickiest part of all. My piping skills aren't what they used to be. My plan was to have a giant squid looking as if it were startled into squirting out the Birthday message in its ink. Trickier than I imagined, believe me.

Instead, I ended up with a squid that looks only mildly bothered. Perhaps I shall have more luck with the starfish.

What started out as an exercise in what I hoped to be flawless, quirky perfection has turned into an exercise in pinpointing my own, personal foibles and fortes (read: therapy). I had hoped to execute something beyond my own particular baking and sculpting abilities and have, so far, not done a terribly bad job at it, though it won't be the image of the perfect (for Squid) birthday cake I had in mind.

And I think that's just fine. In fact, I think she'll think that's just fine, too. Who turns down birthday cake? A birthday cake isn't always about perfection. Like I said earlier, it's about time and the offering of mental space and physical effort. And it's about love, if you hadn't gathered that already.

As I stood over the stand mixer, kicking myself for having to resort to adding protein powder in order to save the frosting, I had a Like Water for Chocolate moment. Was I about to add my own frustration into that frosting? Were my fellow party-goers going to take on my angst as well as a boost of muscle-building protein? I stepped back and thought about what I wanted that cake to say to Squid besides "Happy Birthday."

I took a moment to re-arrange my thoughts and then started speaking into the bowl of the stand mixer, saying things like:

Thank you for being my friend for thirty-five years. I'm glad you had good enough sense to marry my college roommate. Thanks for the wonderful, surprising godchildren. Thank you for correcting me when I call things "retarded" by telling me how "gay" that sounds. I'm sorry I punched you in the face in the 5th grade. Thank you for out-reading, out-writing, and out-drawing me. Thank you for letting me be a part of your family.

Just, well, thanks.

And I hope you love the cake, however it turns out.

Butterscotch Protein Frosting:

Frosts on 9" x 9" round layer cake. Double the amount for a 14" square cake. You do the math, since I can't.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter

2 cups light brown sugar

8 tablespoons whole milk

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup soy protein powder

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

a heavy pinch of salt

Preparation:

1. In a heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pan, melt the butter over low heat. Add brown sugar to the butter and bring to a bubbling boil, stirring constantly. Add milk and return to a boil, all the while stirring. About 2 to 3 minutes, or until the sugar has melted and the consistency is smooth.

2. Remove from heat and pour molten mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer with whisk attachment. Add vanilla and let cool to luke warm.

3. On the lowest speed, gradually add powdered sugar until all of your stash has been exhausted.

4. Panic.

5. Rifle through pantry. Locate protein powder.

6. Hastily measure out powder and add to frosting.

7. Taste.

8. Smirk.

9. Frost.

My birthday is this month, so I have requested a luscious and rich home-baked chocolate cake. And by chocolate cake I mean the kind you can put candles on, not the flourless variety. My husband has gallantly offered to make it, but if he gets too busy, I have no problems getting in the kitchen and whipping it up myself: my birthday, my cake, my prerogative.

I have tried many chocolate cake recipes over the years, always searching for the perfect one. But as with a search for anything great (say a life-changing novel or the perfect kiss), so much can go wrong. Some had a deep chocolate flavor, but were a little dry, while others just weren't chocolaty enough. Worst of all were the cakes the barely held together. Like sloppy kisses, they were well meaning, but a little too wet.

After many calorie-filled attempts, I have settled on a recipe that I feel is truly the ultimate for chocolate cake. Beatty's Chocolate Cake is made with good cocoa powder, buttermilk and freshly-brewed coffee. With an intense chocolate flavor that is both nuanced and bold, this flirt of a cake teases out its flavors and leaves you wanting more. I didn't create this recipe. Ina Garten, aka The Barefoot Contessa, gets all the glory; or, rather, her friend Beatty for whom the cake is named. Take note that the coffee makes the batter a bit soupy (which worried me a little), but in the end, its flavor accents the chocolate nicely and gives the cake a velvety richness it wouldn't have had otherwise.

Although I love Ina and Beatty's cake, I veer from their advice when it comes to the icing. Skipping the chocolate frosting Ms. Garten pairs with her cake -- as I find a chocolate on chocolate combo a bit overwhelming -- I instead went with a vanilla cream cheese frosting. I have found over the years that vanilla makes chocolate taste more robust, and this is definitely the case here. The frosting has the added bonus of having a thick but not stiff texture, so it lays evenly on the cake. It also takes only about three minutes to make and is delicious.

I can't disclose the cake's recipe here -- it isn't mine, after all -- but can share my frosting recipe. So if you're having a birthday soon, or are just in the mood for a good old-fashioned chocolate cake, it's time to indulge.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes: Frosting for one cake

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup softened butter
1 box of powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Preparation:
1. Combine all ingredients together in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer until smooth.
2. Frost cake and devour.

I am entering into high birthday season. Not only my own, but about half of the people I know. We’re Summer babies-- the product of cold-weather snuggling and perhaps a little too much Holiday Cheer. I suspect that my own conception had something to do with Nixon's 1968 presidential victory. I shudder, yet I am grateful. And, as I type this, I realize that today is the 100th anniversary of my paternal grandmother's birth (the smiling profile at the lower right of the photo, eleven months before I was born). Of course, she hasn't been celebrating it herself for some years, which isn't surprising-- she's dead.

When I hit the one-year mark, my mother (Mia Farrow-circa-Rosemary's Baby haircut, second left) thought it would be a fun idea to have a joint birthday party for my grandmother, and myself since our birthdays were so close together. The birthday cake read "Happy birthday Mom and Michael!" I'm sure I was delighted with the cake, as I am sure there are photos of me with icing smeared all over my face and body. My grandmother, however, was not. "Don't ever do that again" was all she said. She didn't enjoy having her special day shared, nor did she like the fact that her birthday wishes would be diluted by those of a small, frog-like newcomer who frequently soiled his onesies.

And I don't blame her one bit. On average (unless you happen to be someone who enjoys multiple birthday parties), you get one shot a year at your own cake and birthday wish. That thought makes me weep for all the twins and triplets in the world.

So where and when did this dessert become imbued with the power to single out one's specialness, grant wishes, and divide families?

What an excellent question.

The Birth of the Birthday Cake

Both the Greeks and the Germans lay claim to inventing the birthday cake. Of course, the Greeks claim to have invented everything, so I'm not surprised.

In Ancient Greece, flat, round cakes of honey and nut meats called plakous were given in offering to the moon goddess Artemis on her special day of celebration-- the world's first Moon Pie, if you will.

The Romans, as was their habit, adopted this Greek custom, but latinized the cake's name to placenta and expanded upon the idea of annual celebrations. Whereas the Greeks had limited their cake offerings to the gods, the Romans took a shining to the idea of the birthday, celebrating those belonging to their Emperor-du-jour and his family, to important military heroes, even to one's own city. One's50th year is said to have been celebrated with a cake make of flour, cheese, honey, and olive oil. Placenta, delicious placenta.

Of course, neither the Greeks nor the Romans bothered to come up with a new word for cake, since little distinction was made between these cakes and bread.

No, it is rumored that our word for cake is derived from a 13th Century Norse word: kaka. Cake, it would seem, was in need of a greater marketing strategy.

It was the Germans who really put the concept of the modern birthday cake on the map. In the Middle Ages, sweetened bread dough was made into the shape of the Baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and eaten cannibalistically on that biggest of all birthdays, Christmas. I am reminded of the story a friend once told me of how is family celebrates that holiday every year. His mother walks into the dining room carrying a peppermint-frosted birthday cake (because Jesus loves both you and peppermint) and everyone bursts into a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday". Not, I hope, "Happy Birthday, Jesus".

Mercifully, the idea of a bready Christ-child lost some of its appeal, but the tie-in of child + birthday = celebration survived in the form of the Kinderfest-- a child's birthday party. In centuries past, it was usually the custom to regard children as either mini-grown-ups, free sources of labor, or simply not at all, since it was most likely that he or she would not survive into adulthood. It was the Germans, with their proto-modern Geburtstagtorten, who helped to pioneer the warm and fuzzy regard with which we now regard the young. At least our own. And the birthday cake.

Candle Power

It's impossible to talk about birthday cakes without regarding their source of power-- the birthday candle.

Fire is, of course, a source of both light and heat. It is therefore symbolic of the sun's power and, as such, the use of it in religious rights is not at all surprising. The smoke from these fires -- from candles or burnt sacrifices-- would rise, curling its way up to Heaven, to whichever god one was worshipping at the time. The Greeks sometimes placed candles upon their cakes, as they did with Artemis, and lit them as they prayed. With the round cakes glowing like the moon, they sent their prayers skyward with the smoke. It is essentially that tradition we still follow, though we no longer call them prayers, but wishes, which sounds less religious, yet more unreasonably hopeful, and we light up German Chocolate or Wacky Cakes instead of Moon Pies, because that somehow seems more comfortable to us.

We place the same number of candles on our cakes as the number of years we have lived but, no matter how many candles there might be, we get just one wish. The more candles on the cake, the more difficult it is to blow them out in a single breath, as is the wish-making custom. If anything, this symbolizes not only the complexities of aging, but also the growing unlikelihood of our ever getting what we wish for. For the young, the act of blowing out candles is one of hope. For the elderly, it can be an exercise in frustration and futility, which might explain why my family stops counting candles for someone when their age exceeds the number of candles in a standard box-- 24.

Whatever you might read into the tone of this post, I am not completely cynical about the birthday cake, its traditions, and its powers. I don't believe so much in the making of wishes by blowing out candles, though I enjoy the symbolism behind the act. The real power of the birthday cake comes from the fact that, if it is made from scratch, it tells the recipient that he or she has been thought of in advance, is loved.

And, of course, I love the fact that I, as the birthday boy, am essentially coating the entire surface of the cake with a fine mist of my own spittle, sharing a little bit of myself with all my co-celebrants. It's better to give than to receive, you know. That's why this year, I shall joyfully close my eyes, put my lips together, and blow.