Have a Button on Your Birthday

Almost all of my hand-selected Brit care package is gone. The Kit-Kats have all been munched upon (including the cloyingly sweet, strawberry-white chocolate ones by my husband), the prawn cocktail crisps have all been marveled at, and the Cadbury Crunchie bars eaten quickly, the honeycomb centers crackling away. But a few choice morsels still remained, among them a box of cake mix, waiting for the right moment to be baked, or the right person for whom to bake.

It was my sister's birthday, and per usual I was in charge of the celebratory cake. My sister is a woman of simple tastes, nothing too rich, no feats of dark chocolate ganache and spun sugar to ooh and aah over. In December, on our trip to England, we visited Tesco, a truly enormous supermarket chain, and we became enthralled by a Cadbury Buttons Cake mix. So much so, we bought a box. And just what was it that made me drag a box of cake mix home, thousands of miles with me? It was the fact that this was not simply a cake mix, but rather a mix for an entire cake, buttercream filling, a milk chocolate ganache, and the decorations-- white and milk chocolate Cadbury Buttons.

I was holding on to the mix, waiting for the correct company to serve it to-- people who would not find it gauche, but rather whimsical to make a cake from a mix and, also, to have it decorated with candies. The company of my family in quiet celebration of my sister's birthday, proved to be the ideal partakers.

And the cake was good. Milky, and rich, and overflowing with that Cadbury chocolate flavor-- the precise mix of creaminess and sweetness. Filled with a light chocolate buttercream, and covered with melted milk chocolate, that cooled and hardened to a smooth shell, the cake was definitely festive with its polka-dotted vestment. A perfect birthday cake for a girl with sweetly simple tastes.