Today I baked a cake.  Not just any cake but my sister-in-law’s very own “Deluxe Chocolate Pound Cake.”  Delicious beyond measure, it is hard to pass up, but I will.  Not because I don’t like it, but because it will make me sick.  Not literally but emotionally.  I am addicted to foods I should not eat and there are probably over a thousand calories in one slice of this cake.  And because my diet is based on eating healthy foods, (without butter, eggs, and sugar), I’m pretty sure I could not stop at one piece.

I baked this cake for several reasons.  One is that I love to cook and baking is just as fun as making a big pot of bean soup filled with garlic, onions, flax seeds, and kale.  The other is that it brings back such great memories. When I was a young mother I got this recipe at a ZETA alumni party.  Our alumni chapter at LSU made cookbooks and sold them to each other at the “Kandy Kitchen” fundraiser.  My sister-in-law, Wesley Anne submitted the recipe and so I baked it as a treat one Sunday when her mother, my mother-in-law came over for dinner.

We sat at my kitchen table, drinking coffee, listening to my oldest son, Brian who was three play outside in our backyard.  We had a fenced in yard with a swing set and patio for him to play on.  He could hear us talking as we could see and hear him playing.  The smell of the chocolate cake was just like it was today, wonderful.  Finally, after the required one hour and twenty-minute bake time, I pulled the cake out of the oven.  It was a mess.

I looked at my mother-in-law and could not tell if my face was red from embarrassment or from the heat of the oven.  We just looked at it – a crumbled, uncooked glob of chocolate.  I carried it the table and together we tried to figure out what went wrong.  With the recipe card, she started calling out the ingredients to confirm I had indeed not left anything out.  But when she got to five eggs, I hesitated, checked my refrigerator and sure enough, the eggs were still in the carton and NOT in the cake.  However, it was not a loss.  For you see, how can you go wrong with rum, butter, coconut extract with chocolate, butter and sugar?  We sat and ate our cake with a spoon and enjoyed every minute of it.

Temptation – to desire or crave something; I have the power to say no to eating this cake, but that won’t stop me from baking it or sharing it with those who can handle its delicious treats.