I’ve been frustrated by cake frosting for several years. I bake a special cake, wrap it up to keep it fresh, and return to find the frosting has turned into a sloppy mess. My solution was to serve it in pieces with ice cream tossed on, and figure that no one would then notice the frosting trying to ooze away.

This always sat in the back of my mind but never seemed earth shattering enough to warrant a full on contemplation.  For some reason it came back to the forefront recently and I decided it was finally a problem that I had to solve. I know our memories tend to wax poetically about our childhoods, but I was positive that the cake frostings of my youth really didn’t sweat and drip all over the plate.  So, what was different now? Had frosting changed, was high fructose corn syrup to blame? Or was there something else?

I remembered how my mother, and all the mothers of that time, had cake keepers or stored the cake on a plate with a mixer bowl inverted over it. And I thought about my new and improved ways of preserving freshness with Saran wrap or Tupperware. It occurred to me that I just might be preserving too much freshness and trapping more moisture than the frosting could handle. I decided that I needed a dedicated cake keeper to test my new theory. So I went eBay shopping.

Actually, I did look at new items on the websites of several stores. I considered metal as well as glass. I found that cake keepers can be a bit expensive, at least for an unproved theory. So back to eBay it was. I decided to sit back and wait until I could get a good one at a low price. I sat for a day. As it turns out, most people are on the Saran/Tupperware band wagon and are selling off these old work horses. I had my pick of many lovely old keepers, and very little bidding competition. I selected one that was a dead ringer for the one of my youth. It is in such good shape that I doubt its owner ever used it. I was able to pick it up for a small fraction of what anew one would have cost me. Even if the experiment didn’t work, it wasn’t going to be a big loss.

The final step was to make a cake. It was Father’s Day so I catered to Recliner Man’s belief that the only good cake, is a chocolate cake.  I made it a day ahead of time and secured it in the new keeper. The next day it looked perfect! Success was mine! Then, the next cake I made was a sheet cake and my shiny new keeper was banished to the top of the refrigerator. Go figure.

I’ll end with a picture of another one of my vintage treasures. Who remembers seeing these little darlings on their birthday cakes?