Cake that isn’t Cake

Asking a stupid question can be very embarrassing, I should know, I do it all the time. one time on my brother Nick’s birthday, he was turning 13, we had ice cream cake. I was only 12 as Nick is 13 months older than me, and I had never had ice cream cake before. I was extremely excited because I love ice cream and I love cake. My family doesn’t try new things so it was a big deal that we were finally trying ice cream cake, which we had tried to get them to buy for the longest time.

I was laying under the covers on my bed in my purple bedroom. It was January 29th, 2012 and everyone was home. I had gotten out of school at normal time that day, but Nick didn’t have to go to school since it was his birthday. My mom, grandmother, grandfather, and my oldest brother all gathered in the kitchen and called me and Nick out of our rooms. We had no idea that we had an ice cream cake so when we came out of our rooms and looked at the dining room table, we were thoroughly surprised.

We shouted in joy because we had always wanted an ice cream cake, and Nick ran to give everyone a hug. The anticipation of feeling cold ice cream in the shape of a cake was killing us. We knew it was a peanut butter and that it has frosting and sprinkles on it. For most people it’s a given or common sense that ice cream cake doesn’t have actual cake in it, but I didn’t know. My family wanted to drag out the suspense of seeing if ice cream cake was worth all the hype it had been getting lately (ice cream cake was very popular back then, almost everyone had them at birthdays). I watched as my brother got nearly everything he wanted or liked for his birthday. Me being me was of course thinking about the next time I would have ice cream cake. I knew it would most likely be when my birthday rolled around March 10th. I was wondering if I would like this cake enough to want one for my own birthday.

Finally my brother finished opening his gifts after what felt like years, and we could finally try that ice cream cake. My grandmother took the cake slowly out of the orange Reese’s brand box and put it on the counter. Then she got a knife and started cutting portions of the cake to give to all of us. Nick got his first since it was his cake for his birthday and we stared intently at him gauging his reaction.

He swallowed and said it was very good, now it was my turn. I got my plate with my cake on it and grabbed a spoon from the drawer. I sat at the table and spooned up a piece of ice cream cake. Then I finally put it in my mouth. It was very cold, and the frosting made the ice cream sweeter than normal which I was okay with. I had made my full assessment of the cake after I swallowed. It was cold and creamy, sweet and thick, but there was no cake.

I kept digging into my piece of cake because it was really good, but as I got to the last bit of ice cream cake I realized: No cake! The ice cream cake didn’t have cake in it. I went back into the kitchen and told my family I thought it was very good, but I was disappointed there was no cake. I then asked “Don’t all ice cream cakes have to have cake in them? If not then why is it called ice cream cake?”.

After I said this my family looked at me like I was crazy and my oldest brother said “what?”. I repeated the question so everyone heard me a second time. Nick then told me there was no cake in the ice cream cake, and it’s called that because the ice cream is in the shape of a cake and has frosting on it. I was confused. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that there wasn’t any cake at all to offset the ice cream.

It might have been a dumb question to ask why there was no cake in the ice cream cake, but everyone laughed it off and told me why. My family has always taught me that there are stupid questions in life, most are just common sense, but that there is no harm in asking them. They told me this because I have always been a curious child and have always been raised to ask questions, and if it turns out to be a stupid question, laugh it off and keep asking questions.