A$$ Cake

Growing up my mom made the BEST cake. It is called Harvey Wallbanger Cake and it is fantastic. We call it "Harvey" for short. I absolutely love it.

Fast forward numerous years and my mom made it a few times when my in-laws were around. They too became Harvey Wallbanger Cake addicts - seriously it is like crack. So I got the recipe from my mother and made it for my father-in-law's birthday one year. It was horrible, I mean truly disgusting. I'm not a great cook, believe me, but I can follow a simple recipe. This one did not work out. It tasted like ass and thus became known as "Ass Cake".

We were all very perplexed and decided my mother had done what Marie Barone did on Everybody Loves Raymond when she left out one specific ingredient for a recipe she gave her daughter-in-law in order to remain the only person who could make her recipe delicious. Didn't seem like my mom's MO but what else could it be - it couldn't be my fine culinary skills, could it? Oh yeah wait, it could, I suck at cooking.

I tried to make Ass Cake on several occasions over the next few years - and successfully I might add - but I was not so successful in making a delicious Harvey. My mother in law even used my recipe and tried it a few times and she is a great cook - but alas - Ass Cake.

If you want to try it - and really who wouldn't want try something called Ass Cake??? - here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 5 fluid ounces Galliano liqueur
• 2 fluid ounces vodka
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 10 inch tube pan.
2. Combine cake mix and pudding mix in a large bowl. Blend in eggs, vegetable oil, 4 ounces Galliano, 1 ounce vodka, and 4 ounces orange juice. Mix batter until smooth and thick and pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes then remove and place on cooling rack. Spoon glaze over cake while it is still warm.
4. To Make Glaze: Combine the remaining 1 ounce Galliano, 1 ounce vodka, and 1ounce orange juice with the powdered sugar and blend until smooth. Spoon over warm cake.

If you want to try making a Harvey - use the above recipe only add 4 eggs. Yeppers, we weren't putting eggs in the recipe each time we tried to make it - wow DUMB.

I didn't realize that until this past Thanksgiving. I was at my in-law's house and my father-in-law had requested Ass Cake. Sweet man, he had faith that one day I could do it right. Okay truth be told I actually think he was thoroughly entertained by the fact that it kept coming out so horribly. So I decided to give it one last shot. I sat down with the recipe and started to gather the items.

"Um, Valerie?" I asked

"Yes, darling?" My mother-in-law said.

"Do all cakes need eggs?" I questioned.

"Well, yes I think so. I have never run across a recipe that didn't need them." She answered.

"This recipe has no eggs in it! There is our problem." I shouted

Wow, impressive! We had both make the cake probably 4 times or so and how we never noticed that it didn't call for eggs I will never know. I had written the recipe down wrong!!!

It is sort of like the time I bought some boots, wore them for about a year, and then noticed that one boot was a size 6 and one boot was a size 8 - and strangely I wear a size 7. But that is a whole other story.

So I went online grabbed a Harvey Wallbanger recipe (why I didn't look into the magical world wide web for the recipe years ago to check my recipe I'll never know) which calls for 4 eggs and made a delicious cake! Ass cake no more!

Sometimes I'm a special kind of moron.