6/27/2023
It’s the evening of the orange chiffon cake reboot.
If I was almost undone by trying to bake lemon meringue pies, on repeat, in the summer of 1984, orange chiffon cake nearly broke me as it too eluded my slim baking skills.
Mrs. Cameron was demanding and held high standards. She could also be incredibly generous. One small kindness was permitting wait staff to take home a piece of dessert at the end of each dinner service. We’d place our selection on Seaward Inn china, wrap it up, and take it home to enjoy. My grandfather loved Ginny’s chocolate cake, and I usually snagged a slice for him. Sometimes though, I’d pick something I liked, eating it on the way to the car, and leaving the china and fork on the car seat to be returned the next day.
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Orange Chiffon Cake
The recipe was pretty straightforward, but I (blissfully ignorant) made a fatal error, over and over. (DON’T grease the pan!)
I’d preheat one of the kitchen’s ovens, measure ingredients carefully, scoop all into a greased tube pan and wait, expectantly, for the chiffon cake to emerge. With the promising cake out of the oven, I’d invert it to let it cool on the baker’s bench and leave for an afternoon at Old Garden Beach.
On my return to the kitchen for dinner service, I’d carefully remove the cake from the pan, only to have it deflate, tragically, in front of my eyes.
Every. Single. Time.
Mrs. Cameron would tut-tut and start breaking the dud cake into chunks, pushing the hunks into parfait glasses, layering the bits with vanilla ice cream and orange liqueur, as she worked to salvage the tasty, but flattened chiffon, to serve as one of the evening’s dessert options.
Chase Squires, son of the local dentist, a year younger than me, and summer dishwasher at the Inn, observed these regular baking disasters from the dish room window and would grin knowingly at me.
He teased me: “Jenn-a-fuh (cue broad New England accent) how can you bake muffins, breads, custards (cus-tahds), pies, cookies, and other cakes and not know how to bake an orange chiffon cake?”
One afternoon, with eyes rolling, his teasing turned into a wager: “Jenn-a-fuh, I bet I can bake that cake!”
I shot back with: “Well just you try —stupid cake.”
We agreed that Mrs. Cameron would judge the quality of his home-baked, orange chiffon cake. If it was better than what I produced, I’d buy him a hot boiled lobster dinner, and if my cake was better (hahaha), Chase would purchase the lobster dinner for me.
A week went by and one late afternoon Chase turned up to wash dishes, carrying a stunning, magnificently tall (inflated), orange chiffon cake.
Mrs. Cameron pronounced the cake perfect and delicious in every way. And she laughed and laughed as Chase slurped his way through the Roy Moore’s hot boiled lobster dinner I provided the following night.
For the remainder of the summer I cheerfully left my post-dinner dessert dishes on the hood of Chase’s late model, tangerine Volvo wagon. Turned out his mother had baked the cake!
Jen…I just love reading these baking stories! And the photos! Definitely have to self publish!
I’m so happy these little pieces are entertaining!
Well, it’s Chase 🙂 I was searching for some examples of my writing and entered my name into the Google search bar, and this came up. LOL, the cake. Those were such fun times at the Seaward Inn, maybe the most fun summer job I ever had with such great people. Wow, it’s been a long way since then. Hope you went on to do great things. I was working there in high school and on college breaks. I went on to be a newspaper reporter for 20 years, then marketing and content creation. Now retired and living in Ecuador. I was back in Rockport last summer for a bit. If you’re still near Rockport, enjoy the Fourth of July bonfire. I tell people about my home town and show them photos at our local gringo bar, they can’t believe where I grew up.
Well of all things! 😂
Hi Chase. Loved reading your note and so happy you’ve had what sounds like an interesting and satisfying life. I was Jennifer Wescott in 1984. Have been married 31 years and am Jennifer Kuzio now. I live in the woods and hills of central Pennsylvania with my husband and a couple of cats. We have 3 grown children all off living good lives. I retired from teaching this year. My last gig was teaching student teachers at a local liberal arts college. Working with college students was incredibly fun and rewarding. The last time I was in Rockport was November 2022 when my mother died. Sad, but she was so happy to have spent the last 20 years of her life back in her hometown. Happy 4th of July to you! The Rockport bonfire was always the best!
Wow, we both won the game of life. Very happy for you, can’t believe how it all worked out. I’m still friends with Suz Hooker from the Inn. She and the Hooker family lived just across the street from your grandma. Sorry about your mom, mine passed in 2015 and I was there in 2022 to spread my sister’s ashes, all at the top of our hill, Summit Ave. Be well, I’ll continue to follow your blog. My wife and I love living in Ecuador and traveling South America.
Ecuador and South America! Sounds incredibly exotic. It’s wonderful to hear that you are happy. So sorry to hear about your mother and sister. It’s tough losing loved ones. My sister scattered my mother’s ashes at OGB, then brought the bags and boxes to me, here in PA. Today I was going through things and decided to toss these items, then discovered there were still ashes in the inside bag so I tipped them into my dahlia bed. Mother loved flower gardening so it seemed okay. 🙂🌞