By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

I hadn’t thought about the cake for years, but, at least twice in the last month, it came up in a food-related conversation. Until I began the first of my many medically restricted diets, it served as my yearly birthday cake. We always called it strawberry shortcake, but it was different from most I’ve eaten. The basic cake was a sponge cake made in a tube pan with a removable bottom. (I had to search online for the name of the pan because the people I was talking to kept saying bundt cake, but I knew it didn’t have a traditional bundt cake shape.)
My mother would remove the cake from its pan by the tube and then remove the tube and bottom layer of the pan. You were then left with a doughnut-shaped cake. My mother would then cut off a half-inch layer from the top. (This was done so it remained in one piece.) Then she dug a trench around the inside of the cake and filled that with a strawberry mixture. The top was then replaced and the whole cake covered with whipped cream. The cake tasted even better the second day as the cake began to absorb the juice from the strawberries. Plus, we had the fun of eating the cake taken to make the trench.
Thinking about the cake made me feel a bit nostalgic. I’m betting that’s partly because I have a “big birthday” happening this month. (A big birthday is generally defined as one that ends in a zero.) I regularly tell people my age (and, when I turned 50, I had 50 candles placed on the cake), but experts now warn about scammers who will steal your personal information so I’m not saying what it is here. However, I’ll be happy to tell you in person.
Does this cake have anything to do with Judaism since this is a Jewish food column? Why I’m glad you asked. This was also the cake (sans strawberries and whipped cream) that my mom used to make when we went to my Aunt Naomi’s house for Passover. My older brother’s birthday is in March and sometimes this was his birthday cake, too, since his birthday periodically fell during the holiday. At least, I assume it’s a variation on the same cake because my mother used the same pan. It’s too late to ask her and I don’t know what happened to her personal cookbook. Even if I had the cookbook, I’m not sure it would be something she’d have written down.
When a friend volunteered to sponsor an oneg for my big birthday, she asked what I would like served. My first choice was a fruit tart, but I did mention a cake with strawberries. I don’t make any for myself, but if, during the summer, I’m given the chance to eat strawberry shortcake, I will order one. But what usually arrives – some type of biscuit with strawberries and cream – can’t compare to my memory of my annual birthday cake. Of course, the fact my mother made the cake and my family gathered to celebrate my birthday is what really made it special.