Rematch: Chasing My Mom's Plum Cake, or The Paradox Game

Me: You know that plum cake you make?

Mom: Yes.

Me (trying to sound casual): Is that recipe from the Balthazar cookbook?

Mom: Yes.

Me: Oh great! Now I can finally make it the way you do.

Mom: … well, mostly from there…

I’ve been chasing the formula for my mom’s plum cake for years. I’ve made it more times than she has! But mine never comes out the same. I just can’t seem to make a plum cake as good as hers. Don’t get me wrong, the plum cake I make is good, really good—roommate-approved, in fact—but every bite I take reminds me of hers, which in my memory is denser yet lighter, moister yet spongier than mine. This is Paradox Cake.

The last time I had her plum cake was almost four years ago, just as I was starting my master’s program. Still pining for my friends from undergrad, living at home but feeling lost, I tramped home from a day of classes, with my phone to my ear, trying to figure out the process for getting my insurance to reimburse me for therapy sessions. I arrived home on that muggy day, wilted and overwhelmed.

And then. And then I saw the cake under a glass bowl on the kitchen counter and my mom offered me a slice. I cut myself an I’m-lost-but-my-cake-is-here-sized slice, poured myself a glass of milk, and headed into my room. That afternoon snack was radically comforting, and it’s that memory that I’ve been chasing as I’ve baked this cake over and over again.

I’ve served it to dozens of friends who’ve all loved the not-too-sweet cake and with its not-too-tart plums. And it seems it’s only I who taste the difference. I try to explain the difference to my friends and I can’t. “What makes your mom’s cake so much better?” they ask. It’s a paradox.