The Cake and the Cooler

We travelled over 9,000 miles in June, and naturally there were a few adventures. For the family reunion in Georgia, I baked a mocha chocolate cake which would, according to the recipe, stay fresh for several days. While we were in San Francisco, we picked up the cooler on wheels that we brought to the Burning Man Festival in 2004. Cooler in excellent shape. We packed dirty laundry in it on the way home, and checked it as luggage. I saw it going up the ramp into the plane both in Reno and in Baltimore.

The cake was duly baked, cooled and removed successfully from the pan. Looked great, so big and chocolately. (14 oz. of chocolate in total). I wrapped it in Saran Wrap, then aluminum foil and put the whole business into a larg4e plastic bag which was then sealed. That was put into a sturdy box which was placed in the cooler. We made big hunks of ice for the cooler and put those in sealed plastic bags. Also into the cooler went lunch for 3 days (we were travelling cheap) smoked kielbasa, and assorted drinks for the road.

On Thursday night in Asheville, North Carolina, we drained some water out of the cooler, and I asked myself how could there be water when the ice was in plastic bags? Never mind, there was water, lots of water. I checked the box the cake was in, and it was soggy. The plastic bag was soggy and water dripped out of the aluminum foil and (eeek!) out of the saran wrap. I said many foul words and we went off to eat in a Mexican restaurant in a strip mall that AAA had recommended. Good choice. Came back and inspected the cake which had a soggy bottom. More foul words.

The next morning we drove to the nearest supermarket and purchased a set of knives, some big plastic bags, heavy duty tinfoil, and other assorted products to rescue the cake. $20.00 in total. On the bathroom counter in the motel room, I cut the soggy bottom off the cake, with Significant Other admonishing "I'll eat it! I'll eat it! Save the scraps!" The cake was rewrapped, minus the scraps, and put into another plastic bag. We loaded more ice into the cooler and hied ourselves into Georgia. The cake was saved. It looked lovely at the reunion, but with more desserts than people, it was mostly still uneaten. Little did they know what a gem they were missing.

We have enjoyed cake since Saturday, June 24th. We had 2 helpings this evening and there are two (small) slices left for tomorrow, July 2nd. This is a miracle cake. The rest of the ice did not leak again, and everything stayed cold. Fantastic cooler! Fantastic cake.

Tossing a home made chocolate mocha cake out would have been more sucking it up than even Grapeshot is capable of. But unnecesary. Whatta cake! Whatta cooler. Zowie!

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