set inside the Girl Scout House — a tiny , drafty building wedged into a Cranston side street , saddled in banks of snow . There I stood in my stretch stirrup pants and turtleneck shirt , my best fluorescent puffy jacket on a coat rack nearby . I don ’ t have a competitive bone in my body , but I remember feeling a certain bravado as I surveyed the table of entries . Amidst a sea of sheet pan brownies and underwhelming cookies was my contribution , the crown jewel : an almond coffee cake baked to buttery-yellow perfection with crispy sugar topping .
Was it obvious that this was not in fact baked solely by a seven-year-old , but by my grandmother ? The judges either couldn ’ t tell , or they didn ’ t care , because I went home with the Best in Show ribbon that day . If only I could tell my younger self that that would be the sole thing I ’ d win in my life ( short of a Most Improved Bowler trophy in high school gym class ) — so maybe tone down the cockiness .
That Bake-Off cake was just one of many I ’ d make at my grandmother ’ s hip , fascinated by separating an egg white from its yolk , mesmerized by the whirling paddle in her cream-colored KitchenAid . It was my greatest honor to lug it out of the cabinet for her . Though she was many things , my grandmother was not a good cook . But at baking , she was excellent . Her process was not scientific , but intuitive . She was seemingly born with a sweet tooth and a drive to satisfy it . I have inherited the same .
In her lifetime , my grandmother ’ s sweet tooth would call for attention in various ways . She profited off sweets , running a small baking business with a church friend in her twenties and thirties . She took great joy in the creative process , taking special orders for each grandkid ’ s birthday : confetti cakes , chocolate cakes with coffee-laced frosting , yellow cake with vanilla icing . She searched for a sugar fix , clipping coupons for Friendly ’ s ice cream , taking another chance on a gallon of the Heath Bar flavor , hoping they wouldn ’ t scrimp on the candy this time . She showed her affection through Saran-wrapped plates of sweets , often baking fudgy brownies for my dad ( her son-in-law ) and leaving them on our porch as a surprise welcome home from his long business trips . She married a man who could never resist seconds , always going back for one tiny bit or sliver at a time , taking measures to be sly but betrayed by big hands that were too clumsy to keep a secret at the table . It seems that gathering over sweets and coffee , or the afternoon tradition of Fika , is the only piece of Swedish heritage that ’ s made its way through generations of our family . I ’ d often come home from school to my mom and my grandparents around our kitchen table , on what was probably a second ( maybe third ?) pot of afternoon coffee and , in the center , boxes of crullers from Dunkin ’ Donuts , lemon squares from Solitro ’ s , raspberry Entenmann ’ s from Arnold ’ s . At the height of summer , adults would gather over instant iced coffees with creamy whole milk in vintage
56 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l FEBRUARY 2022