Happy Birt-a-day! Mom’s Tiramisu-Boston Cream Birthday Cake

I love the Fourth of July. Even its name shows it’s a holiday to be reckoned with. No holiday gets the number first, not even Christmas. I also LOVE fireworks. They’re all the excitement of lightning without the house burning down part. And mostly, I love the Fourth of July because it was my mom’s birthday.

My mom had a pretty serious accent, which you already know if you’ve been reading this blog. The Fourth of July was: Da Fort of July. So she seemed very Italian, which she was.

But she was born in the USA right before her mom whisked her and her two sisters off to Italy. Since they were all  within a few years of each other, this leads me to believe my grandmother couldn’t have been terribly happily married. What new mother says, “Hey, I think I’ll take off with my two infants and a toddler all the way to Italy for fun?” Frankly, it’s a little suspicious, but I’ve never gotten to the bottom of it, which is probably for the best since they reunited after 14 years and had six more kids. Love is funny that way.

Anyway my mom and her sisters were all proud US citizens raised in Italy, who came to the U.S. when my mom was about 14, and by then Mom’s accent was cemented. My mom was thrilled to be here. She loved this country with a rapture she saved for special things like: Jesus, her children, Bob Barker, lottery tickets, great fish dinners and  tropical fruit.

So, every Fourth of July Mom demanded we celebrate the two events. When I was little we celebrated with a picnic at Brady’s Run Park which always included her birthday cake — with obligatory firecracker emblem and tiny flag.

Another ritual on the Fourth of July was Mom’s photo. Her birthday photo had to be taken alongside the American flag. One of these days I’ll count them all, but since we haven’t gone through all my parent’s photos yet, I only have three to post.

After the picnic we went to Spotlight 88, the drive-in movie theatre, where we got to see fireworks followed by whatever movie was out.  My mom loved the movies and would have loved to have been a movie star, but would have slapped any actor who tried to kiss her, so in the interest of public safety, it’s best she became a mom.

She also demanded we buy her birthday gifts.  This was tricky.  If she loved what you bought, you knew it immediately.  If she didn’t, you also knew that.  One year I made her a dried flower arrangement in a glass brandy snifter.  She took one look at it, tried to hide her disgust, and said “Eeetsa pooty Frenzy, for dead a flowers.”

Putting off buying her a gift became a talent.  One year I forgot and apparently one or two of my siblings gifts didn’t arrive as scheduled either and she was very put out, until my friend Rick showed up.  He gave her a little package, which was impressive because she never even got his name right, even after knowing him for a year.  She opened it and loved the little salt and pepper shakers that went with her collection.  Then she uttered one of her classic lines: “Yunz damma kids should a be ashamed offa yourselves.  Yunz dind a getta me nading and dissa lilla stranger boy comes here anna geeves a me dissa nize a gift.”

Score: Lilla Stranger Boy – 1, Family – 0.

She often made her own birthday cakes, which were delicious — vanilla cake with coffee, bananas and custard in the middle and coffee frosting on top. I’m sharing the recipe here, which I’ve perfected a bit and stand by 100 percent. But rum cakes from her favorite Italian bakery, Moio’s, in Monroeville, were her favorites.

My friend Allegra loves this cake so much, she requests it every birthday, see photo.  Note the highly technical birthday decorating I’m famous for (and mocked by my children for) — dots.

Oh well, Happy Birthday Ma, or as she would say, Happy Birt-a-day!

Mama Tunno’s Tiramisu/Boston Cream Birthday Cake