Fire Engine Red

This one is specifically for you scientists . . . or moms who decorate cakes for their kids!

Kenneth wanted his birthday cake to be simply red and white; just a fire engine, with his name and age and "Happy Birthday" scrawled on it. As some of you might have guessed, the writing and even the rough resemblance of a fire engine wasn't the hard part; getting that bright red color was definitely a challenge.

Now when a daughter's birthday rolls around, things are pretty easy; you add that red food coloring, and the icing turns out pink, and you add more, and it gets a brighter pink, and eventually you concede defeat and pretend you actually meant it to be pink in the first place. But for a son, it's a bit harder to be flexible with that "not red" color.

So...back to my story. I added that red food coloring, trying two different brands in the hope that maybe it would make a difference; but pink it remained. Now I had to be creative, as Kenneth was looking at me very expectantly. I said, "Maybe we should make the fire engine orange." He readily agreed, so I added yellow to the pink . . . and the end result was a wonderful fire engine red! Of course, I knew that all along, right??!!!