Robbi’s 35th birthday was last Wednesday—two days after Seiko left us. For every birthday, as long as Robbi can remember, her mom has made her a Jell-o sponge cake. When Robbi first brought me to meet her parents a few weeks after she and I decided that we ought to spend a lot of time together, Seiko made me the same cake for my 25th birthday, which I celebrated with the Behrs.

The cake has been a constant marker of another year gone by, and an emblem of love. No one but Seiko could possibly make this cake. And yet we were faced with the prospect of a birthday without one.

I decided to take action and dug into the recipe box. I knew better than to try to go it alone. Together, Robbi and I consulted Seiko’s cryptic instructions and did our best to puzzle through the missing pieces. Seiko cooked by intuition, always assembling masterful feasts from a pile of strange ingredients. The recipe offered little more than guideposts. But I decided to give it a go.

Making the cake provided a rare opportunity to pull out the Kitchen-Aid, one of my favorite appliances in spite of its infrequent use. I like its bulk and its weight and its retro design.

Mixing the wet ingredients was no problem. The only challenge was separating the yolks from the whites of the six eggs, a feat I managed with surprising ease. But then things got trickier. For example, the flour was supposed to be sifted. Sifted? I was lost. A phone call to my mother revealed that in order to sift, one had to have a sifter. A quick rummage through Seiko’s cabinets provided the answer. I got the sifter. I sifted.

I sifted the flour, measured it, mixed it with the sugar, salt, and baking soda, and resifted, as instructed. I mixed the wet and dry ingredients together and poured them into the springform pan. But the resulting mixture did not seem to be of sufficient volume and also seemed far too dense to be the batter for a sponge cake. Where had I gone wrong? Were we supposed to double the recipe?

I was just getting ready to despair when Robbi identified the problem. I had only been looking at the front side of the card on which the recipe was written.

There was, it seemed, further instruction on the back.

Chastened, but glad that there was a solution to the present dilemma, I scraped the unfinished batter from the pan.

Then I put the egg whites into the Kitchen-Aid and beat them to a pleasing froth before folding them into the other batter, which suddenly tripled in volume and took on the light and spongy texture that felt far more appropriate for the conjuring of a sponge cake. I put the two cakes in the oven.

While the cakes baked, I made two batches of Jell-o, one red and one green. Once the cakes were baked and cooled, I poured the Jell-o mixture over each. First the green.

Then the red.

The Jell-o soaked spongecakes were stacked (with strawberries and kiwis between the layers) and placed in the fridge so that the Jell-o could do what Jell-o does. I made some whipped cream frosting, and spread it liberally across the top and sides. Another layer of strawberries and kiwis completed the production.

I showed the finished cake to Robbi, who confirmed that, at the least, it looked right. I considered half the battle won. Eager for affirmation, I asked Oscar what he thought.

He was of the opinion that success could only be measured by tasting my work. Rather than postpone the inevitable, we decided to add the candles and put the question to the test.

Alden and Kato helped Robbi blow out the candles.

It was time to find out: how did it taste?

The answer was written on Robbi’s face.

Happy Birthday, Robbi. Thanks for pretending that you liked my cake, even if it wasn’t quite as good as you remembered. Thank you, Seiko, for leaving us adequate instructions for how to carry on without you. And thank you for taking such good care of Robbi for her first 35 years.

I’ll do my best to take it from here.