Heavenly Raspberry Cream Angel Food Cake Dessert

Week 504, and the apples arriving, the squash at the farm stand, the light turning golden, the kitchen shifting to soups and stews. I am 68 years old and the days have a rhythm now — the morning writing, the afternoon visits to Cedarhurst, the evening cooking, the weekly blog post — and the rhythm is the structure, and the structure is the sanity, and the sanity is required because the rest of it, the losing and the loving and the carrying, requires a sane woman at the helm, and I am sane, mostly, except when I cry in the car in the Cedarhurst parking lot, which is not insanity but its opposite: the specific, targeted release of emotion in a contained space, which is the most rational thing I do all week.

Ruth turns 69; birthday brisket; one more year. These are the facts of the week, the data points, the things I would put in a report if I were writing a report, which I am not — I am writing a life, and the life includes the facts but is not limited to them, because the life also includes the way the kitchen smells at six in the morning when the coffee is brewing and the challah is rising and the house is quiet and the quiet is both the grief and the peace, simultaneously, and the simultaneous is the condition, the permanent condition of a woman who is 68 and alone and not alone, who is a grandmother and a wife and a writer and a cook and a caregiver and all of these things at once, always at once, braided together like the challah.

I made birthday brisket this week — because it was what the week needed, because the week always needs something and the something is always food, and the food is always the answer, and the answer is always the kitchen, and the kitchen is always mine, and the mine-ness of the kitchen is the one thing that has not changed in sixty-seven years of living, from Sylvia's kitchen on the Grand Concourse to this kitchen in Oceanside where I stand every morning and every evening and many of the hours in between, making the food that is the chain, that is the love, that is the thing I do when I don't know what else to do, which is always, and especially now.

I brought food to Marvin at the usual time. The visit was what visits are now — quiet, steady, the feeding by hand when necessary, the reading aloud always, the holding of the hand that may or may not know it is being held but that is warm and alive and present, which is the definition of love in this particular year: warm and alive and present. He ate what I brought. He received what I gave. The receiving is the relationship. The receiving is the vow. In sickness and in health, in recognition and in forgetting, in the recliner and in the kitchen, the receiving is the marriage, and the marriage continues, one container at a time, one visit at a time, one day at a time, at two o'clock, every day, because the chain does not break.

The brisket was the meal, but a birthday is not complete without something sweet at the end — and at 69, Ruth deserves a finish as light and lifted as the occasion itself. I made this Heavenly Raspberry Cream Angel Food Cake Dessert to follow the brisket to the table: because the word “heavenly” felt right for a week about counting blessings, and because the raspberry’s brightness cuts through the weight of everything else, and because the chain of birthday celebrations is also a chain, also love, also the thing I do when I don’t know what else to do.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 12

Ingredients

1 prepared angel food cake (10-inch), cut into 1-inch cubes
2 packages (3 oz each) raspberry gelatin
2 cups boiling water
2 packages (10 oz each) frozen raspberries, thawed and drained (reserve juice)
1 cup cold water
2 cups heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Fresh raspberries and mint sprigs for garnish (optional)

Instructions

Dissolve the gelatin. In a large bowl, dissolve both packages of raspberry gelatin in 2 cups of boiling water, stirring for at least 2 minutes until fully dissolved.
Add the raspberries and cold water. Stir in the cold water and the reserved raspberry juice. Fold in the drained thawed raspberries. Refrigerate for 30–40 minutes, until the mixture begins to thicken but is not yet set — it should be the consistency of unbeaten egg whites.
Whip the cream. In a chilled bowl, beat the heavy whipping cream with confectioners’ sugar and vanilla extract until stiff peaks form.
Fold together. Gently fold the whipped cream into the partially set raspberry gelatin mixture until evenly combined and no white streaks remain.
Layer with the cake. Arrange half the angel food cake cubes in the bottom of a 9x13-inch dish or trifle bowl. Spoon half the raspberry cream mixture over the top. Repeat with the remaining cake cubes and raspberry cream.
Chill until set. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 1/2 hours, or until fully set. Garnish with fresh raspberries and mint just before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Heavenly Raspberry Cream Angel Food Cake Dessert — Because Every Birthday Deserves Something Sweet After the Brisket