A widow who professed to be a terrible baker found himself in a dilemma when trying to recreate a special treat his late wife used to bake for him.
When he reached out to professionals who fixed the problem, things didn't turn out the way he had hoped.
After causing some drama, he visited the "Am I the A**hole?" (AITA) subReddit to seek judgment from strangers online.
Redditor Character-Form-3248 asked:
"AITA for selling my late wife's cake recipe to a bakery"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"My late wife passed 3 years ago, our two kids were in their late 20s at the time. It's been a hard few years and it is even harder now that I live alone."
"She had a lovely dark chocolate cherry cake. It was my favorite thing that she would make and I always requested it for Father's Day. I am a sh*t baker and I have tried to remake it from her notes."
"The notes are not very clear and it never turns out correct. It is depressing spending so much time and it being wrong."
The OP continued:
"I have asked my two kids to try and make it but they have refused to. I was told that they will not figure out the recipe and to stop asking. I went to a local bakery and asked for them to figure it out."
"They agree as long as I gave them the permission to sell the cake in the store. It didn't take them long to figure it out and it is almost exactly the same to my wife's."
However, his decision came back to haunt him.
"I bought one for Father's Day and my kids were happy about the cake until I told them the bakery did it. They are pissed I would sell their mothers recipie to a bakery."
"This whole week they have been telling me how I am a jerk for this and I am wondering if I really am a jerk. I just wanted to eat her cake again."
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH - No A**holes Here
Many Redditors thought the OP was not the a**hole here.
"I'd think of this as a way for your wife to live on in what she created to bring happiness to others. It's not like you did it for the money."
"Would the bakery consider using your wife's name as part of the item name? NTA." – Only-Ingenuity7889
"I highly doubt it, and I will not ask them. They have already done so much for and gave me the recipie with clear instructions."
"I am not going to bother than about their cake name."
"I am just happy I can eat it again." – OP
Of course, Redditors were interested in the recipe itself.
"Please share the cake recipe with us! I would love to read it." – Awkward-Breakfast965
And the OP delivered.
"1 cup of almost boiling water 3/4 cup Dutch cocoa powder 1 3/4 cup white sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 3 whole large eggs 2/3 cup sour cream ( the fatty one) 2/3 melted butter or oil 1/2 cup cherry juice ( not one with added sugar) 1/4 cup milk 2 teaspoons vanilla 2 3/4 cups bake flour 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 2 cups of maraschino cherries."
"Water and cocoa are mixed together in a bowl."
"Another bowl the sugar, oil and eggs are mixed together. It then gets strained so it is smooth."
"Add the sour cream, cherry juice, milk and vanilla to the same bowl. Add the water when it is cool to the bowl."
"Add in the flour, baking soda and salt."
"Cut cherries in half and put in batter. Batter goes into a cake pan and cook at 350 until toothpick come clean." – OP
"Don't tell your kids you've shared with the whole of the internet now!!"
"Definitely NTA though." – HappyGilmore_93
Reddit continued to weigh in.
"You did nothing wrong and totally agree about not bothering the bakery any further." – seafoamspider
"Doesn't hurt to ask though. If it is important it is probably too late to press the issue but they may be willing. Or maybe i watch too many hallmark movies lol." – mnth241
"I hate when people say 'it doesn't hurt to ask' because sometimes it does. Sometimes it hurts the person asking, and a lot of times it hurts the person being asked who is now in the position of having to say no."
"Asking for more than a person's fair share can sour otherwise good relationships." – LadyJusticeThe
"Thank you for saying this. I was raised with 'it never hurts to ask' and it took me decades to figure out that sometimes it does, in fact, hurt the other person to ask." – Apprehensive-Log8333
"I remember seeing a cake with cherries on the British Baking Show. It can be tricky to not have the cherries all sink to the bottom!"
"I'm glad you got the recipe sorted out."
"NTA."
"It sounds as if the bakery didn't even need to buy it from you since they figured it out, but more like a courtesy on their part. I think it's sweet your sweetheart's cake lives on."
"Your kids weren't part of the solution, and didn't even try, so they don't really have a voice in the situation, so they shouldn't fault you. Besides, now they can make or order the cake themselves (!), whereas they couldn't before." – Loud_Ad_4515
"NTA I'm so happy that you are able to enjoy her cake again. If it were me it may have brought me to tears."
"Silly question - why does the water need to be almost boiled, if we are to wait until it's cool to add it in?" – SuccubiFrey
"For some reason the water and cocoa with clump if it isn't hot enough. I don't know why."
"It also apparently blooms the cocoa, I truly don't know what that means but the bakery was very clear about not skipping the step." – OP
"See others have commented, but this step is called 'blooming' and is important in baking and coffee making also! Basically when you have a super dry ingredient, saturating it in hot liquid helps it 'unlock' its flavor and ensure even texture as well as dispersal."
"People will 'bloom' espresso before brewing it as well, to ensure water is evenly expressed through the powder and ensuring maximum coffee flavor."
"In a batter this also has the additional step of preventing clumping; if you put cocoa powder directly into a fatty batter such as one with sour cream, butter, and eggs, the fat is so thick that the cocoa powder would never evenly disperse and would be suspending in clumps throughout it, making the final product have spots of dry powder throughout."
"Fully blooming it with water ensures that the powder will be suspended evenly in water first before mixing into the fats, preventing any clumping."
"You can bloom with liquids other than water, I actually love blooming cocoa powder in coffee for cookies!" – mr_trick
"you are NTA and a swell guy to share the recipe with us. next friday is the anniversary of my great grandfather's birth and death and he sure loved cake, i would love to make this in honor of him and your wife 💜 i'm glad you get to eat her cake again." – imaginarytollbooth
"NTA and just wanted to throw in that most countries that have intellectual property (IP) laws, copyright in particular, recipes are not considered protected IP. So the second anyone saw the recipe, they could do anything they wanted with it regardless of it being 'sold' to them or not."
"And I follow a YouTube channel called Glen and Friends that does lots of cooking from old recipes found in all kinds of sources and one thing Glen has discovered over the years is that almost every 'secret' family recipe actually originally came from something that was published in a newspaper, magazine, community cookbook or any number of other public outlets."
"So, long and short OP did nothing wrong and may in fact have insured that the recipe would not disappear from the face of the earth." – chudan_dorik
"NTA OP. You lost your wife and the cake brings you good memories and joy. Allowing a bakery to make it for you brought you joy. Them better defining the recipe enables you and the kids to possibly cook this yourself."
"You can get the cake whenever you want from them. Your kids have lost nothing. The recipe is not gone, it has grown." – Jkg115
"NTA. It's funny. My mom died without leaving a complete recipe for one of my favorite dishes. The basic recipe was there, but she must have had a 'pinch of this, dash of that' in her head, because the recipe never tastes like what my mom made."
"I totally get wanting to have that taste again. When your kids didn't want to try, you took matters into your own hands. Nothing wrong with that."
"And frankly, if your kids weren't ever going to make the cake, I'm not sure what their beef is about the bakery making it." – Active-Anteater1884
Overall, Redditors thought there was nothing wrong with the OP getting the bakery involved in order to enjoy the cake he once enjoyed when his late wife last baked it for him.
They thought by him reliving and savoring the cake that he or his kids could never successfully recreate was worth it in the end.
Woman Asks If It's Wrong To Hold Grudge After Mom Told Her When She 8 Years Old That She Wished She'd Aborted Her
While some people view having and raising children as the greatest blessing, some parents hold their children's existence against them for their entire lives.
And when they feel that way about their children, they're unfortunately typically pretty honest about it, cringed the members of the "Am I Overreacting?" (AIO) subReddit.
Redditor heavelymango knew from the time she was young that her mother did not really like her and significantly favored her sister.
But when her mother told her at the age of eight that she wished she had aborted her, the Original Poster (OP) held on to that grudge for years after the fact.
She asked the sub:
The OP had a grudge against her mother.
"I (22 Female) have been holding onto a grudge due to something my mom told me when I was roughly eight or nine years old."
"Growing up, I was a rebellious kid and always felt as if my mom favored my older sister. My sister would always get whatever she wanted."
"I know she was born with Down syndrome and always needed more attention and care, but if my sister wanted my tablet, for example, she would have it for the whole day while mine was limited to 30 minutes so she could have it."
"As a kid, I lashed out more because of this. She could take all of my things, but I could never use hers."
During a heated moment, the OP's mother said something unforgivable.
"Eventually, this led to an argument with my mom. I don't recall the whole thing, but it was related to my sister and how I felt my mom didn't care about me or give me the same amount of attention."
"The fight got heated, and I probably told my mom that I hated my sister and her."
"I remember she said back, 'I never wanted you from the start. I knew I should've aborted you when I had the chance.'"
" I didn't know what aborted meant at the time, and I remember I looked it up, and it made me cry. I never forgot it, and it lingers in my mind whenever I am home."
The OP's mother pressured her to "let it go" and move on.
"Even growing up, I still brought it up, and she would get mad, saying I need to let it go and how I'm stubborn for not just forgetting what she said."
"There was even a time in high school when she took me to a therapist, and she complained about how I never dropped what she said."
"She says I need to move on from it because it has affected my relationship with her, and she wants to fix it."
"I know I'm older now and it was so long ago, but it still hurts, and I feel like it's made me not want to have her in my life in the future, and I have told this to her."
"How I don't want her in my life once I move out, get married, or have my own kids."
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
Some reassured the OP that this sounded like a core memory more than a grudge.
"The axe forgets. The tree remembers."
"It sounds less like you're holding a grudge and more that this is a formative, core memory for you."
"It won't stop being a core memory (unless maybe with the help of a lot of therapy). Has your mom ever apologized for saying that? Because you don't have to forget to forgive, but if she's not remorseful for saying that terrible thing to her young child (not just remorseful that you remember it), then she probably needs therapy (or is a narcissist/sociopath/similar)."
"You are certainly not obligated to 'get over it.'" - Hot-Can3615
"This is not a 'grudge'; it is pain that is still felt to such a degree. If she said it, then she was thinking it. She'll probably never apologize, but that doesn't mean your pain is or was invalid." - Fast_Register_9480
"NOR. This kind of thing needs a real apology. Like she needs to acknowledge the damage and genuinely care about it. Brushing it off won’t make it go away." - TentacleWolverine
"NOR. Did she really want to fix things? She basically just told you to get over it from the start instead of giving you a sincere apology."
"That isn't working on anything. She wants you to get over it so she can pretend that she never said it, so she doesn't have to feel bad about what she did. It doesn't sound like she cares much about how you feel."
"She just doesn't want to deal with it. For that reason, I would still have issues with what she said." - Chemical-Ad6809
"If your relationship with your mother is being affected by the actions of your mother, your mother is responsible for fixing it."
"You should know you probably aren't ever going to get closure, but you don't have to swallow it down. It helps to be the person you needed when you were younger out loud to yourself, but especially to others."
"For example: My name is Liz, and my mom told me to go ahead and do it already and save us all the heartache when I finally had the courage to tell her about how much I've been struggling with self-harm and suicidal ideation. I'm never going to forgive her for that, and we have never been close as a result of her actions."
"You aren't holding onto a grudge; you have a core memory of your mother distilling her feelings into a world-shattering sentence."
"You did not have a secure attachment before and can't have one now because of the deep trauma. You do not apologize for being stabbed."
"Find another therapist. I mean it. Someone who cares about your well-being wouldn't force you to apologize for being verbally abused as a child. I'm 29 now, and I lived through it. I still struggle with suicidal ideation daily, but once I stopped relying on my mom and unstable sources for support, my life got better immediately."
"You want things for comfort and familiarity. Don't let your mom or your therapist gaslight you into crossing a boundary."
"It might help to ask for a written five-part apology from your mom. 1. Acknowledge what you did 2. Say why it was wrong 3. Promise not to do it again 4. Ask how to make amends. 5. Share your feelings at this time if there's anything you'd like to say."
"My mom can be a good person and a bad mom and role model. Being in your own company is so much better than poor company." - PotLuckyPodcast
Others hoped the OP would go no contact with her mother sooner rather than later.
"NOR. It’s emotional abuse. And you do not owe her closeness after that, especially as she refuses to be accountable for that and try to make it up to you."
"She knows you have her number, and she can’t forgive you for knowing what a colloidal b***h she is."
"It’s unlikely that will change; it will at least be turned back on you with her the victim."
"Stop expecting her to apologize. If she doesn’t pay your bills, ghost her." - SnooCheesecakes2723
"My mom said something similar. My brother and I were adopted, and when I was a teen, in front of a church lady, she said, 'We didn't even really want you, but the people didn't want to split y'all up, so we just took you, too.'"
"Me and the church lady were shook. When I say my falbbers were ghasted. Like huh? She didn't remember saying that when I brought it up years after the fact."
"I also got grounded two times for two separate nine weeks (for C's on my report card) and a three and a half to four months (for smoking at 16 and getting caught because she liked to just pop up out of nowhere), and we just had a talk about that, and she didn't even remember."
"She said, 'No, I didn't. I never grounded you for that long,' and when I gave my rebuttal, she said, 'Well, if I did, it definitely wasn't for no nine weeks or months,' and this started because she was praising me for reading so much and liking books. I said, 'Well, when you were grounded like me, that's all I could do (no TV, no friends outside of school, no music, nothing but my room and books)."
"There's a reason I only call or answer her calls once or twice every few weeks. And I only call to get food, really..." - ManicalMoe
"‘Fine, I'm sorry’ is not an apology."
"Whilst I’m sure it was said in anger, most things said in anger have a grain of truth. There are also some things that no half-decent parent ever says to their children, no matter how angry they are, and this is one of them! It also sounds like she has made repeated similar comments of not wanting you as her child."
"I understand her eldest had a disability, but this is no excuse for neglecting and emotionally abusing her younger child. Lots of families deal with a child with additional needs whilst still managing to prioritise their other kids. Children with Down syndrome are capable of understanding ‘that’s your sister's, not yours; give it back’ !! It sounds like your mum has mental health issues?"
"Do you have a present father or other family you can turn to?"
"Protect your peace. Your mum has hurt you time and time again, honestly, for no real gain other than momentarily satisfying her anger. You owe this woman nothing." - Background_Term9810
"I went through something similar. When I was a little girl, my mother used to make comments that implied she didn't want me, though it was never that explicit. 'I only had you because your brother wanted a sister,' and 'My figure never recovered after you; after your brother, it did.'"
"Each comment stayed with me, but I never addressed it with her. I tried to move on and leave it in the past. She did a lot of horrible things throughout my life, but her behavior was always ignored because that's the precedent my dad set, where she can do essentially whatever she wants."
"A few months ago, she came to see me because I was desperate for help and sick. Instead of helping, she made my life so much worse. I won't go into details. At one point, I could no longer keep it inside, and I told her that she is a narcissist, to which she responded with, 'It would have been better if I had never had you.'"
"In some ways, it felt really good to hear her come out and say it. It felt good to hear the truth I've always known."
"I don't know what you should do, but I've chosen to not forgive."
"Every time I forgave, I just let her know that she can get away with whatever horrible things she had done. Her apologies were never real apologies. She always found ways to blame me or others for whatever she had done."
"And I'm truly just done with it. As sad as it is to not have a mom, it's sadder to pretend that you have one when in reality you don't... quite the opposite, if anything." - Neos_Mom
"So, OP, what will hurt more: keeping her and the grudge in your life or making a break and going low or no contact with her?"
"Frankly, we've no idea of what she might have been dealing with at the time, but regardless, what she said was said only to cause pain and suffering. 'Sorry' doesn't magic that intent away."
"Me, I think spending time alone or with friends or in therapy away from her might be what you need here. You might come to some sort of acceptance, but if this is something that's just going to keep coming between you, then stop trying to have that relationship." - Tal_Tos_72
After the OP received feedback, she shared a few clarifications from her original post.
"I wanted to clear some things up, take accountability where it's due, and provide some much-needed context from many people commenting the same questions."
"I want to be completely honest. We had many arguments, and I was a rebellious kid. I acted out and argued with my mom."
"I don't want to give off the impression that I was an entirely innocent kid who never did anything wrong and my mom just snapped out of nowhere. We both said hateful and hurtful things to each other during our fights."
"Growing up, the only way she would accept an apology was if I got on my knees and begged her for forgiveness. If I ever asked her to apologize to me, she would say, 'I have nothing to apologize for; you should be the one begging for my forgiveness.'"
The OP had a lot of physical memories, too.
"Things also would turn into physical arguments, not just verbal ones."
"There were times when she would get so angry she would get physical. Like yanking me by my hair, twisting my arms, or throwing things at me (like remotes, a bug spray can, or a radio)."
"When she yanked my hair, I would fight back just to get her to let me go, and she would scream that I was trying to kill her and she would get me arrested. When she twisted my arm, and I begged her to stop because it felt like it was going to break, she would say she hoped it did."
"When she threw objects at me, she would say she wished they would hit my face."
"I remember in middle school, during an argument, she said she wished she could break my face and that she hated it because I look like my dad. I won’t lie, whenever she said things like that, I would say nasty comments about how she chose to have him put us in her."
While the OP wasn't financially ready to move out yet, she hoped to as soon as possible.
"Why haven't I moved out yet? The main reason I haven't been able to move out is financial."
"I wasn't making enough to support myself without worrying about whether I’d end up having to crawl back home."
"Thankfully, I have recently found a better-paying job. My plan is to move out between mid-to-late October, or early November at the latest."
"The only reason I can't leave this exact second is because I have a few legal/administrative things to get cleared up so I’m completely untied from my mom, which will take a few weeks."
The OP also had proof that her mother liked her sister better.
"Has my mom ever admitted to favoring my sister? Yes."
"In arguments, she has explicitly told me that she doesn't see me as her legitimate daughter, and that she adored my sister more and forever will. She has also called me a 'monster,' told me there is a certain type of evil inside of me, and said she was afraid I would be just like my dad and try to harm them."
"She would even tell me that she was telling family and friends these things about me, but then later claim she 'just said it in the moment' and wouldn't be crazy enough to actually tell people that."
"Because I was so confused growing up and didn't know if she was lying or telling the truth, I started avoiding our family when they came over."
"Naturally, that just made things worse because she would get mad at me for avoiding them (even now as an adult), completely ignoring the fact that she was the one who lied about what she told them."
Unfortunately, the OP didn't have support from her father.
"What about my dad? My dad is not in my life."
"He was around sporadically, but never as a stable parent. My parents separated before I was born and divorced when I was two or three."
"Growing up, it was just constant back-and-forth toxicity, with him telling me how toxic my mother was, and her telling me the same about him."
"He would mostly only come over to see my sister, and often used me to care for her if he wanted to take her out to eat. Ultimately, my dad didn't care about anyone else other than my sister (and his drugs)."
"I hope this can clear some questions on the original post. I know I didn't provide many details as I originally should have. I honestly didn't want to post something too long, and I honestly did not expect it to be noticed."
"Thank you all for taking time to talk to me and share your thoughts."
The subReddit fully sided with the OP, pointing out that no matter how heated the moment was, it would never excuse the terrible things the OP's mother had said to her.
If the OP's mother really wanted a relationship with her, she'd drop the defensiveness and demands, offer a genuine apology, and work hard to be better for both of her children.
That takes a very rare kind of person to pull off, and it didn't sound like the OP's mother had that in her.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://findahelpline.com/i/iasp