Two cakes sit on cardboard rounds on the counter. Same batter. Same pans. Same oven rack. They cooled like twins.

Unfrosted sponge doesn’t look like much. A small dome. A seam line where the pan met the air. The color of breakfast.

I’m doing mirror glaze today. Two versions.

One cake gets a clean white coat. The kind of white that makes the kitchen look tidier than it is.

The other gets galaxy purple. Dark enough to look like a toy planet in a museum gift shop.

Both glazes start the same way. Sugar in a pot. Condensed milk. White chocolate broken into pieces with your hands because the knife is in the dishwasher. Gelatin sitting in cold water, going soft and quiet.

There’s a thermometer on the counter. Digital. Plastic. It works fine.

There’s also the wooden spoon. The handle is darker where someone’s hand lived for years. It has faint stains that never came out. A stripe of blue from the last time food dye got involved. Under that, an older pink.

A silicone spatula would scrape the pot cleaner. There’s one in the drawer, somewhere. I keep reaching for the wood.

You melt the chocolate into the milk and it disappears. You stir and the spoon knocks the side of the pot in a steady way. The kitchen smells like cocoa butter and hot sugar. It’s a smell that gets into your sleeves.

When the base is smooth, you split it between two bowls.

Half stays pale. The other half changes with a few drops of dye. Purple spreading through white like ink in a glass of water. It looks dramatic for something that’s mostly sugar.

Mirror glaze is a lie detector. It shows every ridge you didn’t level. Every crumb you didn’t brush away. Buttercream hides things. This doesn’t.

I lean over the bowl and catch my own face in the surface. Not in a poetic way. Just a warped reflection in glossy liquid. The overhead light sits on it like a coin.

The cakes don’t have opinions. They sit there being sponge. Vanilla. Flour. Eggs. Same measuring spoon. Same scratched bowl.

They’ll look different once they’re coated. People will talk like they’re different.

The fridge is running. It hums the way it always hums. It smells faintly like leftovers when you open it.

Mirror glaze likes a cold cake. The cakes go in side by side, still plain, still identical. Cardboard rounds touching. Two simple things waiting for their costumes.

The glaze cools on the stove. A skin starts to form on the purple bowl when I look away. I should have covered it. I peel it off and it stretches like thin rubber.

On the counter, the pot is still warm. The spoon is sticky. The thermometer is smeared with sugar where I grabbed it too soon.

The cakes will come out at the same time. Same temperature. Same firmness.

Then one will turn into something wedding-white.

The other will turn into outer space.

Same weight when you lift them.

The knife isn’t out yet.