Mmmm, Yummy! This cake tastes like...Styrofoam?

I once heard my sister describe what it was like to complete her first Iron Man race (yes, first. She's a glutton for punishment like that), and I often think that making wedding cakes is the same way. While you're in the process of doing it, all you can see and feel is how heinous and difficult it is. It's completely unenjoyable, and you tell all your friends and family to remind you of how much you hated every second. But then you get done, and you think "Hey! That wasn't so bad! I feel pretty good! Let's do it again!"

Remember how in the last post I said that I had a wedding cake in progress? Yeah. What I didn't say was that I finally broke down and decided that God gave me talent in certain places--and house cleaning isn't one of them. So I had a cleaning crew come in. They swarm my house like cleaning ninjas--except they're hardly stealthy. When's the last time you saw a ninja sneak up on someone while running a vacuum? Anyway, they swarm like LOUD cleaning ninjas and are out of here in an hour or less. Only this last time, they saw the cake-in-progress on the table, with the black fondant layers covered while the other two were still just naked styrofoam. The first reaction from cleaning lady #1 to #2 was, "Oh, wow!" The reaction from cleaning lady #2 to #1 was, "Yeah, but see this black fondant and how hard it is to get totally smooth and not wrinkly? That's why I did buttercream."

Speaking of "totally smooth," cleaning lady #2, that wasn't. Nope. Not smooth at all. I could hear you, you know. As criticisms go, that's hardly harsh. But it still irked me. And it's not easy to get fondant smooth and perfect when a) you don't work with it much, b) you have hades-level heat going on, and c) 70% humidity. But anyway, I digress.

I got the cake done! Woohoo! And it even looked good! I mean, sure. It's waaaaaay easier with styrofoam. No leveling, no baking, no filling. No crumb coat, no chilling. Just carefully, carefully roll out that fondant, wet the styrofoam, say a prayer, and hope the fondant doesn't tear. Then when it DOES tear, you sigh, grab the shortening, knead it all together, roll it out, say another prayer, make sure the styrofoam is still wet, and drape the styrofoam with the fondant ever so carefully. And when it tears again you stifle a curse, grab more shortening, knead it all together, roll it out, wet the styrofoam again, say another freaking prayer, and drape the fondant on the dummy layer.

When it tears AGAIN, you stop stifling the curses and swear like a sailor, causing your husband to come to the kitchen in alarm and then back out slowly when he sees you armed with a rolling pin and spitting mad. That's when he'll ask--from out in the hallway--if there's anything he can do. And that's when you shoot him the narrow-eyed look that says, "I'm about 30 seconds from a homicidal rage. There's nothing you can do, my sweetie, my one true beloved, but duck and cover--because when I blow my lid, there will be collateral damage."

It's really amazing how one look can say so much.

So then you mumble your final prayer, because if it doesn't work this time, to hell with it and you can buy them a cake at WalMart on your way to the wedding. And the prayer is sincere, even though you're spitting it out through gritted teeth and it's littered with f-bombs and pent rage. You're up to your elbows in shortening now, just trying to get this $#@& fondant pliable enough to drape. And you roll it out, keeping it as thick as you possibly can while still having enough to cover the dummy layer. Then you carefully, carefully--carefully, dammit!--drape the fondant again, holding your breath, massaging the little cracks back together, cutting the excess weight as soon as you can, and then---and then--praise be, it holds!

Your husband hears your sigh of relief and comes creeping back into the kitchen.

"Got it now?" he asks.

"Yeah, finally," you reply. Then he sighs with relief and offers you a glass of wine. And as he hands it to you, you think, "Lord, I love this man."

Anyway, you get the point. This is turning into another novel of a post. But look at the cake! Look at it! It's so pretty! I thought about titling this post "The Cleaning Lady Can Suck It," but that just seemed mildly inappropriate. And again, my grandma reads this blog. And no, I totally didn't ask my husband to stand outside on the porch holding a wrinkly bedsheet up behind the cake while I took a million photos. I mean, who would do that?

I had made the fondant flowers throughout the week, and I sat down Thursday night and wired them all while I was in a nearly zombie-like state with a cold. Then Friday my good friend V came over and helped me make three giant sheet cakes for serving. She had to leave before we were nearly done, but she will never truly understand how grateful I was to her. I kept plugging away for the rest of the day, and I used some of the scraps to fill in part of the bottom dummy layer that I had cut out. This was the part of the cake that the bride and groom would cut for pictures and tasting.

So of course that meant that I had to cover one more layer--the largest--with fondant. Expecting the worst, I held my breath again and gave it my best shot...and for whatever reason it worked perfectly the first time. Whatevs. I'll just be grateful and pour myself another glass of wine.

I carefully stacked the cakes, aligning them all to the back in a more contemporary style, and then I used needle-nose pliers to stick each flower into the cake. I mourned the loss of many a flower whose delicate petals decided to wuss out on me (I could have blended in gumpaste with the fondant to help with that, but I didn't because I liked the final look of the fondant better for this cake. That's why I made 6 billion extras, anyway).

Then I stood back, eyeing the cake critically, beckoning my husband over to look for gaps or issues. I even pulled out my phone and took some pictures, because I've discovered that sometimes you can see flaws in pictures that you can't see in real life while you're standing two feet away. I don't know why that is, but it works for clothes in the dressing room, too. You think you look all hot when you look at yourself in the mirror, but then you take a picture and realize it's more hot mess than hot damn.

Anyway, with a little flower there and a wee tweak there, I had the presence of mind to stop and be done, before I ruined it by adding far too many.

The great thing about the styrofoam is that it was unaffected by the heat and it was a dream to travel with it in the backseat of my car for the hour-and-fifteen drive to the wedding.

And the bride and groom loved it, which was the important thing. Sure, the cake might not have been perfect, but it was still one hell of a wedding present, no?

It's a Queso Emergency.

Holy cake balls, batman... it's been a heckuva long time since I posted. I'm surprised I haven't received butt-kicking threats from my posse of about three loyal fans.

And the title of this post? Yeah, nothing to do with anything. It's a total non sequitur.  It's just that some days, I feel like I'm really losing the rat race. And on those days, I feel like this guy:

 Yeah. My whole life right now is a queso emergency. Guess what's happening, people... guess what's happening...

We're moving. Yup. Again. Do you know anyone who wants to buy a townhome? We happen to have a great one on the market right now.

While this move is a bit of a surprise (honestly, we would never have bought this place if we knew we'd be packing it up in a year), at least we were able to engineer the end destination of this move a bit. We're moving back to Idaho! Woooohooo! Puttin' down roots in Boise.

Now, that being said, I'm getting really sick of questions like the following:

"Idaho? Why the hell would you want to live in Idaho? What's there besides potatoes?"

Sigh.

So much to answer there, but social convention means that I need to be polite.  Ok, I guess that being known for potatoes isn't the most exciting thing in the world. It's not the worst, either. But it really bugs me when people bash places they've never been. I'm sure I've done it before, but I really am trying to be better. Once you've spent a bit of time in a place, you earn a bit of a right to bash--as long as you realize it's all subjective.

To answer all the haters out there, why am I excited to go back to Boise? What makes it better than Albany, NY (at least in my eyes)? Here we go:

     The cost of living is lower.
     Boise is old, but vibrant. It's had a complete renovation. It's full of life.
     It's cleaner.
     It's safer.
     It has a ton of great restaurants.
     It has a vital downtown with farmer's markets, pubs, restaurants, coffee houses, and boutiques.
     There's a TON to do outside.
     The hiking.
     The dry heat.
     The truly authentic Mexican food.
     The art, the funk, the parks, the museums, the live music, Whole Foods, WinCo, and Costco.
     Class dismissed. 

And for all the people that say Albany is the same as the above, it just ain't so--apples and oranges, folks. But I respect your right to love this area as much as you choose--just don't step on my right to love somewhere else just as much.

Anyway, all of my Idaho angst aside, I've been busy. Like, crazy busy. Like, trips out to Boise to look at 20 homes in two days busy. Like, I just got back from a week in Anchorage for work busy. Like, we had a garage sale and a clean-out busy. Like, we had four showings and an open house in one week busy. Oh, and like, we spent a weekend in Montreal, busy. And with all the moves I've had, you'd think that I'd be able to just go with it. But I've noticed with every big change in my life, my tolerance for ambiguity gets lower. If I'm in a new situation and I don't have a plan, I stress the heck out. And since the plans are only now falling into place (the move date is three weeks out), I've been doing a LOT of stressing the heck out.

I've still been baking, though. As a matter of fact, I've been giving lessons to a young girl and her mom.   She's come a long way, that 13-year-old girl. We started with basics, and on her last lesson we graduated to fondant. Want to see her first-ever fondant cake?

Isn't it cute? She did a great job. She even made the marshmallow fondant by hand.

And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you. Those are sparkles you're seeing. Aw.

I've had some other orders, too. And when I have orders when I'm hella busy like I am now (oh, yeah, forgot about the overtime at work, too), I try for ways to accomplish the most impact with the least effort. And since my piping skills are severely lacking, I tend to go for cutesy fondant stuff.

Like this cake I made for an office baby shower, for a woman who was expecting a little boy. See the little fondant booties? So cute! Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and a couple of 10-minute booties. I call them 10-minute booties because, you know, they took 10 minutes to make.

See the laces? They never even look like booties until you put in the laces.



And this week I have a wedding cake for Saturday. Luckily, the bride is content with most of the display cake being styrofoam. Since it's supposed to be crazy hot and humid this weekend, that's a load off my shoulders.

Here's a sneak peak at the cake, with what I have done so far. Ignore all the crap in the background, mkay?

Yeah, it's a black-and-white wedding. And yeah, two of the layers are still styrofoam. But I don't have pictures of the sugar flowers hanging out on my kitchen counter. Or my new (squeeeeee!) 6-qt, high capacity, 14-cups-of-flour capacity kitchen aid mixer. Yup, for all the sheet cakes I'm making to serve at the wedding, my new mixer (and my old mixer) are going to get a heck of a workout.

Oh! And Mac is wearing a little tux, because he's an honorary ring bearer. You know how excited he is about that?

So excited!

We'll catch up with you after the wedding!

Stop and smell the....cake? Swirled Rose Cake

Life is tough sometimes, folks. It really is. As they say in the best movie of all time (Yes, I am of course referring to The Princess Bride), "Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

My life right now is...tumultuous. Stuff is happening, and it's happening fast. Too fast for me to catch my breath or paste a sunny smile on my face. There's pretty much constant uncertainty, occasional anger, a dash of excitement, and quite a few tears. Don't worry, friends. No one is dead, we're not getting divorced, we're all perfectly healthy, and it's all first-world problems.

But still. They're the kind of first-world problems that lead me to fantasize about wine all day long, starting at about 10 a.m. I don't give in.... I just spend the next 9 hours daydreaming about pouring myself a big, fat glass of spicy red as I cook dinner. Then dinner comes and I pour that big, fat glass...and it takes me two hours to finish it. Ah, well. Better that it takes me two hours to finish a glass than two hours to finish a bottle.

And though it's wrong and I shouldn't rely on food to ease my pain and sugar shouldn't be my emotional crutch, sometimes the only thing that makes me feel better (besides wine) is a good hit of sugar. And--as you have no doubt guessed by now--one of my favorite sugar delivery systems is via cake. And it's more than just the sugar... it's about the process of creation. It's about the art. It's the kind of art that everybody loves, is not subjective to personal taste, and doesn't sit around cluttering up someone's shelf until they've let the two years of guilt go by before they can sell it/re-gift it/take it to the dumpster at 2 a.m. Really. When is the last time you've seen someone upset that you made them a cake? Sure, they might be on a diet and hate you for tempting them. But hate the cake? Never.

That's what I love about this cake. Armed with buttercream, food coloring, a pastry bag, and a jumbo closed-star tip (2D, if you want to try your hand at this cake yourself), you have a beautiful, easy, classy cake fit for celebration, commiseration, or just because.

This is actually three shades of orange--darkest on the bottom, mellower in the middle, and creamy on the top.

Cakes like this make me wish several things:
- I wish that I finished them during the day so that I could photograph them in natural sunlight.
- I wish I had somewhere in my house that magically provided a wonderful neutral backdrop.
- I wish I had a schmancy camera to take uber-nice photos.
- I wish I had the skills with which to take uber-nice photos with even my iPhone. (yes, all the pictures on this blog are from my iPhone. Some of them are quite good--and those are all thanks to natural sunlight. It's a vicious circle, my friends.)

This is the first time I've ever tried the "swirled rose" technique, so of course there are some goof-ups. But really, it's remarkably easy. Simply cover the cake of your choice in a crumb coat of tinted frosting (a crumb coat is a thin layer of frosting--just scrape it on. You should be able to see the cake through it. Then you put it in the fridge to let it set), and then you just start your tip in the middle of the swirl and work your way out to create the blossom. Start on the bottom row and work your way up, finishing by covering the top. And on the top, start with the blossom in the middle and work your way out to the edges, overlapping a bit. This also looks gorgeous in all one color--white, purple, pink, chocolate, whatever you want.

When you're done, you can step back and look at the art that you created and realize that you've just taken a time-out from life. You stepped back from the hustle and bustle, you quieted your soul, and you created for the sake of creation, or as a physical symbol of your love for another, or as an emotional balm. You stopped to smell the roses, so to speak, even if those roses are made of a wickedly delightful combination of sugar, butter, and cake.

Here's to beauty even when life gets dark. Happy creating, my friends. And happy eating.

No More Banana Bread, Please (or what to do with your uber-ripe bananas)...Banana Oatmeal Fritter

 So, in church this morning, I found myself pondering how exactly I was going to use the seriously over-ripe and darn-near-soupy bananas that I had cut up and frozen last week in order to stop their march toward sugary rot.

Yes, yes, I know, I should have been paying attention to the priest. I was, I promise! I was totally engrossed in the whole thing right up until the end, when three babies/toddlers around me started wailing and cooing and yelling and I couldn't hear a Pete's-blessed thing... so instead of fuming self-righteously about the lack of parental discipline in church these days, I decided to focus on my banana issues instead.

Banana bread is, of course, an old standby. But I really didn't want to make banana bread--or bananananana bread, as Dimetri Martin might say. I wanted something different.  A blog-friend of my sister's posted an awesome-looking recipe for banana hazelnut scones... but I had too many bananas, and they were way too ripe for individual, non-smooshed chunks in the scones. Plus, I didn't want to do a quadruple recipe and I had no hazelnuts... so that recipe is still on a back burner for now, until I can do it right.

Instead, I found myself pondering my grandma's donut recipe. I thought, "hey, I wonder if I could work bananas into Grandma's recipe?" And then I thought, "I don't want to roll and cut the donuts. It seems like bananas would work better in fritters. If my sister can do it with sweet potatoes, I can surely do it with bananas." And then I thought, "I wonder if I can work oat flour in." Then church was over and I had to wait for a few minutes before I was safely in the car on the way home and could ponder how best to accomplish this banana fritter business.

"I just need to change this, and this, and this," I thought to myself, tapping my hand restlessly on my knee and making my husband nervous. "And add this and this. Oh, and this. And it will be a wet dough, so it will need to chill before I fry it...."

And when I got home, the experimentation began.

I started by creating "oat flour" by pulsing old-fashioned rolled oats in my food processor until it resembled coarse flour--but I intentionally left some haphazard, almost-whole oat chunks in. I mixed the buttermilk in with the oats so that they could hydrate while I mooshed the bananas well with a fork and incorporated their freezer-thaw liquid. Then I added them to the buttermilk/oat flour mix and set it aside for the flavors to percolate.

I prepared the rest of the ingredients and then mixed and tasted, adjusted and added. Once I was satisfied, I put the batter in the fridge to chill for a little while to make it easier to work with when I was ready to fry.

And then came the sacred moment. I reverently broke out one of my most prized possessions-- a deep fryer my grandma had given to me for Christmas a few years before she passed away-- a deep fryer that my mom grew up frying donuts in every fall--a tradition that mom and Grandma kept up with us grandkids-- a deep fryer that we think came to my grandma as a wedding gift way back in 1945... and now, a fully-functioning antique.

When we moved the last time, I had it set aside on the kitchen counter. The movers were sweeping through the kitchen, wrapping up dishes and plates and china. When the packing-man laid his hands on the deep-fryer, I stopped him.

"Be careful with that," I told him. "Everything else you're packing is replaceable. That's not. It's a family heirloom."

He started to laugh, but then could tell from my face that I was serious.  He just nodded and quadruple wrapped it and packed it in a box of its own.

Anyway, it's a big deal to me when I bust out Grandma's fryer.

My first fritter was too big... it was tasty, but raw in the middle. So I sized it down to my smallest disher. I suppose it's probably between one and two tablespoons. I ran another test, cooked it to the far side of golden, and waited for it to cool before I tossed it in cinnamon and sugar. Perfect.

The way the fritters kept disappearing from the "finished" pile before I could count them, I know that Sean felt the same way.

And as an homage to my grandma, who left us just over a year ago, I have decided to actually post the recipe. I know. Incredible, huh?

Here you go... Banana Oatmeal Fritters--Grandma style.

2 cups oat flour
3 cups all purpose flour (plus or minus)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons freshly grated nutmeg
2 cups mashed bananas
1 cup buttermilk
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tbs vanilla
2 tbs vegetable oil

Mix the oat flour, buttermilk, and bananas in small bowl, set aside to hydrate. Mix the rest of the dry ingredients together in another bowl. Meanwhile, beat eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla together in the bowl of a stand mixer fit with the whisk attachment on high speed until light lemon color and slightly frothy. Switch to the paddle attachment. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients, starting and ending with the dry flour. It will come together in a wet, sticky dough. When you scoop it with your spatula, it should cling to it, but still drip off veeeeery slowly, in a kind of stretchy way (if that makes any sense). If you're worried it's too wet, add a little more flour.

Put the dough into the fridge to chill for at least 30 mins.

Heat several inches of oil to 375 degrees or so. Prepare cinnamon sugar mixture in a large zip-top bag.

Drop a tablespoon or so of batter into the hot oil (like I said, I used a small disher, ice-cream scoop style). Turn occasionally, fry to the far side of golden. Remove with a strainer or slotted spoon. Let cool on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels and test when cool enough to eat. If it comes out all right, start frying fritters in batches, careful to not overload the oil--let the fritters have space.

When mostly cool, shake in the cinnamon sugar... and enjoy! It should be dense but moist, doughy but cooked, and entirely delicious!

Happy Frickin' Spring

So. It's spring. Yeah, right. Spring is far away somewhere to the south, huddled in a cave, shivering and rocking while she mutters to herself, "the only person who has power over me is me. The only person who has power over me is me. The only person who has power over me is me. Winter can't keep me down! I'm strong! I have power! The only person who has power over me is me." And then she mixes herself another drink and keeps on rocking.

I put a wreath on my door with magnolia blossoms and lavender, trying to force the issue along. Look, it's spring! It can't be winter! I took down the frosted pine boughs and holly berries! Winter has no hold here!

Unfortunately, the issue refuses to be forced. It snowed 8 inches today. 8! But I'm starting to realize that we have awesome neighbors. This morning after Sean left for work, the neighbor on our left "shoveled" our driveway with some sort of electric shovel-slash-snow blower contraption, and he did our walk. Four inches of snow later, our neighbor on the right used his snow blower to do our driveway and shoveled our walk again. I didn't even have to lift a shovel. Considering when I shoveled two weeks ago I was so sore I was walking hunched and bent, I did a little happy dance when I realized what was happening--upstairs, behind closed curtains, so that my neighbors couldn't see and decide they'd never shovel my walk again.

So, nice neighbors or not, winter remains. This weekend I have big plans to drive around town and shake my fist in anger at homes who have yet to take down their pine boughs, Christmas lights, or red-bowed "kissing balls." If that doesn't work, I'm thinking about taking out a hit on Punxsutawney Phil. I'll try to keep you updated on that.

The annual outbreak of spring fever has a record number of victims this year. The infection is nearly palpable. We're desperate here, people. Desperate. Desperate people do desperate things. Like eat cake.

I had grand plans for these cakes. I did. They were going to be magnificent and chic and pretty and Martha Stewart Living-worthy. Lightly Lemon Cake with Almond Cream frosting, they were going to bring a whiff of spring and give winter a sock in the nose and a kick in the arse. Instead, I ended up with "cute." I suppose it's still fine. Cute is better than "hellishly trapped in an endless cycle of winter." Cute can embody "thank you," and "keep up the good work," and "chin up. I know life sucks right now, but eat some cake! It will be better!"

All of those were the goal of these cakes for Sean's team... thank you, keep up the work, chin up. Spring will come. We'll form a ritual circle and eat cake and perform frosting sacrifices until she comes. She WILL come... as soon as she finishes that drink.

Happy Frickin' Spring.

Coffee, Love, and Hope

Just this weekend, I commented to my husband that I feel like the fundraisers are out in force. Our doorbell rang in the evening with a young man selling candybars for...something, I don't even know what. Another boy was selling magazine subscriptions. Young girls and boys on cheer and atheletic teams are standing in busy intersections in the malls, pleading with puppy dog eyes for you to support their team, their club, their association. Cashiers are asking you to buy paper shamrocks or hearts and plastering them on windows and walls in stores.

So, when my sister sent me an email with the subject line "A shameless plea for some help," I sighed and clicked, expecting her to be asking me to buy something for my neice and newphew's school. Instead, she was telling me about something very different.

My sister is an amazing--and amazingly busy--woman. She's a pediatric physical therapist, a mom, a professionally-sponsored cyclist, a coach, a mentor, a sister, a friend, an aunt... and she's deeply connected to her cycling "family".

Last week, a couple members of that family suffered a tragic accident in Hawaii. Mark and Sarah Bender were celebrating their 15th anniversary with a special vacation--they left their four sons at home. On the last day of their trip, they went for one last dip in the ocean, just before they had to go to the airport.

On that last dip in the ocean, Mark had a horrible accident in the surf. In a catastrophic injury, he broke his neck. They rushed him to surgery, and he's currently recovering in ICU at a Hawaiian hospital--he'll be there for at least two weeks before he's stable enough to try and be transferred to a hospital at home.

As of Saturday, Mark had no feeling from his chest down, but Sarah--his wife--sends out regular updates to her friends. This is what she wrote on Sunday:

“Day 4 report…what can I say but wow! Mark said it was a hard day but a good one. After a rough night . . . he started the day tired but ready to tackle whatever he needed to do. His theme verse was Neh. 8:10, “The joy of the Lord is my strength”. . . . The greatest victory of today though has been huge. Everyone sit down….

 

his legs responded to touch. . . Not once but multiple times throughout the afternoon and evening. I don’t know what to say but keep the prayers coming. We are believing that [Mark's] miracle story is just starting.”

Prayer is what she's asking for. I believe in the power of prayer. I also believe that each of us has the power to be the answer to prayer.

Mark and Sarah are parents to four boys, community leaders, active church members, and passionate cyclists. But I can't begin to imagine the challenges that face them. Life is already hard without astronomical medical bills, or having to quit a job, or handling the daily ins-and-outs of life while caring for a family member, or being forced to come to grips with the fact that life will never, ever be the same again.

And while money can't buy happiness, it sure can buy security and blessed relief for a family in need.

I thought for a long while before I decided to post this. I know we all have priorities, and sometimes supporting someone you don't even know isn't high on that list. But then I got to thinking...if this were ME going through this, how uplifting, how overwhelming, how AMAZING would it be to suddenly know that a massive group of family, friends, and strangers banded together to help me--for no other reason than helping someone in need is just the right thing to do? I talk about wanting to make the world a better place. I can't pass up an opportunity to do so when it falls into my lap.

So now (of course), I'm asking you for your help. My sister and her cycling team's sponsors, Doma Coffee Roasting Company and Vertical Earth in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, are holding a La Bicicletta coffee fundraiser. I'll let my sister's words take it from here:

From today until April 30th, 2013, Team REP, along with the generous support of our team sponsors, Doma Coffee Roasting Company and Vertical Earth, is holding a La Bicicletta coffee fundraiser.

 

All proceeds from every $12.50 bag of coffee we (Team REP and Vertical Earth) sell will go directly to the Bender family.

La Bicicletta was a blend that Doma created for the women’s team of Team REP back in 2008. Proceeds from the sale of this blend, nationwide, have gone to support women’s cycling here in our local community. But because the people at Doma are so FREAKING AWESOME, they are working crazy hard to get this coffee out to y’all, and we are shifting the money to the The Bender family.

Sell it to your neighbors, your friends, your coworkers. Ask them to do the same. [Forward this post, send an email, "Like" this post on your FB page]. Put on a crazy costume and sell it on the corner. Whatever floats your boat (although I assume no responsibility for the corner scenario).

 

 Doma is a locally owned roaster in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Owners Rebecca and Terry firmly believe in women and our power to positively affect our families, our workplaces, and our communities. It’s a perfect partnership.

If you want to help, but don't really want coffee, you can go here. The Bender's church has set up a donation page to help them out. If you want to buy coffee, simply go to Doma and click on the Bender Family Fundraiser link.

Some of you reading this are cyclists or know cyclists...what a fun gift for your bike-loving, coffee-drinking friends! Some of you love coffee. Some of you just love doing good.

Regardless of who you are, thank you for taking the time to "listen." We're all in this messy, hard world together... we might as well try to help each other through it.

Amateur Hour

It's been a busy time, folks. Busy enough that I forgot my vow to try to post something every two weeks or so. I took a two week trip around the holidays, so that was excuse #1. Then my day job got a lot busier, so that was excuse #2. There are excuses #3 and #4 too, but the truth of it is that when I wasn't busy, I was just lazy.

And have you ever noticed that when it rains, it pours? I went from having relatively few engagements and obligations to having far too many in a short period of time.

My church set up a committee meeting on Wednesday. No big deal. Then Sean asked me to make a cake for someone that he works with who's retiring, for a meeting on Thursday. Ok, tricky with the church meeting and work, but workable. Then my writer's group meeting (which is always scheduled on the same day every month but which I somehow forgot about) was scheduled for Tuesday night. Ok, starting to get into overload mode here.

And then one of Sean's teammates contacted me on the down-low, because a bunch of executives were going to be in town and they wanted to throw a little surprise bash to celebrate Sean's recent promotion--and they wanted cake. So when they came to the teammate and asked him what kind of cake Sean likes, he asked, "Why don't we just have his wife do it?"

Why not indeed. So I told this plucky teammate that if I could get the day off of work for my regular job, I would be happy to bake cupcakes for 115 people. I got the day off. Sean had no idea.

So I'm booked enough now that I know I need to be careful. I need to be smart. I have a grandiose plan for the retirement cake. It will be stacked, round bottom, square top, chocolate bark on the edges. I figure I'll make the chocolate bark on Monday, not worry about it on Tuesday, and bake the cake on my lunch break and stack and frost it after the church meeting on Wednesday. Then Thursday I'd bake my little tootsies off in the morning and have all the surprise cupcakes delivered by 3:30. Easy-peasy, right?

Well, Monday and the chocolate bark went exactly according to plan. Check.

Tuesday night, I'm leave my writer's group meeting at 8:45 and call my husband. He sounds antsy.

"Is something wrong?" I ask.

"Uuuh, well, maybe. I think I might have made a mistake," he replies.

"A mistake? What mistake?"

"What day did I tell you I needed that cake for?"

Long pause.

".........Thursday. Why?" I ask, squinting my eyes in a "oh, HELL no" look that he can't see over the phone, but I know he can feel. And my voice sounds dangerously icy, even to my own ears.

"Well, um..."

"You need it for tomorrow, don't you?"

"Yeah, I told you the wrong day. But I can just buy something."

"No," I say. "No, it's ok. I promise I'm not upset, or angry. I'll throw something together when I get home. I'll just have to use cake mixes. Will you pull out 8 eggs and three sticks of butter?"

I wasn't as efficient as I could have been when I got home, I admit it. But I took out a vanilla cake mix and a chocolate cake mix, and tweaked them with some added ingredients and substitutions (coffee instead of water in the chocolate cake, for instance), and popped them in the oven to bake. Then I made some coffee buttercream frosting and pulled out my damask cardboard cake rounds and my cake carrier, pulled the cakes out of the oven.... and waited.

And waited.

Even in the fridge, waiting for cake to cool enough before you can frost it is mind-numbingly slow when you're on a timetable and would much rather be in bed. Soon enough the time passed, and I gave both layers a sloppy "homestyle" icing. I broke up the chocolate bark by hand and layered it on the sides of each tier as quickly as I was able. I placed three pieces on top as kind of an artistic statement.

I stepped back.... and I hated it.

"Ugh," I said.

"It looks good," Sean said. "What's the matter?"

"I had much bigger plans," I said. "This just looks like amateur hour to me. I should have done it better! I should have taken more time. The top layer should be smaller. The chocolate should be on better. The icing should be smooth."

"I think it looks fine," Sean said.

"You mean that?" I asked. "It won't bother me if you'd rather go buy something more professional. I'm not going to spend any time trying to fix it."

"I promise," he said. "This is going to be way tastier than something I'd buy at Price Chopper, and it looks better, too. You worry too much."

So, too tired to care, I took a few lousy photos on my phone and boxed it up for transport the next day.

Sean came home and told me that everyone loved the cake--the same team member that recruited me for the cupcake extravaganza on Thursday even sent me a text message to tell me it was awesome. And the guy who was retiring--who was actually a client--sent an email the next day telling the team that he'd miss them and that their best asset was "Sean's wife's baking ability."

And what really cracked me up? People were asking Sean what the flavor was on the cake, because it was just so tasty. Sean, who knew perfectly well that it came out of a red and yellow box with a few tweaks, just gave a little laugh and a shrug and said,

"Well, I know there's something special in there, but I'm not quite sure what it is."

Bless that man.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the 150 mini cupcakes I made (Mocha, Classic Vanilla, and Red Velvet). Really, once you've seen a few mini cupcakes, you've just about seen them all. But I do have to say--the red velvet ones looked quite smashing with their triangles of stripey chocolate bark. Waste not, want not, my friends.

And Sean never had a clue, until he saw my pink bakery boxes on the table and his team announced that I brought the cupcakes.

He called me afterwards.

"So, did you enjoy your day off?" he asked.

"Why yes. Yes, I did."