long, long ago i used to make pie crusts. my specialty was a lemon tart, and i even had (have!) a drop-bottom pan for just such a thing. i've never been enamored of
cooking...but
baking? oh, yes.
alas, soon other tasks became essential (like laundrygroceries makingbedstakingouttrash sweepingrakingsortingsocks packinglunchesprovidingsustenance vacuumingscrubbingetc.) & time-consuming baking drifted away....and i kind of forgot i enjoyed doing it.
so when i sleepily asked my husband the other night what kind of cake he'd like for his birthday...and
he said "homemade chocolate cake with homemade white icing" [with the unspoken words
just like my mother made me hanging in the air]...my instinctive response was
no way! [with the unspoken - or, actually, i may have said it outloud -
i'm not your mother.] my frame of reference for the past, oh, seventeen years of parenting is allowing only a rare moment or two of time-indulgence that in no discernible way moves the story or day forward. like making cakes from scratch when the more expedient route is likely a close runner-up in tastiness, provided you remove any emotional tastiness factors.
this immediate dismissal of cake-baking from scratch makes me sound so callous and insensitive. i
do make some things his mother makes. & i
do enjoy contemplative chores that rejuvenate & accomplish simultaneously. but the kitchen and food production quickly became a burden for me...a chore that was necessary but rarely relished, as i found myself thwarted by both selective palates and my own inability to develop much cooking 'instinct.' (i still need to reference recipes of dishes i have made in excess of fifty times.) &
spices? no clue here, except the very basics like sugar or salt. i am like a toddler who might enthusiastically mix every color of paint hoping for a rainbow...and simply get brown.
so, that is a very long way of saying....i had a moment or two of realization that, due to my children's advancing ages and increasing ability to sleep until noon & fend largely for themselves, my
time is being reclaimed! by me! and
this means i can make
bolder choices. so, eeny-meeny-miny-moe, i chose to bake my husband's birthday cake... f r o m s c r a t c h. [prior to this, i had an earlier revelation that i would make my husband a cake from scratch because, well,
i love him.]
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| mmmm....butter....sugar....mmmm |
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| adding cocoa |
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| the scene on this momentous occasion. as you can see, i dressed for success. |
~ the sound of an electric beater in a glass bowl ~
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| i made the icing, too. |
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| iced & ready |
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| some folks like those sugar letters. just saying. |
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| i added a few fancy details, like blue sugar (homemade!) and chocolate chips (from a bag!). |
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| the cake looks ablaze, but there were only thirteen candles - because 4 + 9 = 13. (& it's his lucky number.) |
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| wishes are important. [note: Joseph is standing on a basketball.] |
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| the all-important (and technically challenging) first slice. |
