Cake baking and profanity

Today I made English muffins. I haven’t tasted them yet, but they look pretty good. They look right. And no, there was not any profanity involved in their creation. As a rule, I enjoy cooking and baking and my husband is a wonderfully open-minded eater, so the two go hand in hand. However, anyone who knows me is aware that I do have a history of kitchen tantrums. I admit it. I’m not proud of it and I would argue that I have many fine qualities that outweigh the tendency, but I can’t deny the reality of it. (Amazingly enough, my older son enjoys cooking as well. Recently, his wife described an epic tantrum of his that involved burnt dinner rolls, oven mitts, and an uncooperative sliding glass door. I wish I’d seen it. It sounded kind of wonderful! Whether through nature or nurture, I know I have to own that trait right there.)

Not imagining the monster that it might create, this winter my younger son asked if I’d be interested in baking a cake for his wedding in July. He and his wife were clear that the bar was set incredibly low, that they did not expect anything fancy at all. Of course, I immediately said yes. In fact, I was very calm about the whole idea. I figured I had plenty of time to practice, to find a recipe and a look that they would both like. I’m sure my husband’s brain was clanging with warning signals, but he was generous enough not to share them.

The first thing I have to say is that those baking videos online are filled with lies. Or maybe, they just need to be done by people more like MRFIXIT, who rates his DIY videos by the number of f-bombs you’re likely to use during the task. Now that’s a teaching tool I can get behind!

Practice cake number one went very smoothly but was not the flavor they were looking for. So, I moved on to practice cake number two. Chocolate on chocolate, easy enough, right? Except that the cake was too dry, and the frosting was too cold to spread easily (NOT highlighted in the baking videos!), but it was the ganache that sent me over the edge, and on a colder day, this would have been no problem. On a colder day, the windows would have been shut. Did I mention that a delightful young family moved in next to us and that they love to be out in their backyard?

Well, the cream that I was heating in the microwave exploded, and so did I. And just as the profanity jumped out of my mouth at possibly a shocking volume for someone my size, my husband looked out the window and was appalled to see the neighbor’s head spin around in alarm. At which point, I stomped my size seven on the floor and told him to apologize for me. Which he did, kindly attributing it to high-intensity-baking.

Needless to say, practice cake number two was not a winner. It was not even up for miss congeniality. But in the end, I got it right, or right enough at least. And things with the neighbors have been going better. Well, aside from the day that the watermelon leapt out of the back of my car onto the driveway, and she was in her backyard on zoom…

 

 

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