Christmas Cakery: Doubling Down on Disaster (And What I Taught Myself) - Part 2

Christmas was barreling down on me as though it was a runaway sleigh and I was a human frozen in the headlights of a mutant reindeer with a glowing nose. I'd done wrong by the six-inch cakes, leaving two of them in cryogenic sleep. I had a fall-back plan, however. And you know what they say about fall-back plans: The best laid plans of bakers and cooks often fall flat on their backs.

Things Went Horribly Wrong Dept. - Molded Cupcake and Mini-Bundt Cake Division

It seemed like such a simple plan: use the remaining cake batter in the mini-bundt cake pan I found in my storage facility (I'm really going to have to clean that out one day – mainly because it costs too danged much every month) and in the butterfly silicone molds.

Colorful butterflies!

These molds came from my little sister, the ever-brilliant Miss Kee. She also included a set of flower-like cupcake style and a set of a kind of star-pattern style. About one hundred per set. I had no idea what I was going to do with them but she seems to have faith in my ability to figure things out. I ended up using them for handheld pies. Here's another look at what I did with them last year (as I said, I'll either tell the story of how these came about, or chronicle a new adventure):

Butterflies and flowers

Bite-sized!

As for the mini-bundt pan, I'd never used it before, even though I've owned it for well over a decade, so I was venturing into new territory, as is my way with so many of my baking projects.

Bah-weep-graaaaagnah wheep mini bundt!* *No-prize for anyone who gets the reference!

Let me go on record as saying I'm not a great lover of cupcakes. The trend that swept the nation for the past several years seems like it's receding; it just left me with a mouthful of "meh". As the competition for the public's pocketbooks heated up, the purveyors promoted baked goods that got farther and farther away from what a cupcake is supposed to be (in my purist opinion). So, the fact that I was considering what were essentially cupcakes as the fall-back position for my holiday cakes was saying something about my desperation regarding the time constraint under which I'd foolishly put myself. Still, it was a sound plan. Or so I thought.

I introduced the batter to the baking containers. This is the point at which things went south. Because even though the silicone molds worked brilliantly for the pies, and the bundt pan seemed as though it would work as well, non-stickiness proved to be qualities they lacked when it came to this cake batter. Once I pulled them out of the oven, I couldn't pull the cakes out of the molds or the pan! After they'd cooled, they never released! Absolutely. Held. On. For. Dear. Life! No amount of shaking or threatening (and I did a fair amount of that) made them let go. It was as though some chemical binding process happened that caused the cakes to merge with the molds and the pan at the molecular level. I mean, even after I conceded and put everything in the sink to soak and clean, it was nearly impossible to extricate the cakes! I'd never seen anything like it.

I was mortified and a bit despondent. This meant I'd never make the mailing deadline for Christmas and my presents would be late. Again. Not that my family isn't used to me sending out Christmas and birthday presents and cards (very) late; I just wanted this year to be a little different. Alas. As I sort of said earlier, "The best-laid schemes o mice an men ang aft agley."

A Note On The Gaelic: I've always heard and read that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. I never knew about the original version of this saying until Eddie Izzard used it as one of his tangents in "Definite Article". I still laugh my butt off whenever I see it.

A Note On The Gaelic Ends

It was here that I discovered something very important. Something that would shape the rest of my December and part of my January: I don't actually have a cake problem! The recipe I was using and my execution of it were fine. The failures actually tasted great! What I had was an assembly problem, which is an altogether different thing. I discovered this when I pulled the 6" layer cake out of the refrigerator and saw how the cold had solidified the chocolate ganache enough for me to actually work with the layers. I determined that a thicker version of the ganache, or a different filling/icing altogether, would make the cake viable again. Being one who likes to cover as many bases as possible sometimes, I opted for both.

I made a stiffer ganache to fill the layers, then refrigerated the cake to solidify the ganache on each layer. I made a stiff butter cream frosting and added a thin layer on top of the ganache. Then, after another brief stint in the fridge, put the layers together and iced the whole cake with the butter cream. The result:

Cake salvage!

One of these days, I'm going to have to get one of those Lazy Susan turntable thingies to make this process easier. No, it's not as smooth as I wanted it, but it looks pretty darned good for someone who doesn't consider himself a cake decorator. But, you may ask, how did all that in and out and in and out of the refrigerator affect the texture and taste? Didn't that dry it out? Well, I will answer, apparently not! I served this, and its cryogenically frozen companion to two different groups of friends and both were pronounced delicious! See for yourself!

Looks pretty darned moist to me!

Also, this cake was so proud of itself that it insisted on having a photo taken with everything that had made it was it was today.

The Lineup.

How did this help me with my late Christmas gifts? Confidence – as in it gave me lots of confidence in my cake baking abilities. I mean, seriously, what kind of baker would I be if I couldn't consistently make a good cake? Also, it gave me something to do while I waited for these to arrive:

Smallest springform pans ever!

I'd ordered these 4" Wilton springform pans but I knew they wouldn't arrive in time for the Christmas cakes, so that's why I went ahead with using my own 6" pans. Now that I'd spent time flailing and fumbling about as I learned important lessons about cake, they arrived and I could put all that hard-earned knowledge to use.

But that's going to have to wait for Part 3!

Currently listening to: Sara Bareilles - Fairytale

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Interlude: Flight of the Gingersnaps

Every so often, while New York trudges through its yearly January deep freeze, I end up in San Francisco for a few days. Michele's best friend, with the judicious use of copious frequent flier miles, flies her out to S.F. for a few days of relative balmy Bay area weather. I get to tag along because this arrangement makes it affordable.

I always bake this friend something as a little thank you for her generosity. We've already established that she enjoys my baking, so I know I'm on safe ground with whatever I decide to bring. During this trip, though, we were going to be gathering with a big group of friends and I wanted to bring something to share with everyone. My time was at a premium so whatever it was going to be needed to be quick and easy to prepare and travel well. Gingersnaps, of course!

A Quick Note: I know this is beginning to look like the "All Gingersnaps All The Time Blog" but there are some situations that only my favorite cookie can address. And it just so happened that since I was baking a batch to send to Honolulu (a story for another time), I'd have enough for this trip.

A Quick Note Ends

I'm really getting better at making my version of this cookie. One of my friends, who was at my Birthday Tea, asked how I got them all so uniform in shape and thickness. "I use a rolling pin and a cookie cutter," was my answer. It was a revelation to her because she'd only ever seen the regular "roll into a ball and lightly press" version, which was how I used to make my gingersnaps. Granted, my current process limits the development of the characteristic cracks but I still get them and I end up with a cookie that is, to me, the perfect thickness. Remember, part of my desire is to recreate snack foods that Iove, and Nabisco gingersnaps were some of my favorites. This is a pretty good approximation of that. And much better tasting to boot!

I made enough cookies to: leave a batch for our cat sitter, have a batch to give to a friend in S.F. who did another Neil Gaiman favor for me (yet another story for another time), slip a batch to our flight benefactress, and still have plenty to share at our coffee shop gathering. I never go small when I bake these.

The problem of how to travel with them wasn't a difficult one to solve. I did, after all, take a box of twenty-three hand pies with me to Texas last August. I just bagged up the batches (eight cookies to a bag) and put them all in a cake box to carry on the plane with me. No sweat. The sweat came later, as I was boarding the plane and the eyes of our Virgin America flight attendant crew fell upon the cake box. There's no disguising that there's some kind of treat contained in a cake box. When I told them (they all asked) that it was gingersnaps, they smiled and sighed happily, and a little covetously. In the back of my overly-imaginative brain I thought "I'm not going to get jacked by these folks for my cookies, am I?" Of course not. But those side-eyes as I passed each crew member made me a little nervous.

The flight attendant who smiled the biggest and told me that gingersnaps were her all-time favorite cookies was the one who would be working our part of the plane. "You should give her a bag!" Michele encouraged. I'm not a cruel sort, and I had more than enough cookies to share – and Michele's elbow makes my ribs hurt after a while – so I did just that after she took our drink orders. "I have a little something for you but you have to promise to share with the rest of the crew," I told her as I handed her the bag. Her genuine appreciation made me happy. Less than ten minutes later, she was back at our row, one cookie in hand and an ear-to-ear grin on her face. "Thank you so much! They're delicious!" We had a little conversation about my baking and this blog, with several interjections from her about how good the cookies were. That was quite a boost for my ego.

I'm going to have to get better at this part of the my baking life, considering I'm putting it up for public consumption. (See what I did there?) I know I make tasty treats but I have some trepidation about sharing that with strangers. My self-doubt kicks in and I worry that no one's going to like it. So it takes a bit of a push, which often Michele supplies, to get me over that hump. I try to approach this with a little humility, an open mind, and a generous heart. I have to trust that those qualities, along with the skills I will never stop developing, will imbue my dishes with great taste and good memories.

As we were trundling up the aisle after landing, the flight crew thanked me and told me how much they enjoyed the cookies. In front of me, Michele chuckled, which I translated as "Told you so."

Just share.

Currently Listening to: Artful Dodger (Featuring Lifford) - Something

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Christmas Cakery: Doubling Down on Disaster (And What I Taught Myself) - Part 1

Christmas for me, as with a lot of people around the country and the world, means a lot of time spent in the kitchen. Popping pans, tins and sheets into the oven and pulling out freshly-baked desserts, treats and snack of all kinds is a singular joy for those of us who aspire to be good bakers (or pastry chefs, if you want to get all high fallootin' on me). Actually, I can't speak for others, just myself. This past season was an exceptional joy for me...even when things went horribly wrong and I had to fix them. And, trust me, things went horribly wrong.

Things Went Horribly Wrong Dept. – Layer Cake Division

Let me go on record right now: I have a checkered past with layer cakes. I enjoy eating them but I often have the devil of a time baking, filling and frosting them. I've ruined more layer cakes than I care to count and every time I convince myself that it's a good idea to bake one, I know that I'm taking a risk of it just blowing up in my face. To be fair, I've had some very successful layer cakes, including the two times I made the three-tier, three layers to a tear, wedding cake (pictured here) and several "special effects" cakes (I won't tell you about them now because I want to bake them again and show you). But I've botched a lot of cakes in my time.

So, I wanted to bake a few things and send them to my family (three homes, two states, and a combined 4,010.31 miles) for Christmas. Component A went off without a hitch: gingersnaps. I've gotten those down to my deep satisfaction, so no worries there. Component B hit snags like you wouldn't believe. Small chocolate cakes. With layers. And Icing. And filling. The very first snag I hit with this idea was time. It took me long enough to decide what I wanted to send but then understood that I might not have enough time to obtain the right sized cake pans. I found these on Ebay (although Bed, Bath & Beyond now has them, too) but knew I wasn't going to get them in time to do the baking. So I fell back on my two six-inch springform pans and a chocolate cake recipe from my trusty Good Housekeeping cookbook (good old Good Housekeeping):

2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup cocoa (I use Droste or Rademaker) (And, yes, I know that you're not supposed to substitute Dutch processed for regular cocoa but it seemed to work for me)
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
3/4 cup shortening
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans. Dust pans with cocoa. (I use the cheap stuff for dusting. Also, I've learned that it doesn't matter what size your cake pan is, just make the batter and fill the pan about halfway. You can always make more if you need more or use whatever excess you have in muffin tins or cupcake tins.)

2. Into large bowl, measure flour, remaining ingredients, and 3/4 cup cocoa (the good stuff). Note: I sift all the dry ingredients together. With mixer at low speed, beat ingredients until mixed, constantly scraping bowl. Increase speed to high; beat 2 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl.  

3. Pour batter into pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks, 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool completely on racks.

Now. All of that went as planned. This gave me enough cake batter for four six-inch layers, so I doubled it to make three cakes and extras. So far so good. Even the simple chocolate ganache I made – one cup of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips melted in one cup hot (not boiling) heavy cream – was good. A lot of folks don't like Ghiradelli chocolate but it actually made a pretty good ganache. Plus, it was what I had on hand. So there!

Combining the two is where it all fell apart. Literally. I sliced the first two rounds into four. Simple enough. But filling the layers with the cooled ganache was a mess. Yeah...chocolate mess! It just wasn't stiff enough and the layers slipped and slid all over my work surface. Not able to be salvaged. Into the trash it went.

An Aside About Frustration and Perfection: Someone, I can't remember whom, asked me if I was a perfectionist with my baking. Knowing all the imperfect cakes, pastries, pies and more that I've served people over the years, I said that I considered myself a failed perfectionist. Things have to be just perfect enough to serve to guests and have them enjoy them. But I do get frustrated when I can't make the vision in my head appear on the table and that's led me to dump all manner of tarts, chocolate confections, pie doughs, fillings, etc. into the trash over the years. "Why didn't you just put it in a bowl and leave it for me to nosh on?!?" I've been asked. Because, it's not what I want it to be, so no one gets to see it, eat it, comment on it. 

So. I guess I'm something of a baking perfectionist after all. "Um. Yeah." Michele rolls her eyes.

End Frustration and Perfection Aside.

I had two more 6" cakes and a second attempt at using the ganache proved just as unsuccessful but instead of frustration, I let myself deviate from the initial plan enough to cover it and put it in the refrigerator for later use. The third cake I wrapped well and put in the freezer for later later use. It was like putting them into cryogenic freeze so that they might cured of their ailments once baking science (and inspiration) catches up to them. I promise that story is coming soon.

What would I do with the remaining cake batter, though? Well, I have a heavy mini bundt cake pan I found in my storage, and the silicone molds that my little sister, Miss Kee, sent me a couple of years ago. I used them for small pies a while ago but I don't think I ever posted the image here. Let me rectify that oversight.

Butterflies and Flowers!

I made apple and cherry "tartlets"/hand-held pies last December and I can't believe I didn't write about it! They were delicious and looked so cool! I promise I'll talk about this (or detail a new pie project using these molds) soon.

I'll get to how I used them for cake in the Part II.

Currently listening to: Holly Cole Trio - Trust In Me

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Birthday #52 (2013)

For my 52nd birthday I had a smaller gathering than usual because a few of my stalwarts were just plain unavailable due to travel and winter illnesses (curse you, tiny viruses!) but we still had a lot of fun. Here's the table:

2013: Return of the Tea Table!

Clockwise from top: Monchego and Red Dorset cheeses, cucumber sandwiches, crackers, home made butter pats, cranberry scones, cherry-peach pie, and ginger snaps. The pie I made with peaches and cherries that I bought over the summer and froze for just such an event. Not as good as fresh but way better than using canned fruit.

But what about this year's "show stopper"? It didn't take much thought to come up with it because the memory of my seventh birthday and my first Baskin & Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream cake! I thought it was the coolest thing ever back then. I mean, it's cake that's also ice cream! It's ice cream that you can cut! How cool is that?!? You're never too old for ice cream cake! I knew I wanted to make single-serving sized cakes but I didn't have the right cake pans or even the slightest clue as to how I was going to form the ice cream into the right shape and size. As usual, I didn't let that stop me.

The cake recipe wasn't a problem. Good Housekeeping solved that. (I'll give the recipe in another post I'm currently working on). The ice cream itself wasn't a problem; the Williams Sonoma book I bought in 2012 had an excellent recipe. Putting the two elements together was the problem. Without the right sized cake pans, I also couldn't work out the way to form the ice cream layer. With time ticking away, I ended up making a quick stop into N.Y. Cake to pick up a muffin pan with relatively straight cylindrical sides – meaning they didn't narrow so much at the bottom. I wish I had more time to spend there, because they've got a lot of things I want! But they were closing so I had to make my choice quickly and get the heck out. I'll make another visit later and document it here.

That done, I had to figure out how I was going to make the ice cream the right size to fit with the cakes. I realized that there was no way for me to make that happen this time around because the muffin pan cups sloped inward ever so slightly, which meant the cakes would have an ever so slight conical shape and I couldn't see a way to use the same tin for the ice cream. I'm sure that given enough time I could have come up with a clever way of doing it but I didn't have that time.* I had to find a work around.

I have a new rule: before you panic, look to the cookie cutters. The largest of my circular cutters is almost the same circumference as the muffin tin. How did that help me solve my problem, you may ask? By using the same tart pan I use for ice cream sandwiches, freezing the mint chocolate chip in it and then using said cutter to chop out perfect cylinders of ice cream. It was just like I was drilling for ice cream core samples. (I swear I'll make my own version of Neapolitan ice cream using this technique.) True, that left the ice cream a little smaller than the cake but I could live with that. As a proof of concept batch, I was very happy with the way they turned out!

Two, two, two desserts in one!

I used a simple ganache technique to make chocolate to pour over the cakes, froze those while I made the ice cream, and then put them together to form a very tasty two-fer!

In detail.

The fresh mint in the ice cream complimented the sweetness of the chocolate cake and added an earthy undertone to the whole dessert. The seven-year-old in me was ecstatic and fifty-two year old in me couldn't help but celebrate with him! I repeat: You're never too old for ice cream cake!

Currently listening to: Pat Metheny Group - Vidala and Slip Away

*I have, indeed come up with a clever way of doing it because writing about this little adventure has given me a whole new perspective and a couple of new ideas on how to solve the problems. I will, of course, post the process and the results.

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An Unexpected Interlude (In Which I Receive A Surprise From My Father)

Yesterday (December 17, 2013), Michele and I returned home from being out and about, running errands in the slushy streets of lower Manhattan. I successfully scored a new pair of winter boots to replace the slightly older new pair of winter boots which where a tad bit too small for my big feet. I grabbed the mail on the way up to the apartment and saw that there was a card for us, which I knew was of the Christmas variety, from my father. There was also another envelope addressed to me from him.

I was immediately intrigued. We'd already exchanged birthday greetings (well, I'm late with mine to him but that's not new), so what could this one be? I pulled this out of the envelope:

My printing is nowhere near this legible!

I then pulled this out of the envelope:

My printing is also nowhere this legible!

And immediately burst into tears. There was my mother's handwriting, on a card she'd used to make so many of these desserts I was blessed enough to devour. Years ago, I got a copy from her, which I transcribed to my own recipe book (which still has way too few recipes in it) when I decided to forgo the Cool Whip for actual whipped cream. Now I was holding her original in my hand and the joyous connection I felt to her and my father overwhelmed me. I was simultaneously happy and sad.

I miss my mother. I wish she were here to read this blog and share in these baking adventures with me. I wish she could laugh at my horrendous mistakes and smile at my successes. But even though she's gone, there's a little bit of her in everything I bake, whether I fail or succeed at it.

And that makes me happy beyond measure.

Currently listening to: Dexter Wansel - Time Is The Teacher

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Snapped Up – The Short But Sweet Gingersnap Obsession

I thought for sure this entry would be about something other than gingersnaps. I wanted to do something like challah bread (with which I'm having a metric tonne of trouble) , or honey buns, or doughnuts or cake. Anything but gingersnaps. Not that I don't like them; the fact that I love them is well-documented here. I just thought I was ready to move on to something else. But then it happened. I screwed up a batch of snaps that I was making to give to a friend who was in town for a visit. These were tasty but they didn't rise much, were hard, and were singed way too easily. Grumphgrumphgrumph and more grumph.

Nothing flips me into an obsession with a dish faster or harder than a screw up of something I should have down pat by now! I don't really get mad about the situation, unless we're using the classical definition of the word. I become mad about finding the problem and fixing it...and learning from my mistakes. This time it turns out that I needed to learn the exact thickness to roll out the dough, as well as the exact baking time, to make sure the cookies have the right snap yet retain a measure of chewiness. Not many thin gingersnaps have that quality, so I'm setting a pretty high bar for this.

The answers to this problem were actually very simple: roll out the dough right around 1/8 of an inch. It really can't be any thinner than that or else the cookies have too much snap and are prone to burning. As for the baking time, the previous botched batch was in the oven for eight-and-a-half minutes. My baker's-sense (not unlike spider-sense) warned me that eight minutes was the longest I should leave these cookies in the oven.

This fine-tuning gave me the gingersnap cookies I've been after for a while now: snappy and chewy, with not a single singed edge or bottom. I mailed a batch to my little sister, Miss Key, and her family and, according to her, they didn't last long. I also took another batch to share with some friends at dinner the other night and they emptied the carrying tin in short order.

I think I might have finally figured it out!

Currently listing to: Eartha Kitt - C'Mon A My House

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Baking My Way Back to Bavaria...Sort Of.

Allow me to set the scene. Season: Summer. Year: 1984. Place: Munich, Germany. Me: A fresh-faced kid and newly-minted graduate of SMU (Southern Methodist University). Dessert: Zwetschgendatschi. It's a mouthful, in more than one way but believe me, I quickly learned how to pronounce it because it became my favorite dessert when I was there.

Almost thirty years ago, I was in Munich working as a writer. I'd only just graduated from college and by happenstance I actually found myself employed in the very field in which I'd gotten my diploma. It's the one and only time I've ever been gainfully employed in my chosen profession: screenwriting. The husband and wife production management team hired me because they were looking for properties they could make into films as actual producers. One thing led to another and I found myself whisked from the superheated July of Dallas to work with them in the fall-like (to me) summer climes of Munich, Germany. Remind me to tell you about that part of the story some day.

I hadn't been out of the country since I was a kid and the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Munich were exciting...as well as overwhelming. I indulged in pomme frittes, bratwurst, pizza mit pfefferschoten, speck and this amazing plum cake with more consonants than I'd ever had to wrap my tongue around in one word before. Fortunately for me, it was much easier wrapping my tongue around the actual dessert! Zwetschgendatschi (pronounced ts-vetch-kin-dah-chee), which translates as "plum cake". I was exceptionally proud of myself when I learned how to pronounce that one.

I was even more proud the first time I asked for it on my own. ("Hast du zwetschgendatschi? Eine, bitte. Danke!") I must have eaten half my body weight in plum cake that summer. I had to, once I found out how short the season was for the plums that make filling. In the U.S. they're generally known as Italian prune plumbs and they're oval instead of round. When baked, they deliver a taste that's not too sweet and have a bit of a tang to them. Of course, I didn't care about any of that back then; I just knew it was one of the most delicious desserts I'd ever had and I wanted as much of it as I could get! My employers/hosts got such a kick out of my love of zwetschgendatschi.

My Munich adventure ended four months after it began. My return to Dallas also ended my career as a screenwriter (I never wanted to move to L.A., so that killed the prospects of my continuing). And it also ended my access to zwetschgendatschi. Not that I didn't try to find it, mind you. I got more strange looks from waitresses and waiters whenever I asked for it. I mean, I knew it wasn't on the menu; I just wanted to know if anyone there knew what it was. Nope. (Granted, I might have gotten a different response had I been asking in South Central Texas, not too far from my hometown of San Antonio, because there's a sizable population of descendants from German immigrants down there.)

I haven't had zwetschgendatschi in almost thirty years but yesterday I ended that dry spell by finally baking my very own!

An Brief Summary of Lame Excuses (in Countdown Order): 4) I'm not a good enough baker to make this. 3) I can't get the same kind of plums, so why bother? 2) I can't find a good recipe for zwetschgendatschi. And 1) I can't spell "zwetschgendatschi" so I can't look up a recipe!  Hey, I said they were lame excuses! 

An Brief Summary of Lame Excuses (in Countdown Order) ends.

When I saw the right plums for sale at one of the stalls in the farmers market that sets up every Thursday in front of Columbia, I swore that if I found a good enough recipe, I grab up some and try to make it. One quick search led me here (thanks, NPR) so I bought three pounds of plums. One of the sellers reminded me how short the season was for these plums and I just knew I had made the right decision. Plus, Michele and I were hosting a gathering of some artist friends yesterday so the game was afoot! Of course, this meant that, once again, I was going to break my own number one rule of never serving a first-time dessert to guests, but I just couldn't stop the momentum. I just had to give it my best shot, if for no other reason than to brush against a long-held memory.

Fail or succeed, I am what I dare. And yesterday morning I dared to be a good baker.

The images below are kind of quick and dirty (I really do need to work out a better lighting/camera situation for this blog) but they illustrate three stage of this project

Square pan will work just as well!

It all stacked up quite nicely!

Cooling on the rack!

Once it cooled down and Michele dished it out, the looks of enjoyment and thumbs up from our guests made my heart sing. I tasted it myself and realized I'd captured yet another flavor of my past. It was Bavaria, Munich, Müenchen, all over again. One friend, Carolyn (who is originally from England) told be that it was the best pastry she'd ever had in her life and that it topped anything her mother or her little sister ever served her – and she considered their pastries tops. She's given to hyperbole but I took it as a high compliment. (She also said that she'd never tell her sister what she'd just told me.)

So, let this be a lesson to me: just bake to the best of my ability, with all the joy and love in my heart, and the odds will be in my favor that I'll end up with something that's delicious and "happiness-making."

Currently listening to: Sonique - It Feels So Good

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