The Kitchen Made

I bake plenty of cakes, just like my mom baked cakes when I was a child.  You get a mix, you put it in a 9×13″ pan, you frost it when it’s done and all is good!  No taste complaints, but the pan-living-cake isn’t the prettiest cake on the block.  Years ago I decided to step out of my comfort zone and make a 2 layer cake.  I didn’t cool the cake enough before I put the frosting in the middle and frosting was runny….it was awful.

cake fail

Being an excellent sport, I poked a little fun at myself and piped out my heart and sense of humor on top:

cake fail

That was about two years ago and I have not touched my 9″ cake rounds since.  UNTIL TONIGHT.  haha.  Here I’ll go through my (insane) cooking/baking thought process:

I have to make a dessert for the potluck tomorrow…what can I make out of what is in my cupboards?  Cake!  I have cake mix!  That’s quick and easy.  Oooo and I want to try that dairy free dark chocolate frosting mix I bought.  Ok so I should make a layered cake, fun!  yay fun!  Will that be enough frosting?  Looks like it.  (cake bakes in two 9″ pans…and I attempt to remove the cake from the pan which I did not pre-grease in my haste.  One comes out clean, one breaks in half)  Oh crap, now I have one cake and a broken one…can I patch this with frosting?  Yeah no.  I have another cake mix, I’ll just make 2 more layers and make a 3 layer cake!  (makes 2 more cake rounds)  I only have enough frosting for the exterior, what am I going to put in the middle?  Jam?  Nah, I hate fruit and chocolate mixed together.  Carmel?  Don’t have enough and it may drip out.  Hmmm…coconut and pecan?  Sounds good!  Mix together some butter and throw in the rest of the can of carmel….ok coconut and pecans!  Texture is too dry.  Add some brown rice syrup.  Still needs more liquid.  What do people add to stuff to make it thinner anyway?  Oh yeah milk!  *adds soymilk*  Looks good!

Then I carved the round top off the cake layers, spread the filling, put the dark chocolate frosting all over the top (vanilla cake, FYI) and I MADE IT!  I made a layered cake!  Woo!  I can’t cut into it until tomorrow, but I’m excited to taste it.  I mean…can you go wrong?

I did it!

And it’s flat on top!!!

flat top

I did, of course, taste some frosting samples and it’s gooooooooood.

mmm frosting

Maybe this year I can flex my layered cake muscles and attempt a birthday cake or two! 

I’ve tried before to draw some linear connection between my love of food and some specific influence in my personal history.  I always like simple answers, but I don’t think I can come up with one that links my chronic cooking to a romanticized event involving French food and a summer I spend in Europe.  The best I can come up with involves a combination of two people: my mother and my grandmother.

My grandmother always seemed to have a kitchen utensil in her hand and it was either a knife she had just erroneously sliced herself with, or a spatula with which she was gently shooing me out of the area underneath her feet.  She was always in the kitchen baking and cooking, at least as I remember it.  I think the difference between my perception of her cooking and that of others was that little piece of dough she would give me to pound and knead and over-flour to my hearts content.  Being involved made me feel very special, and I can remember that piece of dough being given to me at an age where I think I was still eating more of it than I was rolling in too much flour.  Bless my grandma’s heart for that.

My mom was everything my grandmother was not, even though she came from her household.  We had about 10 meals that my mom cooked on a regular basis, and on special occasions like New Years Eve sometimes my mom would bust out a special recipe (7 layer dip!!) to bring to a party.  She did make a lot of tasty baked goods now that I think about it, and I’m remembering some layered bars in particular.  I should ask her for that recipe.  My mother became pregnant when I was in fourth grade and due to complications was bedridden for much of it.  Sometime around then was when I started fending for myself food-wise.  I still remember my first creative concoction in which I mixed my two favorite foods: Top Ramen and Campbell’s tomato soup.  Together.  I’m pretty sure I added lots of salt and pepper too because I knew food was supposed to be seasoned.  My mother complained about the nutritional content of Top Ramen/tomato soup so soon thereafter I started adding frozen peas and corn to it.  And salt and pepper and perhaps some italian seasoning.   I think that recipe progressed to other things, and I do remember my “dill phase” where I put dill in absolutely everything, much to my mother’s chagrin.  Eventually (high school?) I mastered the following dishes: chocolate chip cookies, pasta salad, 7 layer dip, guacamole, and stack-a-dinner.  It gave me enough range to feel confident in my abilities when I moved out at 18.  Somewhere along the line someone, maybe my mother, told me that all you had to do in order to cook well is be able to read a recipe and follow it.  I still think that is true, and that thought keeps me from becoming intimidated when trying new recipes.  I take that back.  Indian food intimidates me, and cooking meat intimidates me, but other than that I consider myself recipe fearless.

So three cheers to my new cooking blog!  Hip hip hooray!