Starting the mess

Someone I respect a lot recently started a daily blog about the things she loves. It's a great, life-affirming idea, and I enjoy reading it. It made me miss blogging. I enjoyed my summer project writing about Jane Austen, and I wanted a new goal. But what? What is something I wanted to focus on and develop an understanding for?

And then the answer came, in the form of a sorely belated birthday cake. A dear friend, who gets caught up in his work, finally agreed to make time in his busy schedule to come by and celebrate his birthday (which was in November). He wanted a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. I told him I'd make his cake from scratch (because that's the only way cakes should be made).

We agreed he'd come over Thursday at noon. I decided to bake the cake on Wednesday, since I would be going out that night (Eataly, woot woot!) and knew I wouldn't wake up in time to bake, cool, and ice a cake before noon. I love baking cakes. While I'm mixing the ingredients and preheating the oven I feel like I love my life, I love who I am, and everything's lovely. I have the best "Baking a Cake" playlist, as well.

And then the cake comes out. Small, hard around the edges, and lopsided. There isn't time to do fix it, since I have to dash out the door, but I figure icing it tomorrow will hide any flaws.

If baking a cake makes me feel in love with my life, icing it arouses all the self-loathing and frustration that keeps itself hidden under normal circumstances. I mean, what the f? How does the icing manage to go all the way up the mixers and refuse to blend? And then when I'm spreading it across the cake, it seems to take all the crumbs with it, which then stare at me like, "What you gonna do bout it?" And I don't know! I also didn't fix its lopsided problem, so it just ended up looking dejected and crumby. It was at that moment that the doorbell rang.

Why I Like to Bake Cakes
1. It's a nice thing to do for other people.
2. It always seems surprisingly easy (and then really frustrating, of course)
3. I like having sweet things around!
4. It feels domestic, comforting, and safe.

It wasn't my guest, it was the mailman, but in finding that out I managed to lock myself out of my apartment in a t-shirt, house slippers, and holding a cat. It was a stressful moment. I ran next door to our landlord's, who was thankfully home and able to let me back into my apartment.

While telling my friend about my baking experience, I decided I wanted to bake my way though the pies and cakes in my 1975 Good Housekeeping Cookbook. There's a goal! From fruitcakes to apple pie to orange-juice cake (?), I'm a-gonna do it. And hopefully one of those will be beautiful. Cause look at this one:

Sad, sad, sad.

Then I cleaned the kitchen and ate frosting.

...which is to say this all ended in me dancing around the kitchen to Strauss with an insane sugar high.