Mistakes & Malarkey: Saturday Happenings

Yesterday was a fresh Saturday, meaning that I had the opportunity to go home and see my family and younger sister. She goes to school in Vermont, so actually seeing her is few and far between, unless I spontaneously decide to drive up to Vermont. So when an opportunity arises to go and see her, I do.

So that is what I did. Before I went though, I ended up baking a cake for her. And since I haven't been keeping up with my blog in this month of March, I thought I'd put something down and do a photo story on my baking-capades. I don't really bake and when I do, usually the outcomes are met with polite and tiny approval rather than the rants and raves that I hope for. This time though, I think my baking turned out fairly well.

The book I used was one that I happened upon at Barnes & Nobles in the bargain section. When I saw it, I immediately smiled. The book called, Frame by frame baking, recipes by Christine France and photography by Mike Cooper, creates a lovely harmony with both baking and photography. Each recipe holds step by step photos that beautifully capture the proper steps and processes. I know that I have already blogged about my respect for food photography, this only adds to that respect. The recipe book makes me want to get out my mother's old mixing bowl and bake until my heart's content. (Thank goodness for that new gym membership)

So I ended up baking a sponge layer cake, something I had never truly done before. I thought that box brownies were tough enough...joking. Perhaps my only down-fall with this cake was not by the recipe or baking method itself but rather the transportation method. I suppose trying to straddle a cake on a glass plate and heavy cover between your legs on the car floor, isn't the best method in cake transportation. Having just awoken from a brief nap in the car and groggily unaware of a sudden turn left, my poor cake slid along for some imaginary second base and let gravity break it's perfectly set layers, letting lose a few strawberries and plop of whipped cream. Thankfully the cover itself caught the whole mess and the [brand new]car remained unscathed. O well, at least I had gotten it to look lovely during my photo-session as opposed to later on the dinner table.

In the end, the result was met by pure dessert happiness felt by all. You know a dessert is good when it's eaten happily, there are no left-overs and there's a call for seconds! ;-)