Part 2-Nothing

It's a holiday from school today, thanks Martin!

I'm making cakes for a friend from school and it's her  birthday.  She's helped me so much with those pesky little details of  Photoshop,  as well as other  essential aspects of learning Web Design, so I thought I'd bake her a cake  for the sacrifice of her time.  It was a great excuse to haul out the baking goodies and lose myself in a mound of flour. 
 A few years ago I was looking through Nigella  Lawson's cookbooks, I forget which one, and found ,  Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake.  It's a winner, it keeps well and by that I mean it maintains its moisture and for a  homemade chocolate cake,  sometimes that's a little tricky. (the trick is the chocolate drizzle after the cake comes out of the oven)


Note:    This cake is rich so it may send you over the edge inducing a coma like state.  

In the meantime I've been trying to get my assignments finished in Illustrator,  I'm succeeding, only two more short chapters to go.  Retaining is another matter.  ha!

I'm still working on my early spring cleaning, it taking time, especially since I've been waiting on my daughter to pick up the rest of your youthful momentoes.  This is a switch from my unmade bed from the last post.  But that's only one thing I slack on in the big picture and it's behind closed doors and only at certain times.  I know when it's time to rid myself of "stuff" that clutters.  I'm taking this a little slower ,especially since I'm dealing with papers and such.
  Update...they're  gone.  yeah.  


Meanwhile, cakes are out of the oven and resting comfortably on the rack.  They've been thoroughly doused with the chocolate sauce and await the shavings on top.  I forgot to buy the shaving chocolate  I really forgot but I also thought I might eat it before it ended up on the cake so I thought I'd wait.  Has that ever happened to you? 
The other cake if I don't start divvying it out to other people will soon be slowly whittled away by way of fork to mouth resuscitation. 

Is this weather playing havoc with your skin?  My skin is going  crazy, one day it's freezing, the next it's a open the  windows.  I love those days, but my skin is confused to say the least.  Last year it was cold consistently and I didn't have this kind of problem.  I have chapped face.  Not a pretty picture and not fun either.

Well,  it's been a few days since the cake making and such..I held off hoping to have a photo of it which I do not. So I went to google and found one that resembles it.  This will have to do.

I'm Not Settling!

 In the last week or two I had the natural urge to bake

but now...

I don't want to dirty

one

dish 

let alone look at a cube of sugar..

even if I had one

I'm not satisfied..notabit
.

(not that one)
 

I threw out a cake the other day..

Horrors. 

it "Looked" great
but 
wasn't up to the standard I wanted it to be.  
. 

 I'm disappointed with how things have turned out.

I 
want  
Quality..

DO YOU HEAR ME?

I want

daintiness,

lightness,

and

flavor

  to patter across my tongue 

 and

 I am not baking 

 until I can get into the right frame of mind and  find the exact recipe to achieve that kind of success.

(success my grandma would be proud of)
:)

 I will not settle any longer.

I'm disappointed for the

last time... 

and I will not disappoint others as well.

And besides baking in the summer isn't that much fun anyway.
In the olden days and elsewhere they have summer kitchens...what does that tell you?

It's too stinking hot
 the kitchen get's hot, you get hot going to the store you get hot bringing the stuff inside from the store..

it's just plain
HOT!

There are many positives to the summer but that's not one of them and  what's wrong with eating fruits in their natural state? 

I'm not killing one more piece of fruit with sugar. 

 This summer will be different.

I will try. 

It's the fall I fall in love with.

So if it takes that long.

so 

be

it.

 And by then it'll be Apple season

Who's in a Pie?

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day baking pies for an upcoming BBQ.  It's been quite a while since I've done this because the last 2-3 years I 've been unable to stand for long periods of time. I accomplished that task quite well, my knee is working great.  My patience is another matter, I forgot how time consuming pies were.  I was a little restless, but hours later I made 4 pies and was really hoping to add a 5th but wasn't about to dirty another dish.  

By 4pm I had washed all the dishes and the last pie was cooling.  

Yeah!

I have learned through the years, no matter what I plan on making, most generally it takes a turn and morphs into something else entirely.  Like the winter scarf I was making for a friend, it was suppose to be a surprise.  The surprise was on me, it ended up in the shape of an L instead of one long scarf.  Good thing his last name started with an L.  We laughed about that for days. 

 I did end up with 2 blueberry pies and a peach, the other one was another story only because the blackberries I bought were terrible, they are going back from whence they came.

I don't understand how the women in these baking and cooking blogs do it.  Stopping to take photos step by step.

   Not that it was difficult, it's just tedious. 

( If anyone is interested in how I made these pies go to Tasty Kitchen for the recipe)

I loved my pie baking, it's an end result that tastes good but never turns out the way I'd like it  in looks or it isn't usually pretty. I'd call that a future goal. 

I do have other plans with some miniature bakers this summer, we will be creating some good times as well as some amazing memories.  I'm sure there will be some Kodak moments, a term almost extinct in itself.

Elizabeth and Taryn

About..a lot of years ago I read a book of a woman who was born of French parents that moved to the USA.  All her life she was raised on Tarts, not pie.  Something in her made her curious for pie, so on a trek across the USA to her final destination in NY where she was moving she decided she would be in search of pie.  

The title is "American Pie" by Pascale Le Draoulec

Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads 

If you get the chance pick it up, it's a great read.

Oh and I'll take one
Eve with a Lid and a Cup of Joe