If I could write lines to a parody of Sh*t Girls Say for Sh*t Food Bloggers Say, they would go something like this:
“No you may not eat that slice of cake! I haven’t taken a picture of it yet!”
“We are eating dinner tonight at 3 p.m. because the light is better. Get hungry!”
“Hey! I need you to stop watching TV – like right NOW – and pour this batter into that pan for me so that I can get an action shot.”
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Do you remember that time I made 150 cake pops in my shoebox a.k.a. my kitchen?
Do you also remember that time that I had never made one single cake pop and decided that my first attempt should include one hundred and fifty to be given away as favors at my friends’ wedding.
It’s okay – we can all laugh now at the ridiculousness of how I didn’t think I needed a test round. This is a happy story!
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are going to make more than one dozen cake pops for a wedding where actual people will be enjoying them – then this post is for you. I am here to tell you that you can do it and it will all be fine.
It was an absolute honor to be involved in the wedding of my dear friends and to be able to give the gift of baking to everyone at the celebration.
Baking makes [married] friends!
I learned a few things along the way. The most important being organization. Make lists. Try to anticipate all the scenarios that you are going to encounter on your journey. Clean out your fridge. Buy supplies. Go back and get more chocolate after you wake up in the middle of the night thinking that four pounds of white chocolate just won’t be enough. Chart out a timeline and work backwards.
In my case the cake pops were being picked up Thursday. I did supply shopping on Monday. Food shopping (did I mention that I made everything from scratch!) on Tuesday. A bit of unanticipated wine-drinking happened on Wednesday night but I didn’t let that stand in the way of the schedule so I baked five cakes beginning at 11:43 p.m. I woke up on Thursday at 8:07 a.m. for My Big Day (cake poppin’ of course).
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I am always a little late to the party.
I mean this both literally and figuratively as I am always 15 minutes late to a party and I am without fail about eight to twelve months behind on most things pop culture-related.
You know Angry Birds? Do you play? I just started and now can’t put my phone DOWN!
Have you heard of The Hunger Games?
Dude. Whoa. First book: done! You guys, I am obsessed.
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I finally – 100% for real this time – put my winter coats into storage. Therefore I thought it was time to celebrate the official start of spring by having a margarita. Nothing says the start of warm weather like tequila.
We will get to the margs but first I am also going to blow your mind at the alliteration that was going on in my life over the weekend.
This week marked me being one year older and instead of celebrating with a cake I threw a Brown (sugar) Biscuit, Bacon, Bloody (mary) Bar Birthday Brunch.
I don’t call this Butter Me Up Brooklyn for nothing.
A bloody mary bar is just about the best way to have a party. Make a few pitchers of mix the night before, dig out your ice bucket and set out little bowls filled with toppings like cheese cubes, bacon, tiny pickles, olives, and some sort of spice purchased in a Mexican gas station last summer.
First step: set up a little bar. Glasses, ice – a tiny spoon that snuck its way into the shot – and you are good to go.
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It was pretty clear from the get go I was never going to be a musician and be able to join the family band.
After months of failed flute lessons, some gnarly guitar sessions and a few pathetic attempts at what one could only call a piano recital, I was finally allowed decided to throw in the towel.
Which I threw right over my shoulder and headed into the kitchen without looking back.
My family – including aunts, uncles, and cousins – all have a serious gift when it comes to musical talent. Making music comes easy to them. Impromptu jam sessions happen when two or more members are in the same room at a family event and there is a fork and a water glass nearby.
Impromptu jam sessions happen to me when I unexpectedly receive four pounds of peaches in August.
They see a tambourine as a musical instrument. I see a tambourine as a unique and whimsical serving platter for cookies which happens to also announce its own arrival.
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I do not own a teapot.
One could argue that I know plenty of other life skills to make up for it, such as how to correctly address a formal letter to the Italian Consulate of New York, or that boiling a pan with a bit of water and baking soda will dissolve away any trace of a lingering sauce, or bake booze into anything and you have the best party trick OF ALL TIME.
All these important tidbits aside, you are full-grown when you have a teapot you can call your own.
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1. Ahh! Look at this short video from the time this weekend that I made lemon buttermilk cupcakes with foraged violets with Vanessa from krrb.com! The violets are a product of “urban foraging” which is a fancy way of saying that I live in a city and don’t know what plants are. Oh you mean I can’t get them at Duane Reade?
2. Today is Wednesday, April 25 and is the second to last day to vote on Saveur’s Best Food Blog Awards. Have you voted yet? Yes? Oh wow! You are awesome! No? No worries! You have until tomorrow at 11:59 (ET).
3. Creamsicles are pretty much all I want to eat in the summer so I’m just going to go ahead and fast forward spring and focus right on summer.
You with me?
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Scone Sunday yesterday happened to also coincide with a rainy and quite lazy day spent indoors. Indoors refers mostly to “in the kitchen” since that laundry did not get folded and put away or even washed for that matter.
But I had needed a day to finally have an excuse to put the mascarpone that had been staring me down every time I opened the fridge into something delicious. I had originally picked up a container after an idea for a tart filling had made its way onto my well-managed sticky note collection of “things to make in the near or not so distant future”.
Like most everything that ends up on these lists, the actual physical execution of said tart never came to be, and the mascarpone is just one of many examples of a well-intentioned idea turned entirely different real-life result.
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I find that I have to balance my baking with a low to moderate level of crafting. For every sheet pan of brownies that comes out of the oven, there is some little project coming out of the craft box I keep in the closet.
Greeting cards! Beads! You name it! If it can fit in the box then I’ve made it!
This is my latest.
Made on the super cheap, all you need to make this tissue paper tassel garland is tissue paper, a string of sorts, and scissors.
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I really like cereal.
I mean I really like cereal in the way that I wish I could install several cafeteria-style dispensers in my kitchen.
I do not have a single drawer but I would give up that dream in return to have several varieties of cereal always on hand and ready to tumble when I saw fit.
I am only slightly exaggerating.
Many meals of my day involve cereal. It is a no-brainer meal. Thus the multiple varieties I would like to always have on hand with the dispenser! It only makes sense.
Sigh. A girl can only dream.
The makers of cereal know that one usually eats cereal alone, staring directly ahead, and reflexively using a spoon to shovel cereal into ones mouth. This is why they decided that they should probably entertain you during your several solitary moments by providing fun games, trivia, crossword puzzles and new recipes to try. I bet most cereal-eaters could recite the nutritional information of their preferred brand by heart because between the box and junk mail on the table, the box probably wins their attention nine times out of ten.
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