Adventures in Domesticity

So today, I baked a cake.

I hadn't baked in awhile before this; I think the last baked good my mixer whipped up was the cookies for my class at the end of the semester. Maybe some pizza dough. But tonight, for some reason, I was in the mood.

Now, it wasn't necessarily the ideal time for baking. Since it was sweltering outside this afternoon, the house, and the kitchen in particular, was quite warm. Turning on the oven did not help this situation. But I perservered, and went about choosing a recipe - for chocolate cake, at Andy's request. Those that looked easiest and most reliable (New Best Recipe, Alice Waters, etc) all required buttermilk that I didn't have, so I resorted to the Bittman's chocolate cake recipe in How to Cook Everything. Now, while Bittman is without rival in terms of giving ideas, the general gist, the bones of a meal, I know from experience his baking recipes aren't the best out there. So I didn't have hopes that it would come out perfect.

So I measured, and mixed, and measured and mixed more. The damn recipe required THREE BOWLS, two mixers and innumerable other utensils. A one-bowl cake it was not. But whatever...and it was actually quite satisfying to whip the egg whites and fold them in, and see the batter become amazingly airy. The batter went in pans, then into the oven.

Now, if you know me well, you probably know I'm really sensitive and particular about my baking reputation. I made both the filling and the cake layers for Andy's birthday cake twice to make sure they would be good, and I made Andy take credit for a failed batch of oatmeal cookies when he gave them to his class. Granted, I have obstacles that aren't my fault - a terrible oven and a limited budget - but I always feel like my mistakes, whether in taste or appearance, reflect directly on me, and thus i hide them.

So when I realized I had put both the stick of butter meant for the cake AND the one softening for icing in the batter, I was rather upset. And though the cakes did set, they were aesthetically unappealing and prone to crumbling. And then the icing I made according to Bittman's specifications was too thin. And when I assembled the cake, the top layer split *spectacularly*, making for sort of a San Andreas Fault cake.

My initial reaction was not to ever show it to anyone outside the apartment. But then, upon tasting it and realizing it was fine in that regard, I decided that no one would judge me for its appearance if it brought chocolatey joy to the taste buds. So I brought it to Andy's, and I even got a few compliments.

I'm not sure what the point of this is...I guess the story is kind of, in retrospect, an allegory* about other failures of confidence on my part. My work in classes? Fine. Certainly up to task. But when it fails to meet my standards, to be perfect, I don't want anyone else to see it as I feel it reflects directly on me. Or in teaching. Or whatever.

But I brought this imperfect cake out, and everyone was glad to have it. So maybe this is a new leaf for me.



* So one of my huge pet peeves, discovered lately, is when children's media improperly defines words and concepts for young kids - ie, when Arthur defined a rhetorical question as "a question you ask even though you already know the answer." Um...no. So Melia is in a musical version of 101 Dalmations this summer, and we listen to the soundtrack all the time in the car. And the lyrics in the opening song contain the following: "Listen to our puppy allegory/that's another word for funny story." Umm...no it's not. At all. So annoying.