OMFG, it has been a busy week! Even the puppy is exhausted, and he has frosting all over his furry little ears. So do I, for that matter, though it’s probably made its way directly into my brain at this point, since I don’t have a luscious coating of golden, velvet fur to protect my ear canal like Willie does. I took on a LOT of projects for other people, and am currently stalling to avoid beginning the cleaning of my house for a dinner we’re hosting at our house tonight for a guy from Chris’s department and his wife (and possibly their baby, though I haven’t received confirmation of such, making me wonder if I need to mash up a banana and stop eating all the Cheerios in the pantry to feed said baby.) I’m doing a beef burgundy (boeuf bourgignon?) from my Cordon Bleu book, which I’m excited about. Also, I’m serving up my Baker’s Challenge, which I still can’t tell you about, but will take plenty of pictures for July 30th posting!
The whole “posting on craigslist” to make cakes for people has taken off like wildfire. I made 11 cakes this week. ELEVEN. So I’ve taken some pictures of a few to show you:
So this is the most bizarre request. A guy emailed me, using very, very formal wording, to request a cake that didn’t contain soybeans or peanuts because his wife is very allergic to them. His email address contained the word “alien” and he wanted his cake to be “alien themed.” His reasoning for this was that his daughter, for whom the cake was being baked, acts as though she’s from Pluto. Yeah, guy, whatever. I’ll make your cake. So I labored to find ingredients that didn’t have soy, as I’ve previously mentioned, and made a delightful alien cake with handwriting on it that doesn’t look quite so obviously as though it were applied by an epileptic (as mine usually does). Good for me! He picked it up yesterday and looked EXACTLY LIKE THE ALIEN ON THE CAKE. Seriously. Chris saw him and agreed with me completely. His face was all pockmarked and narrow, and he wouldn’t make eye contact with me. His wife was in the van with him (yeah. A van.) and was the size and shape of Jabba the Hut, which I thought was weird, since the guy was sooooo narrow and stringy-looking. I figure she probably decided early on that she was allergic to soy and has determined that, since she can’t eat tofu on a regular basis, she will eat butter that has been SHAPED into slabs of tofu. Huuuuuuumongous. They took the cake, which is also mostly comprised of butter and is, if I say so myself, completely delicious. I hope they like it. I also hope they don’t come back, kidnap me, and probe me in a sacrifice to their alien warlord. Because they looked like the kind of folk who do that to unsuspecting blonde girls…
So I am really proud of this cake. You can’t really tell from this picture, but it’s really detailed and brightly colored. It’s Dora the Explorer themed, and is for a 2 year old girl’s birthday party tomorrow. They’re picking it up tonight at 6, and I’m really excited to see their reaction. I don’t know much about Dora the Explorer, except that she’s a little Mexican girl, and is incredibly irritating because WHO DECIDED that Dora the Explorer rhymed?!? I’d respect it so much more if it were, like, Dora the Explora and it was just assumed that it was Mexebonics. Why people want their children exposed to this kind of laziness is beyond me. My kids will watch Carebears and TMNT (Turtle Power!) and that’s it. Because at the very least they don’t contain shoddy rhyming.
Ta-da! My first wedding cake! It’s a tiny one, just meant to be a centerpiece on the head table, but it’s kind of cute. The secret is that the flowers on top are NOT edible flowers, because I couldn’t find any on such short notice. The guy at the florist assured me they hadn’t been sprayed, so they’re “safe”, but to be honest the guy looked like he didn’t know the difference between pesticide and chocolate milk, so who knows. I guess WE will,when I post my blog about the lawsuit for poisoning a lucky couple! The good story about this one is that, like the rest of my “clients” who are scanning the “free” ads on craigslist, the woman who called was quite clearly poor. She wanted a wedding cake for $20, and when I asked if a lime buttercream was okay, she asked if that was just frosting to which I added lime juice. I gave her a really condescending answer, but it was via email so she couldn’t exactly detect my disgust.
These are twin cakes for a Mr. Carlos. He asked for a black forest cake, which was exciting to me because I absolutely adore black forest cake. Moist chocolate cake soaked in kirsch (a cherry brandy), filled with cooked, sweet cherry goo, and covered in whipped heavy cream and chocolate shavings. *Drool* I told him that I’d be happy to comply, and then mentioned kirsch, at which point he requested one without for the children. Whatever. Kids behave much, much better with a solid dose of brandy in their tiny systems. I didn’t assure him he’d have a better time if he fed the kids boozy cake, but agreed to make one with and one without. So they’re identical, except the boozy one is bigger because I respect it more. The downside is that I am DESPERATE to eat these cakes. Right now. I wrapped them in foil to freeze them up so they’d not have all their whipped cream melted off from the Texas heat en route to his party. He should be here this afternoon, and I hope he’s appropriately grateful for my restraint in not pre-eating them.
Finally, Chris was in charge of a big lecture this Friday (and the next two Fridays) and part of that involves bringing food. Normally, this would make me ecstatic, but this week was extra busy so it was a slightly less joyful chore for me. I still enjoyed it, though, I won’t lie. I made him a big pot of homemade green chili with melted jack cheese mixed in to the point of becoming a fundido (Spanish for “fondue”). I call it fundido instead of queso because I loathe traditional queso in all of its repulsive, processed-cheese-glory. Ugh. It’ll go with corn tortilla chips, and is currently bubbling away in the crock pot cauldron in Chris’s office. I also made him a big batch of chocolate butter pecan bars, with a layer of homemade caramel and two kinds of Guittard chocolate melted over the top. I wanted to eat them, too. Actually, I’ve been on a diet this week, and have lost a pound or two despite being bludgeoned with sweet foods all day, every day. To be honest, the effort of not stuffing my face with various cakes and frostings has me worn out. Nobody should have to bake this much without getting to eat it, right??
Okay. I can’t put off dusting any longer. Except possibly to bake bread, which is what I think I’ll do instead…