Some Thoughts While Making a Cake

-Inspiration for deep and shallow thought. This post is mostly the latter.-

I made myself a little birthday cake this weekend as I turned 27. I figured, why not? It wasn't that I was desiring cake, needed to make a wish for some yearning desire, or was to have a huge shindig to share it with others. The impetus just suddenly struck me, like a hand reached into my brain found the bakery string, and plucked it.

"I'm going to make a cake." So I did. It was cake for the sake of cake. Cake doesn't have to have a reason to exist and it does not question itself. Cake just is.

Still, I do have some thoughts and musing to share that occurred to me in the making of this cake. But that's all they are. Thoughts and musings.

To begin with, fuck Williams-Sonoma. Seriously, you guys. What the hell?

On a similar note, hooray for restaurant supply stores who sell the exact same brand of cake pans as Williams-Sonoma for $6.95 as opposed to $30.00. Honestly, I was so flabbergasted I actually used the word, and I'm not a fan of it. (It sounds silly, like serendipity, another word that should be aborted out of the English language.)

I am amazed at the total cost difference from wholesale supply stores sometimes. Honestly, it's shocking that every time I go to a high end store how people are willing to put down enough money to buy the same item at a fraction of the price elsewhere. But, then again, I suppose if you have thirty smackers for a cake pan then saving that thirty smackers isn't probably a concern for you. Then, by all means, spend as you will. I know I have a few fiscal habits I can't rightly justify except for the fact of "because," "I want to," and "shut up."

Now, as for the cake itself I used Dorie Greenspan's cocoa buttermilk birthday cake recipe. It's a good recipe. Reliable. Efficient. Easy. I didn't add the melted chocolate, an optional step, and I wish I had so that the resulting cake would have had a deeper chocolate flavor. Ah well, I was aiming for speed in the kitchen that Saturday morning. Still, it's a recipe I would use again.

Frosting-wise I used the leftover Swiss Buttercream I burned myself making in the Advanced pastry class in May. That stuff lasts forever. It's also richer than the wealthiest sheiks in the Middle East. Seriously, a spoonful of that stuff could give a racehorse a heart attack. Any time I have a slice of this cake five minutes later I become spontaneously diabetic with the desire to eat nothing but light salads for the rest of my life. Oh, but the taste. It tastes so frickin' good.

And yes, 27. In the movie Logan's Run your Lastday is age 21. That's six years a runner. I had the first actual fear of 30 the other day. I used to mock people of that fear saying that you should just get over it and deal with it. Now I get it. The time is going by too quickly. Crap. I still have yet to ever buy a lotto ticket, see the Northern lights, or go sky diving.

Better get on those lists people. Time is going by.

-I also muse about pie but it usually involves peyote and reruns of Xena.-