I baked a cake
Let me tell you, t'was not the easiest cake to bake, because I like to challenge myself and I also like to prove my friend's love for me by having them eat what could possibly be a very questionable baked good.
We can safely deduce that My friends love me
I have never baked anything more complicated than a tart, but I like to think I am a better baker than I actually am. I like baking and to me that translates to "I must be good at baking". So when I look for recipes, I look for sophisticated, beautiful recipes. The type of recipes that just by looking at it one would say " Incredible! this might not but beest madeth by the truest of bakers". yes in my mind "they" always sound like Shakespeare...
In my mind, one day I'll also own a little bakery or hip little coffee shop. Did I ever tell you guys how I don't like coffee? but that is beside the point, back to the cake I bak'd...
Pinterest is the holy grail of all things that make me practically a pro so there I went and searched high and low for the perfect cake to make for my friend's birthday. I picked a Brazilian Cake Recipe of a layered strawberry cake with a puff pastry in the middle that looked properly decadent. The recipe started with a "it's not as hard as it looks" disclaimer. Liars, the lot of them! Anything that starts with that kind of disclaimers is just begging you to fail.
Now, I am Brazilian, I can read, write and speak Portuguese but after living in America for almost 18 years, it seems like I am not well equipped to follow a recipe in Portuguese. Because baking is a science; a science that I learned the hard way. Who knew melted butter and room temperature butter actually make a difference? That was not my only struggle, though. Melting my butter was actually around struggle number four. Struggle number one was my stubbornness in not picking a recipe that used cups and tablespoons as measurements. My second struggle was that the recipe used grams as measurements and my third struggle is...why do we not use the The Metric System?
Tangent mode on --
Now, tell me why we in America use the Imperial System? No, but seriously, like I know that we wanted our independence to reflect in every form of our way living, but I seriously believe we have made our point. Motherland knows we are independent. Let's be sensible now and go back to the easier, multiples of 10 system, where freezing point is at actually 0 degrees and the abbreviations actually make sense. (Who abbreviated pounds and Inches!? Where is this enemy of logic from?)
- Fun Fact: Only 3 countries in the whole world uses the Imperial System. Can you guess them?
Tangent mode off --
Well, the recipe was in Portuguese and the measurement in grams, my measuring spoons and cups were left to feel inadequate, just like me. However, that is a feeling that I am getting very used to ignoring and so I managed. From the sponge cake that I had to make 3 times, because melted butter; to the sweet custard, and the cream of chantilly I had to make twice because table cream is something that needs to be drained but apparently recipes assume you know that already (for you none Brazilians table cream is our version of heavy cream, except it needs to be drained... sometimes), to the puffy dough center and to the white chocolate ganache... all made from scratch and assembled like the Avengers if they were layers in a cake.
According to the recipe, it should have take me 2 hours and 30 minutes from beginning to end. It took me nearly 4 hours -- But I conquered. I conquered this little surprise of a cake I was baking and If anything, I knew it would at least look like I knew what I was doing.
That's my cake!
Look at it!!
Did I mention that I was baking this as a surprise? I was. I was meeting my friend at her house the next day to play board games with my husband, her and her boyfriend and stuff our faces with too-big-to-bite burgers and a bucket of candied bacon in honor of her birthday. And no birthday is complete without cake. But Around midnight the night before as I was finishing the white chocolate ganache -- the very last layer of this promising cake, My friend texts me to cancel out shindig because her boyfriend pulled a back muscle while working. The poor guy.
But no.
ain't no way.
ain't no how.
No pulled muscle is keeping this determined, incredibly stubborn, practically a baker from having you have my cake and eating it too. You are going to have my cake that you don't even know exists and then you are going to eat it and I'll will be praying that it's at least edible, but if you like it, that's the miracle I'm praying for.
So I kindly told her I might still be dropping by to give her a birthday hug and maybe bring something to lift her boyfriend's spirit -- my cake. Now, before you call me impertinent, her boyfriend is actually one of my and my husband's closest friend and he knows my antics pretty well. We showed up with cake and a warning "Made with love, not skill".
And guess what?
Nobody died!! Sure it wasn't Betty Crooker or Martha Steward, but some even had seconds!
Mission accomplished!