I wasn’t kidding when I said I would try to stretch this birthday out.
Tonight I returned to the kitchen for the first time in weeks. I think I washed out in about my eighth month of pregnancy and mom has been handling the honors since she got here.
The thing is, I love to be in the kitchen and I’m awfully attached to controlling the nutritional input for my family. I’m far from perfect, but at least I can control whether I’m hitting my own minimum standards.
I decided that tonight is “birthday dinner” night and I would cook and then bake a cake.
Sidebar: I’ve latched on to the idea that every year I am going to bake my sons’ birthday cakes with my own little hands. Not from scratch, mind you. But at least I cracked the eggs, I ran the mixer, and — whatever the end result may be — it came out of my oven.
Last year I made an abomination of a monkey cake.
It did taste great.
This year I decided to take it down a level and make a rainbow cake. It went fine until about here:
I baked it as long as the box instructed. And then a little longer. When the toothpick came out clean I took it out to cool. But about ten minutes after that it became clear the cake wasn’t really done. I threw it back in the oven and dumped a plate of store-bought cookies on the table. Everyone got a glass of milk for dunking. Birthday dinner will carry over until tomorrow if it turns out that the extra bake time finished off the cake. If not I’ll just save up the rest of my fumbling for next year.
On a more successful note, I made white wine risotto with roasted shrimp, tomato and thyme for dinner and it was delicious. Alden spent the entire meal begging for his fourth serving of pickled okra.
And now, unrelated, let me see if I’ve got this video posting thing down. I took this months ago and finally managed to get it from camera to computer.
jaysaint 
Posted by satogaeru on October 12, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I like the monkey cake! It’s adorable!
My mom made me a gorgeous strawberry shortcake for my first birthday and improved on every cake thereafter. The bar is impossibly high for me. I go storebought more often than not.
Posted by satogaeru on October 12, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I like the monkey cake! It’s adorable!
My mom made me a gorgeous strawberry shortcake for my first birthday and improved on every cake thereafter. The bar is impossibly high for me. I go storebought more often than not.
Posted by jaysaint on October 15, 2009 at 2:32 am
Thanks!
We finally did wind up pitching the rainbow cake, so not only will his cake be store-bought this year, it will be a week late. Fortunately, Alden’s feeling (and really, life philosophy) is that all cake is good cake.
Posted by geobabe1 on October 12, 2009 at 5:12 pm
The monkey cake is cute! I made a Thomas cake for the boys last year that I thought was awful, but everybody else said looked great.
That video was too cute. “ROOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRR” *squeal*
Posted by geobabe1 on October 12, 2009 at 5:12 pm
The monkey cake is cute! I made a Thomas cake for the boys last year that I thought was awful, but everybody else said looked great.
That video was too cute. “ROOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRR” *squeal*
Posted by jaysaint on October 15, 2009 at 2:32 am
You were my inspiration! You always put up those cute dude videos and every time I watch one I think: I have *got* to learn how to upload videos.
Posted by jaysaint on October 15, 2009 at 2:32 am
Thanks!
We finally did wind up pitching the rainbow cake, so not only will his cake be store-bought this year, it will be a week late. Fortunately, Alden’s feeling (and really, life philosophy) is that all cake is good cake.
Posted by jaysaint on October 15, 2009 at 2:32 am
You were my inspiration! You always put up those cute dude videos and every time I watch one I think: I have *got* to learn how to upload videos.