Forty-Five and Counting...

This marks my 45th blog entry. I am glad that I have had this much to say about what I've been up to, however, to my four readers, I must apologize for my lack of updates since the summer.

This year has been a big one for me. I am venturing outside of what I know and trying to learn to do new things. I have been lucky to count many successes, but a few of the failures were very hard felt.

I had never baked my grandmother a birthday cake before. My attempt was a valiant one; yellow cake with layers of rich chocolate butter-cream, and frosted with chocolate and pink roses with pink dots. It was beautiful, I was very proud of my work and was thrilled to do it for my grandmother. However, when we cut into it, the moist cake had dried and become crumbly. It was a shadow of it's potential, and it made me feel awful.

However, you pick yourself up and move on. A few months later it was my grandfather's turn. I thought, "Okay, a chance to redeem myself. He wants a chocolate cake, and I can do that!" I ruined 3 cakes before giving up.

I still don't know what I did wrong with that recipe. I followed to the letter, and I've made it plenty of times before. One exploded, one imploded, and the last one caved in on itself. We ended up buying a cake from Tripoli's, and I seemed to be doomed to never again bake a cake to my usual perfection.

These things are common in the life of anyone who strives to succeed at something. You cannot achieve success without trudging through some failures. Of course I seemed to think myself above and beyond such disasters; when clearly there are many more yet to come.

That being said I am sorry to the four of you and myself for not keeping up the writing. I've done so much in the last few months that I am proud of. The puff pastry...God that stuff is good. And I made so much with it...I tried quiche with it, and Torte Milanese, and French pork puffs for Thanksgiving, and the list, much like the "beat" goes on.

Coming soon: Le Tarte Tatin!