The first time I ever baked something "real," I was pretty terrified. I don't mean "open a cake mix" or whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies from the back of the chips package or slice prefabbed cookie dough and shove it in the oven - I'm talking about REAL baking. Like sifting cake flour, creaming your butter and sugar, adding your eggs one at a time - even if there's 6 of them and it takes 10 minutes, adding real flavored oils, batter that makes everyone drop their jaws. THAT kind of baking. I've kind of been lucky in that all my life if I felt like doing something, I just did it. I'd think, "I bet I could do that," and then I would do it. Maybe lucky isn't the right word. Maybe it's boldness or dumbness. Whatever it is, I seem to have had it.
The same thing happened with cakes. Not saying I was just instantly good at it - just saying that like many other things I've been interested in over the years, I just suddenly one day out of the blue decided that I felt like baking cakes. And so I did it. Whether I do it well or not, I suppose is still up in the air.
Maybe I'd seen one too many episodes of "Cake Boss" or something. God knows there's a ton of those shows on t.v. to choose from. One day, my husband, Gary, and I were watching some dude on t.v. bake. Well, I was watching. Gary was pretending to watch, but had his laptop open and was really surfing the net and was doing that fake "look up and smile and nod" thing every few minutes just to appease me. Baker dude on t.v. was making a pretty amazing cake and I told Gary, "I bet I could do that." And because he's the bestest husband in the wide world, he had my back and said, "Of course you could."
All of a sudden I was picking little things up here and there in preparation for the big baking event (which was actually for cupcakes, not a cake). It was a baby shower for a co-worker who's been a friend of mine for nearly 20 years, way before we ever worked together. I really wanted to do something special for her. I just took this huge leap of faith and thought, "I'm not making 'normal people' cupcakes. I'm making wow-factor cupcakes." (Disclaimer on the "normal people" comment, which is a crappy thing to say, and I fully acknowledge that it's not PC.)
I was happy with my little cupcakes in the end, but as Gary jokingly noted, I realized about 20 hours into the decorating process that if I was ever going make a living by baking, I'd have to charge about $300 a dozen for my cupcakes. Lucky for us, I'm not planning on quitting my day job any time soon.
The same thing happened with cakes. Not saying I was just instantly good at it - just saying that like many other things I've been interested in over the years, I just suddenly one day out of the blue decided that I felt like baking cakes. And so I did it. Whether I do it well or not, I suppose is still up in the air.
Maybe I'd seen one too many episodes of "Cake Boss" or something. God knows there's a ton of those shows on t.v. to choose from. One day, my husband, Gary, and I were watching some dude on t.v. bake. Well, I was watching. Gary was pretending to watch, but had his laptop open and was really surfing the net and was doing that fake "look up and smile and nod" thing every few minutes just to appease me. Baker dude on t.v. was making a pretty amazing cake and I told Gary, "I bet I could do that." And because he's the bestest husband in the wide world, he had my back and said, "Of course you could."
All of a sudden I was picking little things up here and there in preparation for the big baking event (which was actually for cupcakes, not a cake). It was a baby shower for a co-worker who's been a friend of mine for nearly 20 years, way before we ever worked together. I really wanted to do something special for her. I just took this huge leap of faith and thought, "I'm not making 'normal people' cupcakes. I'm making wow-factor cupcakes." (Disclaimer on the "normal people" comment, which is a crappy thing to say, and I fully acknowledge that it's not PC.)
I was happy with my little cupcakes in the end, but as Gary jokingly noted, I realized about 20 hours into the decorating process that if I was ever going make a living by baking, I'd have to charge about $300 a dozen for my cupcakes. Lucky for us, I'm not planning on quitting my day job any time soon.
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