Fruit Cake (but not fruitcake)

I feel like I am drowning in cakes made with fresh fruit lately. The strawberry shortcake, the orange marmalade cake (omg, I still dream about how good that was), and now three more cakes made with the abundant summer fruit available. Best season for food. I dread winter and its drab ingredients. Good thing I have months before that happens.

The cake from three weeks ago was called the Great Flower Cake, so named because it looks like a flower once assembled. It utilizes a massive amount of whipped cream and strawberries, which seemed fantastic when reading through the recipe, until I saw the "Cake Assembly" section. This section is reserved for particularly complicated cakes, such as the Yule Log. I nervously went back to look at the pan preparation, and sure enough, there it was: a jelly roll pan. A roll cake?! NOOOOOOO...

 I begged Tim, Maureen, and Chris to come over (and by begged I mean, "Hey, wanna help me make a cake?") to help me maintain composure and sanity during what was sure to be an epic adventure. I was nervous from the start, because the cake part of said roll contains no flour, getting its delicate structure from eggs and pecans, which made it extra nerve-wracking to flip out of the piping hot pan. The filling was simply rum-flavored whipped cream (it was supposed to be Grand Marnier, but I had rum, and I figured daiquiris combine strawberry and rum, so I just went for it), easily prepared and spread thickly on top of the flat cake. Then came the moment of truth. Thankfully, instead of having to roll the whole giant cake, I had to cut the cake lengthwise into long, thin strips, and roll the individual strips, one around the other, to make a giant cinnamon roll-looking cake (or a cake roughly the size of one regular Cinnabon... Emily: Do I sit in it or eat it? :-p ). The delicateness of the cake required two sets of hands, which Maureen helped me with, while Tim took copious amounts of pictures, which actually look pretty cool...

The cake was then topped with strawberry slices in a spiral pattern to look like a flower, and glazed with a blackberry jelly and rum glaze (supposed to be currant jelly and Grand Marnier, but... sometimes you gotta improvise. Where do you even find currant jelly?!). Dr. Robinson promises that the cake is worth the effort, and that was not a lie--the four of us ate almost the entire thing. It was fantastic. The cake was not too sweet and a texture somewhere just between crisp and soft, complimented perfectly by the sweet, airy whipped cream, and the tart, juicy berries. There are no words that can do it justice.

I was kind of taken aback when reading the chapter accompanying this cake. Apparently, Dr. R was interviewing for a position at a university in Atlanta the week she made this cake. Somewhere that would "hire [her] and give [her] lots of money" and give her the funding to "make [her] mark as a scientist," which she felt she had not yet done. In the end, she chose to turn down the position, because she didn't want to give up her short commute, lovely neighborhood, and the good schools for an Atlanta commute. (Amen to that.) I wonder which university it was... Georgia State? Georgia Tech? Emory? Is that why she suggested Emory when I said I wanted to go somewhere in the southeast? I had no idea she had interviewed here. And here I am, I left the comfort of my home for an Atlanta commute. Was it worth it? Actually, probably. I just hope that Dr. R feels now that she has made her mark as a scientist. Or at least is content with the fact that she has made her mark as a mentor, a writer, and no doubt a parent.

The next week's cake was Hawaiian Wedding Cake. Which, after trying, solidified my decision that I should probably just live in Hawaii. Does food get any better? Coconut, pineapple, fresh fish, macadamia nuts, and those amazing purple sweet potatoes I can NEVER find to make myself. If this is what they eat at their weddings, I'm so in.

The cake is essentially carrot cake, but instead of shredded carrots, it uses shredded coconut. Before this little project, I felt somewhat ambivalent toward coconut. But my baking adventures made me realize... I LOVE coconut. Seriously. I cannot get enough. So this cake was fantastic to start with. But then it was also filled with pineapple and pecans and topped with cream cheese icing (another direct line to my heart). So good, and so easy, and so perfect for summer. It was a hit in the office as well.

This week's cake was peach upside down cake. Upside down cakes rank just below jelly roll cakes on the list of Cakes That Scare Liz too Badly to Bake. There's too much flipping of hot pans and magic involved. Especially when you don't have the right pan. I was supposed to use a cast iron skillet, which is something I dearly desire, but I don't have one and after a month of surprise bills and subsisting off left over baked beans from a graduate school mixer (no, seriously, there were so many beans, they have lasted a month), I was not about to spend $15.95 on one. That's like a week's worth of groceries if I eat rice with frozen vegetables and yogurt. So I used the alternative plan outlined in the book, which was to wrap a springform pan tightly in aluminum foil. I melted the butter and brown sugar in the bottom, lined the bottom with peaches and cherries (ugh, cherries... apparently an essential part of upside down cake and another reason not to make them) and pecans, made the ridiculously thick batter and coaxed it into the pan. Then I baked it and flipped the hot pan as described.

When you use a cast iron skillet, the walls are very low and when the pan is flipped over, the bottom of the cake will touch the cake plate. A springform pan, however, has very high walls, so when it is flipped over, the cake is left hanging precariously by it's top from the bottom of the pan. Not thinking of this, I released the side of the springform pan, and... WHAM! My cake went crashing to the plate. When my heart resumed beating, I carefully pulled off the pan bottom. While the structural integrity of one side of the cake was questionable, the rest of the cake seemed alright. Almost pretty, in fact. I took it to Tim and Maureen's, where we again devoured about 2/3 of the cake. It was actually quite good... the cake was slightly crumbly and almost velvety in texture, and the sweet brown sugar glazed peaches showcased the fantastic early peaches we're getting now. (I tried to eat as few cherries as possible... Maureen, who shares my aversion to cherries, described them as not bad, but not essential. Agreed.)

And now, a Cake, Hope, and Love special report, brought to you by Liz's Lab: My boss's birthday is this week. We always have a little celebration, with a card and a cake. This year, when the planning commenced, I volunteered to make the cake if people would pitch in a couple dollars to help with ingredients, so we wouldn't have to worry about buying one. I have been thinking that if I really want to open a vineyard bakery one day, I can't just steal other people's recipes, so I need to get creative. I used this as opportunity. Instead of choosing a cake recipe, I chose 4, and modified. I used the dark chocolate cake from the New Orleans chocolate cake (I still dream about that one, too), the chocolate frosting from the Perfect Chocolate Cake (the very first cake made for this project), the meringue buttercream from the Yule Log (hey, I just said I wasn't making the log again... the individual parts were delicious) flavored with vanilla instead of white chocolate, and used the protocol (wow... I'm obviously a scientist) for the orange marmalade filling from the Orange Marmalade cake to make a raspberry filling. It took me 4 hours, and my kitchen looked like a war zone, but it actually came out beautifully. I'm so proud. I have clearly come a long way in my cake baking and decorating skills. Now... we just have to hope it tastes as wonderful as it looks...

Strawberries and Cream... and Oranges

Ah, late spring and early summer... the best time of year for food.  The weather is warm, the sun is brilliant, produce is bright and colorful again after the dull colors of winter, berries are in season and available for infinite uses, and seasonal dishes are light, crisp, and refreshing.  The cake recipes from the past two weeks fit excellently into this time of year.

Two weeks ago, the cake recipe was a Strawberries and Cream Shortcake.  I was visiting Randy for Princeton's Reunion Weekend.  Imagine slightly to highly intoxicated old people wandering between white tents with makeshift bars and cover bands sprawled over the perfectly manicured lawns of the architecturally stunning campus of Princeton University, and that's pretty much reunion weekend.  Barbecues, bands, and beers.  Among the other festivities, we were to attend two barbecues in one day, so I made this cake to take to one.  (Side note: I remade the Tres Leches cake for the other, and doubled the recipe and used a 9x13 pan.  Upon eating it again, I fully realized the extent of its greatest.  It's in the top 10 from this project.  Maybe the top 5.  And it was quite the conversation starter... it made a good impression on Randy's boss and labmates, who I was meeting for the first time.  Thank you, Tres Leches.)

WAAAAYYY back at the beginning of this whole adventure, I had to make a raspberry shortcake, and it was the saddest, most disappointing-looking cake ever.  I couldn't split the cake in half evenly, I didn't have enough raspberries, and my frosting skills were sub-par.  So I was a bit nervous about making this cake for a bunch of people I'd never met.  But surprisingly... it came out beautifully.  I was so proud of how pretty it was... a true sign of how far my cake-making skills have advanced during this process.  While admiring the finished product, I didn't really care how it tasted, because gosh darn it, it looked impressive.  It received lots of compliments at the party as well.  If cakes could be vain, I know this one would have had an ego the size of Texas.

As for taste, however, I think it was kind of a let-down.  When people think of strawberry shortcake, they think of those weird spongy cakes with dents in the middle that you buy and throw some sliced strawberries and canned whipped cream (or Cool Whip... *shudder*) on top of.  But this cake was legitimate short cake, similar in texture to short bread, and the whipped cream was just barely sweetened, resulting in a denser, less sweet cake than expected.  But considering this cake as an independent entity, I think it's actually quite good... there's a great contrast in textures between the crumbly cake, the airy whipped cream, and the juicy berries, and it's light and refreshing, perfect on a hot day after burgers and beer.  It just didn't go over quite as well as I'd hoped.  I think it deserves a second chance at some point, though.  I personally enjoy it more than those cake sponges, and its a great use for strawberries when they're in season.

Last week's cake actually began as a fictitious cake.  It was an integral part in The Mitford Years Series, by Jan Karon, which means little to me.  Perhaps I should read them.  Regardless... the author created a character, named Esther Bolick, famous for baking cakes, and dreamed this cake into existence as the baker's specialty.  Apparently, many readers wrote to the author asking for the recipe, and she had to explain that it wasn't a real cake.  Finally, she gave in and collaborated with the authors of The Gift of Southern Cooking (hint: that would make a great birthday gift...) to make the imaginary cake a reality.  And so, the Orange Marmalade Cake was born.

Dr. Robinson notes, "It required almost every bowl I own, but it was so worth it."  That is pure fact.  Three layers, a filling, and a frosting... my kitchen looked like a battle ground when all was said and done.  But despite its many pieces, the cake is actually not too complicated, and it is, indeed, well worth it.  Dr. R also comments that "this cake is so pretty and cheerful that it is hope itself."  I'd have to agree with that as well.  It's beautiful when assembled, and it's so fresh and citrusy and bright, you can't help but feel warm and happy after your first bite.  This cake is definitely a top 5.  It has claimed a permanent spot in my regular repertoire.

I shared my first bites with Tim, Maureen, and Chris after a minor nervous breakdown at work.  Assembling and frosting the cake had been therapeutic and calming, and sharing it with friends lifted my spirits.  I brought the rest to work today.  We've all been having a pretty rough go of it lately, and the abysmally gloomy weather has done nothing for our moods, so cake seemed almost a necessity, and this one was particularly fitting... it brought a little sunshine into the overcast day and the overcast atmosphere in our lab.  It was well-received.  I love big cakes like this because there's so much that I can spread the joy beyond my own lab.  One of the PIs in my hall actually asked me if it was the cake from the Mitford books.  I was so amazed that someone knew the legend of the cake, and so excited that she recognized it by taste.  Maybe I am becoming a real-life Esther Bolick.  It's a position I would gladly accept.

A Month of Cakes

Yes, I still exist, and I am still baking my cakes. I’m four weeks behind. I don’t know how that happened, and it’s really just inexcusable. I don’t know what to say, other than to just get started with the many cake stories I have.

The cake from FOUR weeks ago (ugh) sounded promising: the Brownie Pudding Cake. According to the description, as this dessert bakes, “the cake rises to the top and leaves a layer of fudgy pudding below.” I was going to be at Randy’s, after traveling back to Princeton from Tim and Maureen’s wedding in Pittsburg (which was beautiful, by the way), and we were both looking forward to warm, chocolaty goodness on a relaxing day after a busy weekend.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get quite what we had hoped for. Instead of cake on top of a layer of pudding, we got a cake sitting in a pool of chocolate water. I was incredibly upset; I’ve had cakes come out not quite right, and I’ve had to take shortcuts here and there, but I have never had a cake totally fail. I read and re-read the recipe to assure myself I had done everything right. Then I ran a Hail Mary Google search on the off chance the recipe was available online and other bakers had run into the same difficulties. I was not disappointed. Thanks to the power of public comments, I read a plethora of tragic tales like my own involving this cake. Finally, I stumbled across a baker clearly much wiser than the rest of us, who revealed that the cake should be served with ice cream, and the “pudding” was more of a chocolate sauce to drizzle over the cake and ice cream combo. Curse this recipe’s misleading title. It should be called Brownie Sauce Cake, then, right?

The cake wasn’t totally awful; we didn’t have ice cream, so we just drizzled the sauce over our pieces of cake. It was rich and chocolaty and moist, but not quite the stunning dessert we had hoped for. I think this recipe is banished to the shelf with the Yule Log. Funnily, this chapter was about one of the Robinson daughter’s science fair projects, and Dr. R makes a statement that “the chemistry of cake is simple but not always fail proof.” I have always said that baking is more science and cooking is more art, and that’s why I excel at baking and should probably just give up on ever trying to cook. I’ve always liked baking, though, because, unlike science, it rarely fails. This cake was a somewhat cruel reminder that science is science, whether it involves agar plates, chemicals, and microorganisms or chocolate, eggs, and butter.

The following week’s cake was far more successful, and far more delicious: Tres Leches. I often see the Tres Leches cake on restaurant dessert menus, but didn’t really have a good concept of the physical manifestation of the cake. I now know that it’s pretty much exactly what the name implies: three types of milk. The cake part of a Tres Leches cake is a simple, thin, flat cake that appears rather unimpressive by itself. The magic comes from a combination of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, whole milk, and a touch of light rum, which is poured over the cake until the cake is saturated.

The recipe calls for 3 cups of this mixture, with a disclaimer that you might not need the entire amount. Looking at the thin little cake in front of me, I doubted I’d even need half. But that was one thirsty cake. I just kept pouring milk over it, and it kept absorbing. I went through 2.5 cups. I have no idea where it all went, but somehow that tiny little cake soaked up an exorbitant amount of liquid. The cake was then topped with whipped cream and chilled. Clearly not a cake for the lactose intolerant.

This cake was one highly anticipated pastry. The people at work were getting antsy and actually quite demanding because there hadn’t been cake in awhile. Also, we had several performances for dance over the last two weeks, and the girls in the small group I was rehearsing with discovered my cake project and were highly intrigued. The first question, of course, was why on earth would I do a silly thing like bake a cake every week for a year? I realized that I don’t really have a good answer to that. Either I have forgotten my original greater purpose, or it has evolved over the course of the project, or both. I think that now, having to bake a cake every week forces me to take some time alone with myself, to think or to not think, whichever it is I am needing that week. It also provides a guaranteed chance to make people smile. And making someone else smile is guaranteed to make you smile. And I need some reasons to smile right now. But I will reflect on this more later. Anyway, the second question, of course, was when would they get to partake in some of these baked goods? So the cake was well-traveled, and did not disappoint. It was fantastically moist (which I guess you would expect with 3 cups of milk in it…) without being overly heavy, and was just sweet enough. There were plenty of smiles all around. This one I will most definitely be making again.

I had the honor of baking for my dance group again the next week. It was the end of several weeks of late night rehearsals and the night before a weekend that would be full of performances, so as a reward and celebration, I whipped up the Caribbean Pineapple Corn Cake. The name alone hinted that it would be one of those cakes that made me question whether it should be served to people at all, and with a list of ingredients including creamed corn, crushed pineapple, and Monterey Jack cheese, I did experience a brief moment of hesitation as to whether I should take it to dance or just secretly suffer through it on my own. The moment was fleeting, though; after all the strange cakes I’ve made, my qualms with weird ingredients are shrinking. Remember the Tomato Cake.

So I took it to rehearsal, and it was fantastic. In fact, when I took the rest to work the next day, Bree said it might be her favorite so far. It definitely dances the line between cake and bread—it makes a lovely dessert for those with less fervent sweet teeth, but could also compliment barbeque and baked beans (and macaroni and cheese and collard greens… hmm… I’m in the mood for a good southern dinner just thinking about it.) The cake was super simple and is pot luck perfect, so I can see this one becoming a permanent part of my repertoire.

Finally, last week’s cake, which was probably the scariest on of the bunch. A gluten-free Garbanzo Cake, the main ingredient was chickpeas, which seemed a bit odd. While the ingredient list was short and the recipe looked simple enough, I had no idea what I was in store for me with the first step: remove the skins from the chickpeas. First of all, chickpeas have skins?! Who knew? The directions suggested rubbing the chickpeas between one’s palms to loosen and remove the skins. I gave it a go, and sure enough, chickpeas really do have skins. But the rub-between-palm method was not so successful, and I had to individual skin nearly two cans of chickpeas, a tedious task that left my kitchen covered in chickpea carnage.

Next, I had to food process the chickpeas, which turned them into essentially flour, which was simply mixed with the other ingredients and then the cake was baked. I invited Tim and Maureen over to partake, despite the fact that I was nervous the cake would taste like hummus, but when we tried it, there was no hint of chickpeas. It was moist and tasted like cinnamon and orange deliciousness. Skinning aside, it was kind of an interesting little science experiment. I actually know a lot of people who are gluten intolerant, so it’s nice to know I now have a cake I can contribute to events that they can eat, too.

I think that this chapter is my favorite in the book (I may have read ahead…), because I can relate to it so well. It’s entitled “Science Never Sleeps,” and describes Dr. R’s experience at a conference, and the competitive nature of science, the panic that you need to work faster, that someone else is working on the same thing at the same time and maybe doing it better, quicker, more efficiently. Publish or perish, they say, and I can only imagine the devastation one must feel reading his or her research published by someone else, before his or her results ever had the chance to see the light of day. I have to admit that, as little as I enjoy what I do, I am thankful that my field is much more cooperative than competitive. The Neisseria field is a web of collaborations and friendships, and conferences are full of not only great science, but great fun. There is little “scooping” that occurs. I have heard that it was not always so, and I am glad that I am here for this more positive, cooperative era.

 So concludes cakes for the month of May. Hopefully I’ll be more prompt in June.

Doves, Daffodils, and Divine Intervention

Three posts behind, what?! I promise the cakes have been made. I just lost the entire month of April, and May isn't looking much better. So, to catch up so far... I had to cheat a bit on the cake from THREE weeks ago... first of all, I switched it with the cake before it, and second, I was one day late getting it into its appropriate week. I was traveling, so I had to pick the cake that would be easier to make away from home and had to bake it when I had the most free time. I was actually in New Jersey visiting Randy; that week had been so bad at work that I literally ran away. I just booked a last minute plane ticket (special thanks to mom's AirTran points, my Delta miles, and a bit of cash from each of us) and took off for a week. To be fair, even my boss said I could use a few days off to recover from the trauma, and I did do some reading and prep work while I was up there, so it wasn't like I was being delinquent or anything. I just needed to get away. So I traded in lab work for a week of playing house wife, Pilates, nursing a sprained ankle, watching countless episodes of What Not to Wear, and enjoying some quality time with Randy.

The cake was an Italian Easter Dove Cake. It was really more of a bread, but as it says in the chapter, the difference between bread and cake is "not much." Technically, breads use yeast and cakes do not, but then what do you consider treats like banana bread? The line separating bread and cake is thin, if it exists at all. Anyway, this cake/bread, as you might guess from the name, is apparently an Italian tradition at Easter. I was skeptical about my ability to make it, because, while the dough is simple enough, it requires the baker to shape pieces of dough into doves. As we've seen before, I'm a baker, not an artist. But I carefully followed the directions, and while my birds seemed more

eagle than dove, I think I sufficiently conveyed the avian concept. We were well past Easter, and Randy is Jewish anyway, so eagle or dove, it was all the same. Sadly, Randy's oven cooks much differently than mine, and my two eagle-dove cake-breads (a cake with an identity crisis?) burned to a black carbon crisp on the bottom. We managed to salvage the more central parts of the less burnt dove, and had it not been burnt, it would have been quite tasty. It was light, slightly sweet, and slightly citrusy. It would indeed be an excellent Easter morning treat.

Upon returning home that weekend, I prepared the cake I switched with the Dove Cake, which was named Daffodil Cake with Orange Glaze. Daffodil being mostly due to the coloring, and if prepared properly, the glaze over the cake would probably make a sight reminiscent of a flower. This cake mandated the KitchenAid and a bunch of ingredients bakers keep in their kitchens, but single boys do not, so I imagine it would have been a far more stressful experience trying to make it in Randy's closet-sized bachelor kitchen. The instructions were INTENSELY detailed, which seemed daunting when reading the recipe, but it wasn't actually that difficult. The worst part was the eggs... a whole dozen, separated. (All these cakes made entirely of eggs has me seriously considering just raising some chickens. I'm sure my apartment complex would love for me to turn my screened-in porch into a chicken coop.) Also, this cake was yet another cake requiring a tube pan, so I had to substitute the springform again. In fact, this cake required all the items on my Need In Kitchen list: 10" tube pan, zester, sifter. I MacGyvered my way around the kitchen as usual, though, and it came out just fine. I invited Tim and Maureen over because I wanted to taste it and felt sad eating cake alone.

There are two awesome things about this cake. The first is that it's marbled. Marbling a cake is literally magic. You pour alternating layers of two different colored batters into the pan, and then just run a knife straight through it a couple times. No stirring or mixing or back-and-forth motion, just cut straight through. In my mind, there was no way it was going to come out marbled, but when we cut into it, it looked awesome! Super exciting. The second awesome thing is that Dr. Robinson made this cake for Jane Goodall when Dame Goodall came to UD to give the keynote speech at our undergraduate research symposium. Jane Goodall has been my hero since I was young. I remember doing a report on her for class in grade school. The day she spoke was thrilling... it's always a bit surreal to see your celebrity role model in real life. I even got her to sign my copy of one of her books! It gave me a bit of a chill to read this chapter about Dr. Goodall's visit, reliving what I saw through another's eyes, and getting a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes. Sadly, Dr. Goodall never got to eat this cake. The reason for having a cake in the first place was that Dr. Goodall's visit to UD was the day after her birthday, and the planner wanted a cake to celebrate and put Dr. Robinson in charge. But after making the cake, Dr. Robinson got a message from the planner to pick up a cake from a local market, and suddenly got too nervous that her homemade cake wouldn't live up to expectations, and so replaced it with a store-bought carrot cake that remained largely untouched. Apparently, on the ride back to the airport, the topic of cake came up, the dilemma was revealed, and Dr. Goodall assured Dr. Robinson she would have much rather had the homemade cake. I think this is evidence that Jane Goodall is a real, regular person who has accomplished the extraordinary and not some untouchable science celebrity who has let success and fame change her.

Finally, last week's cake. The saddest one, and the one I don't want to write about. Konrad and Ivana have accepted postdoctoral positions in the UK and are moving tomorrow. I'm having separation anxiety... they have been such fantastic friends to me, always ready with a margarita or glass of wine to celebrate or commiserate. I met them through Randy not long after moving here, and they took me in as a real friend, not just the girlfriend of their friend. They've been there for the ups and downs of science, my relationship, and life in general. I think it will be a bit quieter without them, and not the good kind of quiet, but the lonely kind. Anyway, they had a goodbye party at a local pub Saturday night. I desperately wanted to make a cake, because lately, it's not an occasion if cake isn't involved. But last week was so utterly crazy I didn't think I would have time. Bright and early Saturday morning, though, I checked the book on a whim, just in case it would be possible. The cake, a Krumb Kuchen, was the second easiest and quickest recipe in the book thus far, following only the dump cake in simplicity. It required only the most basic baking ingredients and took a total of an hour to make. A miracle, no doubt. There would be cake, after all!

I showed up at the party, cake in tow, and settled in for a Guinness and a few last memories. The party was well-attended, and the cake well-enjoyed. It was essentially a crumb cake, full of cinnamon and brown sugar. I had an early morning, so I couldn't stay out late, but I left the remaining cake, which was also serendipitous because Konrad and Ivana, having cleaned out their apartment, needed something for breakfast the next morning, and apparently the cake was perfect with coffee. Gotta love dual-purpose dessert. And that is all I will say about this one, because I will continue to deny they're leaving until they get on the plane tomorrow. Hurray for finally being caught up. My apologies for the epic post.

A Surprise Shower for Maureen

Top secret events and reason for Cake of the Week switch revealed!

As most of you who actually read this know, Tim and Maureen are getting married this spring. But since they're planning their wedding long-distance and their family is somewhat spread out, Maureen is missing out on some of the complete bride-to-be experience, like bridal showers. Her mom decided this was unacceptable, so she enlisted me to help out with a surprise shower. She gathered gifts from family and sent them down here to me (which was a massive ordeal in and of itself... apparently my apartment complex doesn't understand mail delivery), and I organized the girls here for the party.

Our theme was a traditional tea party, so we all dressed up, Tim provided finger foods (including the most delicious cucumber sandwiches ever... kudos to him for his extensive research on tea time), and Maureen's coworker got her out of the apartment under the guise of pedicures while we set up. She was definitely surprised when she walked in. I think that's the most gratifying part of a surprise party: the look on the guest of honor's face when he or she walks in to a room full of people yelling "Surprise!" is always some priceless combination of confusion, excitement, and a little bit of pure terror. It was awesome.

We enjoyed tea and snacks, watched while Maureen opened her gifts, and of course played an obligatory ridiculous bridal shower game (who comes up with this stuff?) involving making wedding dresses out of toilet paper. I was actually quite impressed with the dress quality... we should have been featured on one of those Bravo shows or something. We may have had only toilet paper, but we certainly did "make it work."

My contribution to the shower fare was Japanese Green Tea Cake. For the Robinson family's Year of Cake, this cake was Dr. R's, birthday cake, made by her youngest daughter. The chapter is full of the sort of melancholy people like me feel around their birthdays. A deep reflection on life, and if the best parts are already gone, and if we're up to what lies ahead. I'm pretty melancholy myself right now, with the second half of a PhD project falling down around me and in what seems like an endless quarter-life crisis. (Maybe that means I will live a long time?) A good time to remember that "where there is cake, there is hope." And thankfully, for Dr. R then and me now, there is always cake. There's no time or place for melancholy during pre-wedding festivities. But there's always time for cake.

This cake is as green as red velvet cake is red. A bit terrifying, actually... I'm not sure something that color should be ingested. Unlike red velvet cake, however, the green color is completely natural, created by the addition of matcha, or green tea powder. An elusive and expensive ingredient, I managed to find some at the Farmer's Market, and thankfully, a little goes a long way, because my tiny container nearly cost me my left hand. Although I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of it. I have no idea what it's used for other than this cake. I guess I could just make a lot of cake, but then I'd probably need to buy some chickens, because other than green, the cake is entirely eggs and air. I had to whip 4 egg whites, beat together 6 egg yolks and 4 whole eggs, and then mix together both egg mixtures. Crazy. I suppose it's healthy, though, with all that protein. Or that's what I'll tell myself. There was so much batter (and I may not have had an appropriate pan) that I made two: one for the shower, and one tiny loaf cake for me. The cake was served with a ginger dessert sauce, which soaked right into the airy cake. It was interesting and different, and went well with our tea party theme.

Successful cake, successful shower, surprised and happy bride-to-be... all in all, a great Cake Day.

Sometimes, it pays to be redundant.

So, due to some still top-secret events, I had to switch cakes for this week and last week. It will be worth it, you'll see.

So last week, I was making out my grocery list and grabbed the Cake Book to add the cake ingredients to my list. I flipped it open, and imagine my surprise when I discovered that the cake was... pancakes. What.

First of all, pancakes are not cake. They're flat and boring and there's no frosting or crumb topping or anything that is good about cake. Second of all, as you can probably tell, I don't particularly like pancakes. This is more the fault of condiments than the actual pancakes themselves, but, when you don't like syrup or butter, really, how boring are pancakes? And third of all... pancakes are not cake. The end.

Clearly, Cake Day was in jeopardy. It's not Pancake Day, after all. I read through the chapter to gain some understanding about what surely must have been an oversight. Aside from learning some... interesting... things about my advisor I was not previously aware of, I learned that on that Cake Day, they were leaving for a spring break trip, and so to ensure Cake Day was fulfilled, they whipped up these pancakes. I can't decide if this shows more or less dedication than me... I would have moved Cake Day or had two the next week; they got their day in, but the authenticity is questionable.

One really cannot take pancakes anywhere, and I wasn't about to eat an entire batch myself, so I did some creative thinking and decided pancakes would be a perfect post-long run recovery food. I invited Chris for a 7 miler followed by a pancake extravaganza, complete with butter, syrup, strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, and chopped nuts (I need toppings too, ok?). As far as ease of recipe is concerned, this one really... takes the cake... ahem. I mean, pancakes are pretty simple as it is, although for me, the usual result is disaster. But even I did not fail using this recipe.

During the boring process of waiting for pancakes to cook, Chris got this crazy idea. What if we made... a pancake cake? A cake with pancakes as the cake and toppings as the frosting? Brilliant! We had enough extras at our disposal to make it work. So I present to you the most amazing recipe ever: Pancake Cakes.

1. Make pancakes. (Use the recipe from The Cake Chronicles, because they are legitimately the best pancakes I've ever eaten.)
2. Place 1 pancake on a plate.
3. Spread pancake with layer of whipped cream and top with banana slices.
4. Lay second pancake on top of first.
5. Spread second pancake with layer of whipped cream and top with strawberry slices.
6. Lay third pancake on top of second.
7. Cover whole stack with a layer of whipped cream "frosting."
8. Sprinkle chopped nuts over the top of the cake.
9. Serve and enjoy!

As you can tell by the pictures, it was fantastic. As you'll have to imagine, it was also delicious. To be fair, I did try a single pancake with butter and syrup as the book suggests, and it wasn't too bad... almost enough to make me a pancake convert.

Anyway, thanks to Chris' help, Cake Day was saved, the Pancake Cake was born, and two very hungry runners got very full tummies. Now that is a happy ending.

Some day I will tell this story as a bedtime story to my children: The Legend of Pancake Cake. There will no doubt be an epic movie based on this story as well. Hopefully I'll be played by someone awesome. Like Anna Torv. And then we can add this part about the failure to invent the Pancake Cake in time to save Cake Day in the alternate universe, and so agents from the other universe cross into our universe to try to steal our Pancake Cake, inadvertently triggering the destruction of both universes... I wonder if J.J. Abrams would be willing to work with me on this...

If you give a mouse a cookie...

He's going to ask to upgrade to cake.

My coworkers have apparently become quite spoiled. Justin informed me the other week that "there hasn't been cake in awhile." A subtle hint. It was actually true... there were too many events at which to showcase my cakes, so the lab got the short end of the stick and missed out. Lucky for them, the cake from two weeks ago had no VIP appearances to make, so they got this cake all to themselves.

The cake was Toffee Nutmeg Cake. Interestingly, toffee was not a component of the cake at all. It was almost entirely flour (3 cups) and brown sugar (1 pound. No seriously) serially diluted into 3 separate mixes, which in the end condensed down to 2 separate mixes: the cake, and the top. I was unconvinced that two dry, powdery mixes would make a cake, but... you know how the saying goes... remember the Tomato Cake. So I didn't ask questions, layered the mixes in the pan as instructed, and put it in the oven to bake.

I should note that I was supposed to use a 9" tube pan with a removable bottom. But I'm not privy to such luxuries, and cash is tight, so I improvised and used my springform pan. Besides, we bought that pan for this project, so I'm going to get good use out of it. The cake came out fine, probably just slightly less pretty. But I was fairly certain it wouldn't survive long enough in the office for anyone to notice.

It was indeed well received, and went quickly. It was delicious... the cake was soft and spicy, and the topping was a crispy toffee-like layer full of pecans and brown sugar with a crunch that contrasted nicely with the texture of the cake itself. By the time I went home, it was entirely gone. I thought perhaps I'd satisfied the lab cake craving for awhile, but one of the postdocs checked every day for the rest of the week on the "off-chance there might be cake." Sadly, they're in a cake dry spell again. I'm sure I'll hear about it soon enough.