Introduction

I am not much of a writer, but I have decided that starting a blog about my obsession with cakes is not an entirely bad idea. I think it’s best to start out with a little background on yours truly before I rush headlong into my world of cake. I’m not quite sure when my preoccupation with food first manifested, but I do remember that I was an incredibly stubborn child who adored the color yellow. In fact, I was so enamored with said color that I flat out refused to eat anything that was not yellow for a significant portion of my childhood. Fortunately, I outgrew that ridiculous requirement, but I have retained my love of cheese (cheese was yellow, so I pretty much ate it on everything). How I got where I am education-wise: I remember the required cooking course in Junior High, and that I had a much better idea of what was going on than most of my classmates. I did manage to retain one bit of information. If you don’t rinse the blueberries, the chances of your blueberry muffins ending up green rise exponentially. I somehow managed to sign up for a cooking class my first year of High School, and I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. I knew how to bake cinnamon rolls and cookies long before high school. The next year, I signed up for Food Service/ProStart- the more advanced class. That class was fantastic. We had a commercial kitchen complete with stainless steel workstations, and an exemplary instructor. The next year Food Service and ProStart were separated into two classes, so I signed up for both. As a class, we ran a ‘restaurant’ for faculty members. I was also in charge of the planning and production of the refreshments for Sweethearts and for Jr. Prom that year. I wore a chef coat to prom, and nothing in the world could have made me happier. My instructor convinced me to enter a commercial baking competition, and I won the gold medal. That was the very first time I remember making icing flowers for a cake. The one comment made by a judge at that competition that I can still recall came from the ridiculously attractive younger-man judge, who told me that I had good decorating technique, and that my rolls were the best he’d had in years. Since that time, I’ve worked at three different bakeries and as a cook at a nursing home, none of which gave me the experience I desired. Most of what I know I learned through observation, written materials, and the trial-and-error method. I realize that I tend to jump from topic to topic when I’m writing, and as a result, you might not understand everything that you read. Feel free to ask questions. I reserve the right to withhold answers to some questions, but I don’t anticipate needing to invoke that right. Anyway, now that I’ve thoroughly bored you, I think I’ll end with the story of the very first cake I decorated. It was my birthday cake- I can’t remember how old I was. I was still mildly obsessed with the color yellow, and the cake was round. Round yellow object = smiley face. That cake was the most ridiculous looking thing I have ever seen, but practice makes perfect. Perhaps if I had a few hundred years, I could achieve perfection…