I have was never a good baker, I only separated an egg and a yolk for the first time a few months ago.
- My great grandfather was an amazing pastry chef in a prestigious London hotel by all accounts
- His daughter (my grandmother) made excellent Scottish shortbread, and I remember a short season of lovely jam tarts too
- Her daughter (my mother) preferred to buy our cakes from the local supermarket (although she could make a mean doorstop of a chocolatey biscuit thing on special school occasions).
So as you can see the baking talent gene had slowly but surely been thinned out, and by the time it reached me it was slightly above zero. When I made cakes I tended to be the only one to eat them, NOT because they were so completely awful (I hope...) but because I was the only one who really seemed to like traditional cake rather than fresh cream doughnuts - which are obviously divine and tend to leave the kitchen in a neat state...
Many years passed and my own daughter was growing up and keen to help with ANYTHING that she could. So we got bought some cake mixes and some sprinkles and got to work. And we had FUN! Biscuits, cupcakes, cakes and tubs of completely gorgeous ready mixed icing sugar (I have an all-consuming love affair with the Betty Crocker baking empire).
One birthday I even got brave enough to bake my daughter's cake. A Betty Crocker Devils food cake box mix with Betty's chocolate fudge icing. It was GORGEOUS. People said nice things about it! They came back for seconds! I was feeling like Mum of the Year! I thought Yes, Perhaps I Can Do This Again!
And I did. Same mix, same icing, yum yum. Again and again. Then my husband confessed that he actually liked Victoria sponge cakes better than chocolate. Interesting Concept. Not Devils Food Cake... Processing...Right. No Problem, I Will Make It Myself.
I found a recipe online which I will link to here and made the Victoria sponge myself. My husband liked it! He ate lots of it. I ate lots of it too, but that doesn't say much. It finished. And I thought Yes. Points to Me! I Can Do It.
I was then possessed to buy a giant cupcake tin from Sainsbury's. I say possessed because I saw it, considered it, went away, thought about it, read up on it, saw it, didn't buy it, thought about it, went back and got the damn thing and hid it in the Kitchen Drawer of Doom so it could stop bothering me!
One day I found a giant cupcake recipe and Clever Daughter and I made it together. I didn't get the cooking times right though, and the outside needed some drastic trimming before anyone could eat any. Then I sliced it up horizontally with alternating layers of icing and jam and we stuck the whole thing back together.
Completely skew.
Never Mind. Chin Up, Keep Going! So we made the buttercream pink. Really dark, strangely-orangey pink and Clever Daughter and I iced the top. Then I figured I couldn't leave the bottom exposed being all sliced up and messy and we still had buttercream left so we had better cover the whole thing. And don't forget the sprinkles!
Yes. That Worked Out Well.
It still tasted great by the way which DOES count for something.
I was so embarrassed by it. I swore to improve - well surely there is no place to go but up??
Not true. A few months later I tried to use a piping bag for the first time on some cupcakes with... unsavoury results.
Yum yum... Who wants one? Oh, just me? Are you sure I can't tempt you?
Boohoo.
I am Tracey, and I will improve.
No comments:
Post a Comment