Kim's Recipe Box: The Two Birthday Cakes - July 2009

[kimmercake]

This year I made two cakes for John's birthday.

One American, one European. One familiar, one exotic. One birthday standard, one special occasion worthy. Both labor intensive though and both definitely made all from scratch.

First, The Best Birthday Cake. Taken, of course, from Smitten Kitchen. This was a lovely vanilla cake with chocolate frosting

Comments

[skylark29]

Your cake was sooo good. Teach me your ways.

[kimmercake]

practice makes perfect really. get good recipes and use good ingredients. i look at cooking as meditation, not a chore.

[skylark29]

Damn it! It's such a chore for me. I'm trying to be better, though.

I want to make nice grilled pork chops for dinner tonight, but then I realized I need to marinate them for a while, so I wouldn't be able to do anything until tomorrow. I think my biggest problem is I'm bad at planning meals ahead of time--giving myself time to prepare food properly, assembling the necessary ingredients.

[kimmercake]

that i am very good at, planning and organizing in advance. patience is key too :)

[skylark29]

Yeah, the only thing I'm good at cooking and enjoy cooking is desserts. Cookies, cakes, etc. I think it may actually have a lot to do with my mother. Christmas cookie baking and the occasional cake were the only things I ever saw her get jazzed about making from scratch. It was the only time I had real "kitchen" time growing up and the only time I partook in planning special meals. You know, buying ingredients that are out of the norm for a particularly planned dish.

I think one of the main reasons why I want to get better with eating/cooking is that by the time I have kids I want to be able to make great homecooked meals for them on a regular basis. Of course, we'll eat out and get the occasional fast food dinner, but I don't want it to be the norm as it was in my childhood.