Baking cakes

I'm baking a cake tomorrow for my brother's birthday. Its a delicious-sounding recipe that JC lent me - chocolate cake with rum coffee sauce. Yummm. I'm very excited about baking again. I used to bake a lot when I was in high school, but haven't really dappled in it much since.

Back in boarding school, my two roommates and I used to run a bakery together. We loved baking and used to spend a lot of time doing it, and eventually got pretty good. The other students used to place orders with us for birthdays, anniversaries (back in highschool couples even celebrated one-month anniversaries) and other special occasions - and we were happy to oblige. Brownies, German chocolate cake, lemon cake, Swedish sunshine cake (with nuts and stuff), apple pie, key lime pie, it was a whole world of wonder. I remember making the little network of twisted strips across the top of the apple pie. I remember being the one, on two occasions, to forget the cake in the oven until it was reduced to a cinder (thankfully, there were no fire alarms to bring attention to it).

When converted, we used to make an operating profit of approximately 20 cents per cake. And sometimes (like when I burned mine), we even made a loss. But it was our business, and we loved it.

And now it's been so long since I baked. I wonder if I still have the touch. I used to think then our cakes turned out well because we just had so much fun baking together, laughing and joking as we waited for them to bake, late into the evening. I'm a bit nervous this time. I guess, with all those memories, I have high expectations of myself, and don't want to fall short. So I'm squeezing my eyes shut and clenching my fists and holding my breath and crossing my fingers and hoping it won't fail. Especially not for a party. And especially not for my brother's birthday.

But at the end of the day, if the cake's a chocolate cake and it doesn't rise, it can always masquerade as brownies. So chin up, and on we march!