Baking needs

 Its been a while since I posted something. Grad school I tell you!! 

Plus writing to me is more like an impulsive, spontaneous act than a profound, drafted ritual. I have so many individual threads exciting my nerve cells, everyday, but by the time I get time to open blogger those threads either fizz out or I procrastinate. Lately with those legen... (wait for it !!) daryyyy memory issues, I have also started jotting down ideas whenever one pops out. Its just that I forget where I have taken notes :|

Anyways, these are trivial issues. I finally have something to share with everyone. 

Birthdays to me are special affairs. Specially if it's a close friends'. I like to give stuff personal touch, like make something hand crafted, write something, plan an outing/party and make it a memorable day (for me at least :D). So when a friends' birthday was around the corner we (me and my roomie) decided to bake him a cake. 

Lately, learning to make cakes and baking have been on top of my cooking basics class. So it was quite a risk I was involving the birthday boy's cake into. Nevertheless, we decided on a healthy and beautiful fruit cake. 

Baking is a precarious business. The batter needs to be mixed well for that fluffy texture, the oven needs to be turned off at the exact moment to avoid a burnt cake, the cake has to pass that knife test. But its fun. Since it was our first time, and we had smaller pans, we divided the batter into three parts to make it a 3 layer cake and elevate the effect! The baking time was 38 minutes, and every minute was a patience test for us. I opened the oven twice and my roomie thrice to make sure about the cake's well being. The individual cake came out really well. Fluffy and well cooked. We cleared the first hurdle.

Next was frosting and decoration. I announced to my roomie that she was to be the art director (considering my sloppyness), who would decide the shape of the fruits and how to cut them. The bottom layer was topped with a thick layer of frosting and pineapples around the circumference.

It looked something like this.

Then went another layer of cake with loads of frosting.

I don't have any picture of that.

Then came the top most layer, loaded with frosting, kiwi slices, pineapple and strawberries.

The overall effect was like this. It looked farm fresh :D

The finished version looked even better. But I don't have any more pictures :(

We also cooked some brownies as an added snack. Do bash me next time if I tell you that I don't have a sweet tooth! 

Some learnings I would like to share:

1. Always cut the brownies immediately after they are done. Later it just becomes a powdered mass :(

2. Use a free hand while applying frosting. Cakes are meant to be fattening and sweet. No point saving that bit.

3. After the birthday boy/girl's cake cutting ceremony has been done, take the mantle in your own hands. Specially if you have made the cake. Some random girl cut our cake and totally ruined it. We had placed the pineapples and kiwis so strategically for that perfect touch. But shyaaa...

Anyways, the birthday boy was super happy by our gesture. These small things don't really matter then :)

And btw we have already gotten our next assignment. Wondering how much I should charge for that personal touch. 

I think its priceless and hence do it for free :)

~nightflier