Dark Chocolate Birthday Cake

This week I made a double layer chocolate cake filled with homemade blackcurrant preserves, thickly frosted with chocolate ganache.

There is much improvising in my kitchen.  Baking experiences come fast and furious these days and there are usually mistakes.  This time it was one broken cake layer (three large pieces that were easily saved) preceded by discovery of only one round cake pan for a double layer cake.  As it was already 9pm I didn't want to be baking extra hours so I switched to ordinary aluminum square cake pans found crinkled/stuffed at the back of my stove drawer.

I should mention this cake was a family project.  My mom's blackcurrant jam provided a tartness against the sweetness I craved; Rebecca guided me to the Smitten Kitchen recipes; Ann shared a birthday week with me, helping focus my chocolate cake decision making; Nick suggested the cake needed more texture and contrast (hence the almond design); and Jessy held the cake on her lap in the car on the way to dinner, mostly to protect it from little Twiggy who might have eaten the entire cake had we let her. (I understand the temptation little dog...)

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I was born in a blizzard in Cape Breton 38 years ago.  Mom was caught in the January storms this week but mercifully found her way to uncle Jim's wake in Syracuse, New York.  In 1978 Jim trooped up and across the northeast to see his younger sister (my mom) and her family on a beautiful hippie farm in 1978 ... check out our lovely family picnic:

Uncle Mike's photos started a sentimentality in me because this year I was compelled to write Jim a birthday card - my first handwritten note to him in my life.  Jim was turning 70 years old.  I chose a funny card I had been keeping for the perfect occasion (for at least five years): a colour photo of lots of naked people standing with their backs to the camera in a gilded opera house...  "Wishing you the best seat in the house on your birthday."  I imagined it made him chuckle.  I felt so good for having sent him that card. Jim was a happy organic farmer, philosophy professor and he was always smiling a lot. He made my mom and her sisters smile a lot too.  

My successful baking experience of this cake is significant because it helped me celebrate life and all that tastes good in it.  Here's to birthday cakes made for me and my family - and of course here's to all the leftover frosting...

Do I DIY?

I had thought to follow Chocolate & Zuchini and release a monthly post with a list of things I love to reduce my guilt for not writing weekly. Blogging. Blah blah blogging.

Too harsh?

But I can't figure out what to do with this space. Is it a food blog? A DIY blog? What I want it to be is a smashingly successful online space that satisfies my need for beautiful design, curating and collecting (and sharing) where new ideas come to life with terrific writing that makes me and other people laugh.  

So there. Now you know.

I'm just going to wait for Martha's Circle to call me while I brew my second cup of coffee. 

When I come back I might create something like this or something from here. No I probably won't. I'll take my shower and get dressed and go out to meet my sister Jessy who owns this amazing store and then I'll go meet my friend who likes to sew and will probably make something like this in the next sewing group and later I'll meet my other friend who would be a star at making any of this stuff.  My other sister made me a hat a while ago and it's the perfect amount of slouchy.  

I don't DIY that well, and I especially don't sew well.  I have been known to, but it's not my forte. What is then? I'd like to know how to write a punchline like Sedaris, if not my Aunt Kathy's eye for dessert detail.  (I bet the New Yorker calls him before ten a.m. with assignments that break his emotional bank. Again?! They pay shit. I bet he wants more out of life too.  Once something is old it's old - doesn't matter how you perceive it, it's not literature.  It's just your life stories. Actually, I take it back.  According to Wikipedia literature is the art of written work.)

How do you become an artist? I think that's what I want to be today.  A DIY artist!

Seriously though - I've always felt I couldn't survive without making stuff. Getting Messy. Creating something.  Meals are easiest because you have to finish them within reason.  And I suppose they are essential.  All the other stuff not so much...  Do I care if I ever learn how to DIY well?  Is all that matters that I 'D' something, sometime, somewhere in the world? To state my place? Show I was here?  I'm stepping back for a longer look for the next little while.  I'm going to stop pressuring myself to 'do' something.