Chocolate cake hates me!

When I closed my eyes last night, I kept seeing different flavors of cake and frosting...I wish I were joking...

So, my responsibility for this wedding on Friday was to bake the wedding cake. Bake, not decorate. Last year, I had more time and I did both. Also, at the last wedding, all the layers were the same kind: carrot. (which is one of the tastiest recipes I have, btw.) This time, there was the challenge of making each layer a different flavor. So, now I have a new rule for making wedding cakes - limit the number of flavors to one, maybe two. I only have 2 pans of each size, and each tier is made of 3 layers. Last year, this was no problem - since you can only fit so many pans in the oven at the same time. The 10 inch round and the 6 inch round was equal to one batch of batter. However, when each layer is a different flavor, and I have to make one flavor of batter at a time (I only have one mixer after all), the whole system is thrown off.

The worst problem came when I got to the smallest tier. For the other layers, I had to tweak the recipe to make it the right flavor - I turned the same recipe into both a maraschino cherry chip cake and a lemon cake. The recipe for the top was straight forward. Devil's food. And I had made it before...even it was over a year ago. I was going to make half a recipe - but then I put the normal amount of the last ingredient, and had to go back and add doubles of everything. You know how it goes. Somehow, maybe because it was between the hours of 10pm and 2am, I misread the recipe and didn't put enough butter in it. But that wasn't the worst mistake. The oven temperature, when I finally rechecked it at 2:30am, was set at 100 degrees too high. The oven had been set at the high temp the day before when my husband made biscuits. So, now I have to wonder...was it like that the whole time? Did I just get lucky with the other layers? Or had it been bumped somehow? I had checked the temp before, but I had only payed attention to the last 2 digits. Okay, so my cake layers come out looking fine, until they started to cool...and shrink. They have this huge crater on the bottom. So, I try again. These turn out worse! I nicknamed them the hockey pucks! Hard, dried cake with a big crater on the underside. I recheck everything. How could this be happening? I finally discover the oven temp error. Did I mention that our AC broke the night before!?! It's July, no AC, and I have been running my oven nonstop all day at 100 degrees above necessary. At 3:00am, I gave up and went to bed.

6:30am my neighbors wake me up. At 7:30, they are still being too loud for me to get back to sleep, so I'm up baking cake again. This time, I had the right amounts, the right temp (what a ridiculous amount of time for 3 six inch layers). Everything works. And now I just hope that the happy couple likes the cake. In my crazed state, I decided to make the last tier a chocolate-cherry-chocolate combo. When I made their practice cake weeks ago, they had neglected to inform me that they wanted 3 different flavors - so the practice cake was only the originally requested flavor. So I'm tweaking and making up as I go, and I have no idea who it will taste.

So, the rest of the day I made three different kinds of frosting. Yeah, going to have to limit the number of frosting choices in the future too. I don't know about you, but I think the frosting that comes out of the plastic container is gross. Not wedding cake fare. I know that the sister who is decorating the cake was hoping I would do some fruit glaze fillings - but I had already bought the other ingredients by the time I was told this - and I didn't have any of the right ingredients for what she wanted. Plus, did I mention the practice cake!?! I asked the happy couple what they thought of the filling on the practice cake, and they approved. So, that's the kind that they got. The chocolate top layer has a thicker, fudgy frosting. Thick is good, since it's going to be living in the freezer for a year. I think the lemon zest frosting was my favorite - I should probably write down what I did so I will remember it for the future.

So, the end result was: two and half dozen eggs, all the sugar I had in the house (that WAS my food storage sugar...moving, remember?), 16 attempted cake layers...just to get one 9 layer cake delivered this afternoon to the wonderful woman who will be decorating it. Thank goodness for her. I was happy to help - tweaking recipes and trying new things is fun - but I am glad to be done. On the plus side, I have leftover layers to enjoy. The hockey pucks taste really good with mint choc ice cream. And a thank you to our landlord for replacing the motor in our AC unit!

I will try to include some wedding pics soon!

And my choice is...

I have the choice of three main topics which I must cover more in-depth than any other topic I will teach all year. The first IB test will be based on only this topic. When I took the IB class that I am going to be teaching, we covered the rise of Hitler as our in-depth topic. The IB tests that are being used as samples NOW are the tests that me and my friends took THEN. It makes sense they would only release test questions that are no longer being actively used, right? Right. Unfortunately, that means that the in-depth topic that I have reading materials for is no longer one of the choices. So, time to go check out the new book by Alan Bullock that I have been wanting to read because I choose...the Stalin topic.

4 days until Breaking Dawn. Any ideas what I should wear to the release party? I'm going to be coming from a wedding...so I might have to change anyway. When I came home with the skirt that I have to wear to the wedding - really cute, but not my color - Werty took one look at the color and said, "It's okay honey, you don't have to wear it ever again." LOL

Penny for your...meal?

The BBQ was a lot of fun. There was a lot of talk about a penny - the penny that my nephew accidentally swallowed before we arrived - the penny which his x-ray clearly showed had made it safely to his stomach. How did he come to swallow a penny? No one is really sure. It was suggested that he may have been attempting a magic trick.

One week until Werty's brother's wedding and the Breaking Dawn midnight release party! Have you seen the new teaser? http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810010670/trailer

Happy Pioneer Day!

The holiday that is only a holiday in Utah. Any other states have an original state holiday? For the holiday, we are going to see The Dark Knight with my brother. Then we are going to drive on down to Ged and Klari's (poor Ged is working in Portland, where the 24th is NOT a holiday) for some family BBQ action. Happy 24th!

Victorian Women

My HS teacher taught us about a Dr. Mosher - a female doctor who studied and debunked some of the Victorian myths about female physiology. So, I did some research. I found a fact that I think I will share with my students. It was believed that men breathed with their diaphragms, but because women have organs that men do not have, women can only breathe costally - or with their upper lungs. Dr. Mosher taught that women breathed that way because of training and current fashions. When a woman removed her corset - it was discovered she could breathe! She taught female students breathing exercises that allowed them to be healthier and build up their abdomen muscles, which alleviated pain. Here is a quote that I appreciated from Dr. Mosher: “What we need are women no less fine and womanly, but with beautiful, perfect bodies, a suitable receptacle for their equally beautiful souls, who look sanely out on life with steady nerves and clear vision.”

and....Click!

Looks like Werty is going to be doing an internship the next 6 months. He will get to use his skills, plus get to try his hand at some web development - which is one of the things he has wanted to improve his skills in. Also, Werty got an in-game item that he has been wanting and stressing and almost getting for the last couple of months. One of those it only pops during certain weather, and never in less than 23 hours things. Anyway, he's a happy Werty now.

We ate the first fruits of our garden tonight. Green beans. Our garden is only half as large as normal - 5 rows of beans, 4.5 rows of corn - but no tomatoes. Canning tomatoes while moving and starting school didn't sound like fun, so we skipped them this year. For those who don't know, Werty LOVES homemade salsa. We usually have 30-45 tomato plants, and then I can a years worth of salsa.

Reichstag Fire 1933.

Homeless no more!

I spent the morning alternately typing my old IB notes and calling the owners of the condo every half hour. I was starting to feel paranoid that one of the other two couples who had looked at the unit on Saturday had already taken it. Finally, we got a call back. Looks like we have a new place to live! We won't be in my friend's ward, after all. Her ward covers units 1-6, and we are in unit 7. Argh! But at least we will be in the same stake. And as my MIL pointed out to me, we will be within walking distance of family.

Why typing my old IB notes? To review and get a feel for what I learned when I took this class, oh 12 years ago... which I am thinking will prepare me for deciding what I want to teach and include in my proposed IB curriculum. There are a few spellings I guessed on and tried to spell phonetically from my teacher's lecture that make me giggle now. Thank goodness for googling - so I can find out how to really spell the guy's name who was blamed and executed for the Reichstag Fire. Here's a trivia question: Without looking it up, what year was the Reichstag Fire and what was its significance?