takgoti

I have a newly found respect for bakers. Cake decorators. Pastry…assemblers?

I just spent a good three days or so baking two layers of cake, and putting together lemon simple syrup, lemon curd filling, vanilla bean buttercream icing, and sugared oranges.

You are going to ask why.

And I am going to say, “No reason.”

Saying something like, “Memorial Day Weekend,” would make sense. Or even, “I was really jonesing for some cake.” But, really, there was no reason, excepting that I was buying this crazy tea maker and they had a bunch of books on sale - one of which was this Martha Stewart monstrosity of a wedding cake encyclopedia and I said to myself, “You really should practice baking more.”

It’s not that I don’t bake, because I do. If you want photographic proof, I can provide more than one instance of baking evidence. Even DECORATING evidence.

But y’all, this is easily the MOST baking work I have done. EVER. Baking requires patience, one, which is something that I am short on. You have to wait minutes to hours in between steps. And, two, you have to plan. Oh, the planning. And THREE, and this is perhaps the most critical of them all, the precision. The precision you have to have if you’re going to be putting together even a simple layer cake is INTENSE. Things must be leveled. Icing must be at the right temperature and spread evenly. And decorating? I wasn’t even working with fondant. This was buttercream, people. BUTTERCREAM.

I see those baking competitions and stuff that they have on the Food Network sometimes, and it’s so easy to sit there and judge along with everyone else, but given that I just put together a simple two-layer cake and I am exhausted, I can’t…I can’t even. Oh my god. I imagine that certain things get easier with practice, but MAN. Major props to all of y’all who can Martha Stewart/Ace of Cakes/sugar-frost-fondant it up.

Pictures to come, but now it is time for a well-deserved shower and some sleep. Mmm…shower.