an apron, high heels and a birthday cake...

In the last year I've gotten a lot more domestic, kitchen wise.  Maybe it's that K is a little more self sufficient these days.  Maybe it's that I'm in my 30's and am searching for something more than I had in my 20's.  It could be that my high blood pressure has made me truly conscious of what goes into pre-packaged anything and I'd rather make it myself so I can know what's in my food...

I've always cooked meals from scratch.  I'm not a fan of meals or sides that come in a box because I like to know what I'm eating.  Sweets though, have always been kind of an aside.  Since I knew they weren't good for me anyway I never bothered to make them anything except a secret guilty indulgence.

Like those hostess cupcakes I spent a couple of months wolfing down.

But in November when my doctor told me to cut out the processed sugars and simple carbs for a while it gave me time to think.  And by time to think I mean I went slowly nuts trying to avoid anything sweet except cutie oranges and pineapple chunks and skipped any carbohydrates other than brown rice and whole grain bread.  Very boring.

I got desperate one day and found a recipe for banana nut bread made with honey and whole wheat flour.  As I carefully made it for the first time I was wearing a white kitchen apron, a little black dress and my favorite pumps, the black ones with the pink stitching.

Why?  Because I was a little sad and dressing up always makes me feel a bit better.  Vain?  Possibly.  But I've been doing it since I was a little kid so I'm sticking with it.

On Christmas eve I baked my first, second and third loaf of bread.  Not banana bread, that doesn't count because it's batter, not  dough.  There is no rising or folding or magic yeast mumbo jumbo prayer so it's not real bread.

No.

But the bread I made, 3 loaves of Finnish Cardamom bread, was real bread.  And it was good, really good.  I didn't wear my high heels while I was doing it, but that will be remedied when I make the next loaves.

So marking bread off the list of things I never make I'm feeling the need to move on to something else.  Something different.  Something chocolaty and from scratch.

But I don't make dessert.

Ever.

I once made the Bacon Geek a lovely birthday cake with crisp bacon on top, but that was yellow cake from a box with chocolate frosting straight from a can.

Well babies times they are a changing, I have a birthday cake to bake this week and there will not be a box in site when I make it.  My darling man is going to be another year older, and for him, I will make a desert from scratch for the first time ever.  I'll be wearing my favorite little dress and his favorite pair of tall black boots...

Let's just hope he can have his cake and eat it to, it would be a shame if I went to all the trouble to bake something that turned out so awful that he couldn't swallow it... or worse yet, he breaks a tooth on it.  Maybe I should buy one of those cute little aprons Lelo in NoPo makes...  I bet it would imbue me with special baking super powers that those white butcher aprons don't...