Waiting for my butter to soften

A's birthday is coming up in approximately 48 hours and I have been working my fingers to the bone conceptualizing her cake and as what I thought would be a sweet and relatively cheap romantical birthday present. Who doesn't want a homemade/completely made-from-scratch cake for their birthday? Well, let me just say this has neither been a cheap nor easy process. I made part one (half) of the cake before my beer and popcorn snack (pictured above - YUM). But this started way before baking commenced in La Kitchen Chicana.

My plans were put into action on Wednesday when I took a trip to Williams Sonoma at the one and only "Place for fun in your life" Mall of America to get some supplies. For one aspect of the cake I was in need of a fine mesh strainer much like this one. In fact I did get the mid-size one, of course it was missing it's price tag and me being me thought, oh well, how bad can it be? Well, $45 later I guess that's how bad. Shit.

The ideas behind the trip and plannings and several baking jobs is due to the grand (casino) celebration I am planning for A's birthday. We will not be home to celebrate A's birthday, Sunday August 2nd, rather we will be relaxing and playing slots and bingo, a snapshot of our future old-lady relationship of when we'll be at the bingo hall after some seventy years of bliss much like these amazing women. So, as we celebrate her 29th year I decided I would bake a mini-cake so that we could just transport a small cake that could easily be consumed in one sitting by two people. Thus the planning, baking and messing began. This also led to me having to purchase 4 6oz ramekins (also another pricy investment), an offset spatula for icing another pretty penny. Well, I'm sure you get the point, I have to make these cakes freaking good otherwise my investment (I should've seriously bought stock in Williams Sonoma) will be for naught.

This is what my kitchen looked like after I had completed about 1.5 aspects of a 3-part cake. Clearly I cannot divulge what I was up to in the kitchen because I'm sure A is waiting on the edge of her seat to see this blog post. I'm amazed her presents are still wrapped! Here you can see some chocolatey goodness in my bowl ready to be saran wrapped and lidded into the fridge to rest until cake construction day (tomorrow!) But this picture is really a testament to the unspoken aspects to cooking and baking projects. The mess. Seriously, you should see my La Kitchen Chicana when I'm in there doing my thing, it's like a tornado. This is after I had already cleaned up from a raspberry concoction (part .5 of 3) and this was the second time I had to face the mess tonight! The messes were so bad I am kind of dreading the actual baking day tomorrow!

Doing the dishes isn't exactly a loathsome task and I love to have a clean kitchen. Perhaps I feel this way because I have the luxury of my own in-apartment dishwasher. But I digress, I had plenty of time to contemplate my cake and my blog posts, and my dissertation outlining. I had the water up so high that I got a mini-facial out of the deal. I also felt quite refreshed from the hot, steamy water giving me somewhat of a heating treatment for my right wrist that was sore from transcribing today.

I did manage to fix La Kitchen Chicana up after a long day. A special note to The Lone Baker, thank you. Many of the things I did tonight could not have been possible without your love, patience, guidance and generosity. I would not have my cuisinart food processor that I used twice this evening. I would not have nearly the motivation to make delicious food. I wouldn't be able to admire my broiler king griddle on top of my stove because that is its home for now, I may not have been inspired to be baking and cooking all of the time for A. I definitely wouldn't have my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer which will be put to use tomorrow for my cake batter. Lone Baker, you are an inspiration, thank you for believing, thanks for answering my questions at all times of the day, especially when I'm in the Barnes & Noble cookbook section wondering what cake book I should buy. A and I love you very much!