Alchemy and Anxiety

I don't know about you, but I feel so weird these days, so out of sorts, so self-conscious and aware and filled with adrenaline and disgust and anger and -- should I go on? I miss blogging, too. I miss marking my days here and the casual way I'd throw out some thoughts and observations, a bit of poetry, a rant or two. I'm not tired of blogging or of blogs, either. I am preoccupied. I am so afraid of normalizing that POS running the country, the sycophants that support him, those that still maintain we must come together. Come together, my ass. I'm as overwhelmed as every other woman by the toppling of the patriarchy, too. When is the head dude, though, the Sexual Predator in Chief, going to get his due?






I'm baking a lot of cakes. I baked this one:

Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream

and I made five of these:

Apple Toffee Crunch Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream

I made about a million of these:

yeast dough rolled in cinnamon sugar

It came out like this:

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread with Caramel Glaze

Baking, unfortunately, does not alleviate the stress of the Repubs screwing us, over and over, now with their new tax plan which is really another version of their healthcare plan, which basically reinforces the direction the Disunited States of America is going which is a plutocracy. I want to say f*^k all of them, but I tire of cursing.







I also made the most killer cinnamon buttercream.

Butter, sugar, egg whites, cinnamon

Honestly, that stuff is nearly sexual. A silky sweet meringue that takes butter and transforms into something that melts on the tip of your tongue, just a trace.

Alchemy.



I had my first paid gig at The Los Angeles Times on Saturday. Here's the link.


#gigeconomybaby

Carrot Cake and Cocktails

I made this carrot cake this morning, after I dropped the kids off at school and before I accompanied The Relative to an oncology appointment. I frosted and decorated it this afternoon. Now I'm off to deliver it and have a cocktail -- or two.

All is well.

A Trip to India in between Baseball

Yesterday, I made a coconut layer cake with cream cheese frosting, in-between baseball games, for an Indian-themed birthday party. I googled Indian themed cake decorations for inspiration, and came up with this:

And because no cake is complete without baseball, here's a picture of Oliver running toward third base:

and I'd show you the shot of Henry, breaking his hitting slump with a first base drive, but I don't have the amazing photograph, yet (taken by a father who's a professional). So, hold your breath for that one, and enjoy your cake.

Happy Sunday!

Caketastic

For those of you new to the old blog, I make cakes. I make cakes for money. And pleasure, sometimes. Yesterday was one of those days. Pleasure and money, a cake for a sweet young lady and her equally sweet mama.

The aftermath:

Sunday shenanigans and one Saturday picture

Henry's bacon-wrapped hotdog

Milk in a bottle

Our cluttered living room

Picking tangerines and fighting on the trampoline

Sophie, in her swing, under the tangerine tree, protesting the fighting

Tangerines, tiny, full of seeds and sour, although good for jams

Chocolate Chip Cake

Vanilla Buttercream for Chocolate Chip Cake

One Saturday photo:

Mirtha, my sister-wife and Sophie's dear friend and caretaker on Saturdays

Christmas Eve...The Rest of It

 Chocolate Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Buttercream

 Paris-Brest

 Paris-Brest and Wreaths

These Three Kings

From Orient Are

Halloween is about appearances

and it's what's on the outside that counts.

I made this cake purely for the looks (and got the idea from i am baker). It's a red velvet cake with cream cheese filling and marshmallow fluff frosting and ghosts. It's enough to put one into a diabetic coma, I imagine. But it looks damn good.

In this case, it's what's on the outside that counts, but it's only bones. Click here to get in the spirit.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Monday, Monday

can't trust that day.

I actually trust Mondays, love Mondays. And I'm looking forward to this one. Here's a cheerful weekend wrap-up, probably a welcome respite from the doom and gloom around here of late.

Our neighbor K made this beautiful swing frame for Sophie. She is in heaven under the tangerine tree once again.

I made this butterfly cake for a little girl's birthday:

Vanilla Cake with White Frosting

and I made this ladybug cake for the little girl's sister's birthday:

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Red Fondant

I sat on two blazing hot ball fields:

That's Henry playing catcher

and I didn't take a photo of Oliver playing flag football, but it was hot:

We saw the movie Moneyball, which I highly recommend. Brad Pitt did such a great job in the movie that I actually loved learning about baseball and statistics. I'm not kidding. And I'm not crazy for Brad Pitt or anything (right now it's Ryan Gosling that I'm a tad obsessed with):

So here's a photo of Ryan Gosling, because that's really where I've been heading this entire post:

Oh Monday morning, Monday morning couldn't guarantee
That Monday evening you would still be here with me.

Sunday Reverie

Up early with the light to make frosting and decorate cakes, I see that the Earth has tilted just so on its axis and the light streaming into the windows, this second day of October, washes over the table in a slightly different way than it did yesterday. I blink and it tilts again; I close my eyes and think of Lueza, the seventeenth year of her birth, her smile in my mind's eye, the tilt of her head, and I am spinning with her memory, different than yesterday.

Cake

It was a day of chocolate on Saturday -- chocolate batter, chocolate frosting, dark chocolate, 70% cacao, milk chocolate and cocoa. I felt slightly ill at the end of it but I'm feeling more and more confident that chocolate is my signature.

If you would like to order a chocolate cake, email me at elsophie AT gmail DOT com.