But If I Had the Chance to Go Back, I'd Rather Stay Right Here...I'm Turning 30

Yes, you're correct, I've already turned 30. That's how Ophelia and I came to be. I love every anniversary with her, but this post isn't about me, it's about my bro's GF, M. Now, M is a trooper -- she hangs out with my family a lot. Enough said. ;) And M. likes chocolate. A lot. For a little girl, she has an awesome appetite. I appreciate that about her.

Now, M. turned 30 this week, and so for this week's cake, I told her I'd make her any cake she wanted. She requested a fruit and chocolate cake. This is the best one I make, but after having screwed it up this summer, I was a little hesitant. Ophelia said it was because I didn't use her. She said to give it a try. So we did. It turned out pretty good.

The last picture is M. on her 30th birthday. Isn't she lovely? She's just as kind and sweet as she looks. My brother is a lucky guy. Happy 30th, M!

More on Sunday!

Love,
M&O Productions

And after a long, long hiatus...

We're back! Literally. We're coming back to the Midwest, we're meaning me and Ophelia. So much has happened since we last wrote. It's been quite a year for both of us. I got a job. Ophelia and M. and I made cakes for a wedding celebration. I got to see K finish his dissertation, defend it, and then celebrate K&P's adventure to Texas. I finished and defended a dissertation. Ophelia and I moved to NC. I started and finished my first year as an Assistant Professor. Ophelia has two new BFFs -- Hermoine (a really nice risotto pot) and Pippi (a very cool 2-in-one flame colored stock pot and skillet), courtesy of two very thoughtfully amazing gift-givers (K&P). I hosted my first Thanksgiving for T&A, A&D&W. K & I were hooded in December. I went on the job market. I landed a new job. Unfortunately, in all the hubbub, Ophelia has been pretty bored, to be honest, and I've been pretty, well, crazy. I've been in the NC now for almost 11 months. And I'll be moving away in just under 12. I have a little more than 2 1/2 weeks left here, and then we are bound for Wisconsin. Beer and cheese, baby! And SNOW! Ah, snow. Ok, no snow right now, but there will be snow, which is music to my ears. Plus I have a garage, so it's all good. :) Oh yeah -- I also bought a house -- yes, me! I have a house! It's cute. Nothing big, but it's mine, and I can't wait to get in it. I knew it was the house when I walked in, looked at a nook in the corner of the kitchen counter and said, yep, that's where I can put Ophelia. It's perfect. She can't wait.

So, in celebration of this new job, and being close to my given family, and having some great new colleagues, and getting this job which has kind of always been my dream job, Ophelia and I have decided to embark on a new task for ourselves. Modeled after All Cakes Considered, we are going to bake a cake a week, starting August 16th, 2010. We're going to try some new recipes, do some new decorating, and get the hang of this new kitchen that we'll hopefully be in for a while now. She and I are both sick of moving. Honestly, we're a couple of big girls to jostle around like that all time. :)

So, stay tuned for the inaugural cake at my new house in Wisconsin. Until then, here is a pic of Ophelia's latest work. I f-ed this cake up but good when I visited my dear friends K&P in Texas a few weeks ago. I almost cried, I was so frustrated -- it's labor intensive, and since I don't see them much anymore, it really sucked to mess it up. So, I had to try to figured out what I did to it. While baking this one, I realized I didn't use enough chocolate with theirs. Explains a lot, and lesson learned. Now I owe them a cake.

Happy 4th of July! I'm feeling like we have lots to celebrate...

Ace of Cakes I'm not...yet

Well, folks, this was our first attempt at a multi-layered cake. Ophelia and I are quite proud of ourselves, if we do say so. As you can see from the pictures -- success! More on that later. You see, P.'s parents are in town this week, so I wanted to have them over to celebrate and enjoy. I'd met them last night, and they are a hoot! I really enjoyed them. I can see now where P. gets her sense of humor and all around good/sweet nature. Her dad reminds me of many of the members of my family (tonight he taught us all about the new "Air Car," not to mention the fact that he rocks socks with crocs), and her mom is just as sweet as can be (she made me an amazingly cute apron -- what a perfect gift! Ophelia and I are totally decked out now). They made homemade applesauce yesterday and gave me some (YUM, eat your hearts out!), we worked on crochet (that's a story for another time, I am such a bad crochet teacher -- thanks for bailing us out, T!), went out to eat and tooled around for a while. So, tonight I wanted to welcome them to my home with a very heart-felt welcome and with many thanks. And how do Ophelia and I do that? Yes, that's right, with food. But not just any food -- something special.

That's where this cake comes in. It's called the "Perfect Party Cake" -- Ophelia and I, of course, wanted it to be the perfect party, so that's what we chose. It was a day of firsts for us, Ophelia and I. I'd never done a 4 layer cake. I'd also never made a true buttercream frosting before. Ophelia was as green as I was. If she was nervous, though, she didn't show it. What a champ. And thus the challenge began.

First, the cake -- it's a lemon-ish white cake, made with cake flour, lemon zest, butter, egg whites, baking powder. As you can see from the pictures, they turned out really well. It was much easier to deal with these cakes as opposed to the chocolate cakes I made for D.'s defense. I am sure it is because these were much less dense. So, while the cakes cooked, I began the buttercream frosting. In a double-boiler, I cooked 4 egg whites with 1 1/2 cups sugar. The directions told me to cook it for 3 min. or until it looked like shiny marshmallow spread. I likely cooked it for 5 min. because I wanted to make sure it was hot enough to actually cook. And, I also really like to put stuff in a double boiler. I have no idea why. I mean, whoever thought to do that kind of stuff?

So, once I did that, I was to let Ophelia at it. Ophelia was to beat the mixture for 5 min. or so until it almost tripled in size. Man, is she good at her jobs. I wish I was that competent. I think she likes that I'm a tad bit jealous of her strength and abilities. Notice she let me photograph her today. I don't think that the ego boost and the photograph is a coincidence. Just sayin'. Then, comes the butter. I almost had a coronary just looking at how much butter went into this frosting. I don't even think I can admit it here. Let's just say that Paula would be proud, very proud. And, I feel like I am doing my part to support the dairy farmers here in the Midwest. So, it's ok, right? Right?

Then, the final test for Ophelia -- just beat the shit out of this frosting for like 10 min., aerate it to the point of doubling, and then you're ready to frost. Ophelia handled it like a trooper. Sometimes, I swear I hear her whisper "bring it, bitch." It would figure my mixer would have an attitude.

And, then came the part I was dreading -- separating the cake layers. Now, I had never done that before, and considering how difficult the chocolate cake was to deal with, I was very, very afraid. But, then I figured if nothing else, I had ingredients to still make the brownies I had on hand as my backup, so I just went for it. Surprisingly, it was fairly easy to separate the layers. You can see that in the photos, as well.

Now, where the recipe divulged a bit from the original was with the frosting. It was to be a lemon buttercream frosting. Well, I made it a raspberry-lemon buttercream. Why, you may ask? Well, yes, Ophelia and both do enjoy pink very much. We also thought it looked very nice with the raspberries. And, while we could lie to you and tell you that's why, lying's really not our style. We let our crazy hang all out there.

I screwed up. Bottom line. I got the jam for the middle layers too close to the outside and knew that if I tried to spread that white buttercream frosting on the outside, I'd end up with pink streaks that were obviously not meant to be there. So, instead, we opted for a pink frosting that we made just by mixing in a few tablespoons of seedless raspberry jam.

Now, I will admit that this cake, for all the butter, is actually very light in taste. In fact, I might have liked a little bit heavier (in terms of weight and sweetness) buttercream. But, all in all, quite the party, and quite the party cake. Ophelia is sending me to an orchard tomorrow to get some apples and peaches, so stay tuned!

We Be Jammin'

Anyone who knows me knows that I really hate summer for the most part. Put a big white girl in the heat and humidity, and boy does she get crabby and out of sorts. Walk outside, and within 20 minutes, I am a lobster. SPF 75 doesn't cut it for me. There is also nothing like trickles of sweat running down my body (in places when I was thin I couldn't even imagine existed) to make a big girl just love the summer. Yes I just said that out loud. Just tryin' to keep it real. Yes I just said that, too. Ok, I'll stop now. I promise.

However, summer does bring with it things that this big girl loves, too. Funnel cakes, for example, and mini donuts, corn on the cob, fried things on a stick (only in MN would we deep fat fry a Snickers bar), pork burgers, sno-cones, homemade ice cream, fairs and town celebrations (ask me about the Polka festival sometime -- yes, I polka. Don't knock it. It's a gift that comes in handy when you're drunk and at weddings. Trust me.), cool night walks, and most importantly, the fresh fruit. For the most part, I really don't like to eat fruit. But summer fruit and I have a special, special relationship. Oh, the berries, the sweet, juicy strawberries. The tiny, soft, lovely raspberries. The ripe, luscious peaches. Oh my. As my friend D. would say, somewhere there is a bottle of Tequila involved and she's likely screaming "inappropriate" at me. Ok, maybe at M. Maybe at both of us. It's worth it, my sweet, sweet berries...

Anyway, I got sidetracked for a second. I'm back. It was hot today, and my neighbors moved out really early this morning. Perhaps I'm delusional. Back to my point -- the berries. Earlier this summer, stubborn as I am, I managed to track down the last of the strawberry crop in a 3 state area (my research skillz are the bomb -- for berries, not for my dissertation). They were, hands down, the sweetest berries I think I've ever had. Minnesota berries are the best, I don't care what anyone else says. I made 28 jars of jam from those strawberries. I will never be the same.

I didn't get a picture of those, but I did catch the jamming bug. Bob Marley would be proud. So, after all my company left today and I cleaned up my kitchen, I decided, at 10 pm, to make some jam. No one ever claimed I was smart or logical, least of all me.

If you look closely at the pictures, yes, I cheated. I bought Driscoll's berries from the store. This was my trial run. If I like the jam, I'll go buy local berries. I found a couple of places to go for berries -- perhaps here or maybe here -- we'll see what happens. But, the test run was tonight. I'll give you the low-down on it in the next couple of days.

Ophelia oversaw the project, as you can see from the picture. She disapproved of my mashing methods, but otherwise I think she thought we did ok. I also think she didn't like me singing country to her, though I thought the Dixie Chicks were appropriate for jam-making. She's an alternative kinda girl, I think. Poor Ophelia.

As you can see, the fruit didn't yield much jam, but that's ok. Ophelia says to stay tuned for a peach pie soon -- Eckert's are in season, so a trip will be coming soon! If you want some jam, drop a line!