And Just When I Thought I'd Have Downtime for Menu Development...

.... I got two surprise orders in a week!

By "surprise," I really mean only several days' notice. So not really a, "Surprise! I need a cake in ONE HOUR - can you do it?!?!", ala Top Chef Quick Fire challenge. But "surprise" as in I really thought last week would be downtime to do some menu development, and suddenly that downtime was gone. Well, let's be real - there was downtime: I still went to the beach last weekend, attended a barbecue, etc. It's impossible to do anything productive during the summer, I've realized. Like develop menus. Or plan wedding cakes that are due in LESS THAN THREE MONTHS. No, I'm not freaking out at all...

Anyways, the first order was from my coworker Eileen, who wanted cupcakes for a friend's party on Thursday. We settled on carrot, as she was anxious to try this carrot cake of mine that keeps flying out the door. I got everything ready to do my baking Wednesday night - grated my carrots, plumped my raisins, softened my butter and cream cheese, lit the oven... Twenty minutes later, I checked the oven temperature, which is notorious for being anywhere from 50-100 degrees warmer than the set temperature, thus broiling when it should gently bake (I miss my old apartment's Viking range...), and found it to be at....200 degrees? I stuck my hand in and found it completely cold. Oh no... I turned the oven off and tried lighting again, only to find the same issue five minutes later - it was not lighting or getting hot. I called our apartment's maintenance man, hoping he could offer some advice, but he was drunk (for all you judging right now, to be fair, it was 9:30pm...). Now I suddenly needed a drink, as I sat there anxiously poring over my options:

1. Fix the oven myself. This is laughable. I texted handy-man Ted to ask what could possibly be wrong, and he asked if the pilot light was out. Good question. Even better question - what is a pilot light? While I consider myself relatively handy for a girl, I have NO experience with ovens other than cooking in them (which, to my credit, is more experience than many people have with ovens in general). I opened the oven and peered around, not seeing anything except the normal light. I pulled out the oven drawer and looked under there, but saw nothing. I didn't smell gas, thankfully. I googled "Avana first edition range model XGRT3000 manual" and found sites that seemed promising, but alas, did not have my oven's manual, or else asked how much money I was willing to pay to talk to a handyman online (which was, in all likelihood, something else...). So basically, I was not fixing the oven myself.
2. Use someone else's oven. Damn not having a car in Chicago. This severely limited the number of friends' ovens I had access to, as I was not going to load all my ingredients, pans, etc., onto the el or in a taxi (gross). Thus, my closest option (five blocks away, and by car) was Ted's - who happened to be at a musical at the time. So, I sat in my kitchen and waited...

What seemed like an eternity later, he arrived home, picked me and all my stuff up, and took me to his apartment to finally get my baking started, around 11pm. Luckily, his oven lit the first time AND baked evenly. All went smoothly, and by 1am I had some lovely carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and toasted pecan topping. A short ride home and it was as if nothing had happened, just three hours of sleep lost. I didn't want or need that desperately anyway...

I basically threw myself over top of those babies the next morning as I lugged them into work in the rain; after all the adversity the night before, they would NOT be ruined by one of my sworn enemies, Precipitation. They made it into work nice and dry, where they then tormented Eileen on her desk all day, as she knew she could not eat one, even though there would most likely be extras. People judge if you arrive at a party with a box of a dozen cupcakes that only has eleven in it.

She told me the next day that they went over really well. The host's husband loves carrot cake and ate five of the cupcakes, demolishing any leftovers. Additionally, she said I will hopefully get some referral orders from it, and, sure enough, the next day I had an email from the host asking about supplying her upcoming baby shower. MY FIRST REFERRAL ORDER!!!! The details of this are still being hammered out, so stay tuned!

The other surprise order from Ted's mom's fiance, Jeff, for a birthday cake for Ted's mom, Laura (perhaps I could have avoided that mouthful of appositives by first laying out, "Ted's mom = Laura. Laura's fiance = Jeff. Jeff wanted a cake for Laura."). As far back as Ted could remember, they had always gotten his mom an angel food cake with fresh whipped cream and fresh strawberries for her birthday, so the pressure was on to re-create the magic of angel food past. My experience with angel food had only involved adding to a grocery-bought cake, such as my old roommate Paige's favorite, Angel Lush, or this Strawberry Trifle, which makes a perfect summer dessert. I had never baked one from scratch but was excited to try, especially because it involved buying another pan for my collection (tube pan with lift-out bottom - so handy and smart!).

Angel food is a funny recipe. No wonder it is a relatively "healthy" dessert - there's no fat in it, nor yolks. Just lots of sugar, which makes those delicious, carmelized, sugary crumbs I love to scrape off the pan bottom and sides.  I made some amaretto whipped cream and frosted the top with that, then sprinkled fresh strawberries over top and on the sides of the plate. The cake turned out beautifully, with a texture like velvet. Everyone loved it, as evidenced by the fact that the ENTIRE cake was eaten, save a few abandoned strawberries. When was the last time you ever saw an entire cake eaten at an event, party, etc.? I feel like there is always at least a little slice left, if not half or more. This is probably more a testament to the light, easy-to-eat-a-hunk character of angel food and not necessarily my amazing baking skills, but just saying...