Sweet Summertime!

I have had some minor time on my hands to play around with amidst the domestic chaos life presents me with on a daily basis, and honestly, I feel incredibly lazy today having been up all night baking. What it is with me pulling these wild baking overnighters? Something about stars and ganache I think, anyhow here are the resulting products!

 Zebra Print Toffee

This one got me into trouble with a good friend, hehe, for it was a last minute surprise I decided to make before a special dinner we were going to, and it decided to misbehave at the last minute and I had to "save" it. Toffee is such a finicky animal! I ended up being late for said dinner, being forced to rely on my culinary charms to buy me some sweet mercy and forgiveness. Did it work? She still fed me so I am thinking yes. LOL




Vanilla Babycakes with Semi-Sweet Chocolate Ganache
(Recipe Obtained From: Rose's Heavenly Cakes)

These bring an interesting story to mind. At choir practice on Thursday last week, one of our guitarists suddenly looked at me and said "I'd like some cupcakes on Sunday!" Ha! Then our percussionist said "Yeah! Yellow cake with chocolate frosting! My favorite."  It was so funny how he said it so politely and with almost childlike hope, because he had no idea I do cakes etc to begin with or that I had stopped making them recently (for others). He just acted on intuition, and got lucky!  I asked him what made him ask me, and he thought about it, then said he had no idea! It just came out before he could think and stop himelf! Talk about going with your gut instinct! Feeling God was asking me to pick up my polka dotted apron again and crank out some seriously decadent nom noms, I happily obliged. I don't think they honestly thought I would take their antics seriously, hehe, but they truly had no idea that what they had just done was medicine for my soul =P

Semi-Sweet Ganache (setting up)

Today I showed up with a pretty wooden tray of these bad boys at choir practice early in the morn, and when I felt that old familiar sense of pride and love I associate with my work, realized how much I have missed it.

Much like anything one puts their whole heart and soul into coupled with hard physical work (thinking of my larger cakes hehe) it's always a gamble for the person afraid of failing. Hoping for someone else's enjoyment, paid or unpaid, such an act can bring about the most euphoric untold joys, or on the flip side,  frustration and disappointment when things go wrong. I know it isn't any huge feat to make cupcakes from scratch blah blah blah, but for me, this was a turning point in my confidence. What a great way to begin my day! I feel rejuvenated...