I bake. I used to bake a lot, but since I’m currently without a kitchen of my own {story later, or never} I bake much less than I used to. Nonetheless, when I do get back in the world of 350 degree ovens, butter, and batter, I always end up with a pretty darn good story. This cake is no different. Casa Karpinski was the destination and warming a home was the intention.
My grandiose ideas for decadent layer cakes sometimes end in tragedy. I’m learning though, these unexpected events are tragic to me, but no one else. This lovely little cake was supposed to be a petal-iced, 4-layer Chocolate Porter Cake + Chocolate Dulce de Leche Swiss Meringue. Really? Because that isn’t what happened.
What really happened was I doubled the recipe and ended up with way too much batter but thought I could go ahead and load two 8″ x 3″ rounds, split them in two and TaDa! four easy layers.
Using my parents’ oven, I decided to opt out of the convection setting because it seems to bake everything way too fast and not nearly as thorough as it should. Oh, but don’t worry because using a regular “bake at 350”, it took both cakes like 90 minutes {I stopped paying attention at some point} to bake through. Fine. Bake – Cool – Remove from pans except, just kidding…some of the cake decided it wasn’t interested in leaving the pan and Cake One was essentially D.O.A.
A year ago this would have set off a perfectionist-induced scrambling to bake another cake, cool, and ice it in the 2 hours I had left to play with before I needed to leave for said shindig.
Today, I’m learning to STOP, BREATHE, and CHILL the cuss out. I decided to use what I had {one remaining gorgeously dark chocolate cake} and leave it mostly naked. I used a little of that chocolate dulce de leche meringueish buttercream, which alone I wasn’t a fan of, but when paired with that cake it was a near perfect balance. I threw on some toffee bits and drizzled warm dulce de leche on top and there ya go. Fin.
This is where I tell you that I got to the party, halo and all and everything was just fine. It is also where I leave out the part where I decided to go to the car wash before the party and wash and vacuum my car and basically obliterate the cake box sitting on my front seat with the vacuum hose. That’s irrelevant information.
All in all, this freedom journey is teaching me that 9 times out of 10 I’m stressing myself out over things that most people will barely notice, if at all.
And there’s too much bondage in that.
Am I alone in this? Do you find yourself stressed the cuss out for no apparent reason at all?
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