contentment and disappointment

Many things in my life revolve around what makes me happy. I believe it is safe enough to say that many people feel the same way. Those who know me would more than likely agree that cooking and baking are things that I enjoy to do and make me happy. Today I certainly got my fill of it.

As Mike’s mother decided to celebrate his birthday at Easter dinner, I provided the birthday cake. Mike’s mother generally gets the cake from the “family” bakery. This year’s cake was extra special. When my mother and father were in California earlier this year, they brought back a TNMT cake pan. I was advised that it needed to be a surprise for Mike’s birthday. As such, it has sat in a corner of my dining room, in a shopping bag, hidden behind my buffet.

This morning I made a homemade, from scratch, especially for Mike cake. The cake itself turned out well. It was lightly browned in color and rose beautifully.

While I waited for the cake to cool, I happened upon the bag of apples I purchased last week to use for apple pie. Because the apples would go bad otherwise, I decided to make an apple pie as well. I prepped the apples and the crust, even cutting the crust to criss-cross for a lattice effect on the top of the pie. I popped it in the oven and let it do its thing.

While the cake was cooling and the pie was baking, I took the opportunity to mix up a batch of homemade, from scratch icing for the cake. I separated out a small portion to color black, another small portion to color orange and another small portion to leave white. The remaining icing was colored green.

I didn’t want to ice the cake before we left, so I could be assured that it wouldn’t smear from the drive to Chippewa. I packed everything up so we could drive to my mother-in-law’s house for dinner. When we arrived, I set aside the apple pie (which smelled and looked absolutely heavenly!). Then I began to decorate the cake. And therein lies my disappointment.

Before I left home, I was able to locate my food coloring for the icing. The bottles of coloring were with my icing bags. What was missing were my decorating tips. Because I could not locate my tips prior to leaving, I wound up decorating the cake solely using a butter knife and a small spatula. The cake turned out “okay,” but I was certainly not impressed with it. I guess the important thing is that Mike loved it. I was much more impressed by the pie, which turned out to be amazing! Speaking of which, I think I’m going to go snag another piece…