Let Me Bake Cake

In a former life, I baked all the time. It was a serious hobby and I practiced. I would spend entire years concentrating on one thing - pie, cake, bread and I would bake one thing every weekend and I had so much fun doing it.

I seriously considered attending French Pastry School in Chicago when I quit my job at the synagogue. A friend who had attended there told me not to. They said to read recipes, watch videos, take a class if one interested me and if I was still truly dreaming of baking professionally, get a job in a bakery and learn everything I could.

Instead, I moved to Portland and got serious about making art. I baked consistently when we first moved but I sort of stopped around 2014-15, when my life blew up and the universe got serious about me making art. I moved into my current house almost a decade ago and it has the worst kitchen. I dislike baking in it so it had become even more of a rarity.

As a person who has become deeply uncomfortable with selling my art, I am glad I chose not to monetize another passion.

A couple years ago, I made a few things. Nothing spectacular but good enough to remind me that I do like baking. I was also much better at working with our wildly imperfect space, which helped.

And this whole time, I’ve been reading recipes, watching cooking videos, saving things for later.

This year, I had seen a number of recipes for an Olive Oil Cake with Plums, including one in a Palestinian cookbook I was given for my birthday. I’d made one with cherries before, from an Italian recipe. Since I’ve been a little obsessed with plums the last couple years, it felt like the time.

I made it. I shared it with friends. There were varying degrees of enthusiasm. I thought I could do better but I did like it. A friend and my housemate both loved it. And I had fun making it.

There was a joint birthday party in my backyard a couple weeks ago for two friends with the same birthday. I threw them in a group chat and told them I was going to bake for their party, what would they like? Pie? Cake?

Lemon Blackberry Cake, one said. Sounds perfect, said the other.

Lemon Blackberry Cake it was. I dug some cookbooks out and visited some internet favorites and read a lot of recipes. I would make 3 - 9” lemon cake layers, soak them in a lemon simple, slice the layers and alternate blackberry butter cream and a fresh blackberry jam. It was a two day process and one of my friends brought edible flowers from her garden to decorate the cake with. I wish I’d taken more pictures because it was a very pretty cake.

The friend who brought the flowers for the cake has known me for almost 19 years and has eaten many cakes I’ve made. She swears it is my best cake ever.

I’m dating a chef who ate multiple pieces and told me he was waxing rhapsodic about it to a coworker days after eating it.

Both of those compliments were just as good as the time I made an apple pie for a party. It had five or six varieties of apples with my grandma’s crust and a crumb top that I had perfected. Friends of the hosts, all food industry people, who had just judged the citywide Apple Pie contest, said mine was better than the winner.

I love feeding people. I especially love feeding people so well their reactions border on hyperbole. I had forgotten.

There’s another joint friend birthday party this coming weekend. They’ve requested Tres Leches and I can’t wait.