Dear Mimi,
I love to bake. I learned how to bake before I learned how to cook more than ramen noodles or veggie sandwiches. Before I taught myself how to bake, the family joke was that I could mess up scrambled eggs and toast. It's not that you didn't teach me how to cook or bake - I remember helping you make things when I was little. I just wasn't interested, and you never pushed anything on me. But then one day in college, I decided I wanted to bake a cake. (For a boy, of course.) So, 8 and I dusted off the baking pans and made a cake. It was awful. We started over, and ended up with a very ugly but pretty tasty one layer round cake. Before that day, I always thought that I didn't like cake. I discovered that I loved cake - I hated boxed cake and icing from a tub.
Armed with your much loved, well used, and food spattered Betty Crocker cookbook, I started baking. And as much as I enjoy the fruits of my labor, I love the actual baking more. I make many, many things that I never eat. Giving away a cake is almost as good as making one, and certainly more fulfilling than eating one. And less 'filling' in the hip area.
At this point, I couldn't begin to count the number of cakes and cupcakes and pies and cookies and tartlets and frosting and glazes and cobblers and brownies and ganaches I've made.
But I've never made a chocolate cake.
I've make plently of chocolate covered and chocolate filled things. And chocolate frosting is one of my very favorite things to slap on a cake. But I've never actually made a chocolate cake. I think I was afraid I would create some face-meltingly awesome chocolate cake. That I could not share with you.
You could not have chocolate. And you were not always graceful about it. When I baked something to share, I always made a non-chocolate version for you. Several times I hid the chocolate version from you - for your own peace of mind. So how could I make a scrummy chocolate cake with chocolate frosting - and risk discovering something amazing that I could never proudly serve you?
Recently, I needed a moment to myself. I left the boys upstairs, and I cleaned the kitchen. When I was done, I realized I wasn't ready to go back upstairs yet. I hadn't used it in a long time, but I pulled out the trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and decided I was going to bake the first thing I came across that I hadn't made yet. As it turns out, a Devil's Food Cake is the first cake in the good 'ol BCC.
So I made it. And I topped it with a Chocolate Brown Butter frosting. And it was delicious. It was everything I wanted in a chocolate cake. I shared a slice with Husband, and took the rest of the cake to work. The entire cake was gone by 1:00.
To me, there's nothing sweeter than sharing something I made. And like so many other things, I wish I could have shared it with you.
I wish it hadn't taken me so long to make a chocolate cake.
And, in general, I just sort of wish for you. I wish peace and sunshine and chocolate cake and strong coffee and backgammon and things to paint and sunflowers and all the things you love.
Love,
A
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