A bit of Insomnia Induced Blogging (and cakes)

I occasionally can't sleep, in New York especially. Usually it has to do with my mind won't stop racing, and I have plenty to think about right now! Though admittedly I also took claritin today to help this head cold thing...one time I took what I thought was 2 12-hours, when in fact I took 2 24-hours. I think I slept for 2 hours that night? whoops...this time though I was sure of the dosage! But I figured, since I'm up, why not blog?!

Cakes are going fine, a bit more stressful because I generally just want to finish, and am not as excited as usual. ALTHOUGH...today we made the most incredible and moist angle food cake. Normally, I'm not a huge fan, it's fine but I generally consider it a vehicle for other things. But in this case, I could have eaten a great portion of it, limiting it to just a bite was tough...Here it is:


Now some "real" cakes:

My first ever "professional" cake! OK, I'm sort of proud...It's a genoise base with raspberry layers (three) and buttercream frosting

And a ganache cake: chocolate genoise, with ganache layers and a chocolate glaze.

I'm really hopping cakes will grow on me, really it's just that they're these huge mounds of pastry that I don't particularly want to eat, have much room for inventiveness in terms of alterations, and often involve the use of unnatural, or terrible tasting additions for aesthetic purposes ingredients, see: fondant/marzipan. There are some exceptions, like angle food! Or potentially a coconut cake, because really, coconut is the best. seriously.

I'm also aching a bit for this section to be over since next is lean breads and the petit fours! Two of my most favorite and anticipated sections!