Commissioned Baker

Laura From Work (LFW) agreed to cater a wedding for a friend of hers and asked if I would help with the baking. How could I say no? I actually, physically couldn't. Perhaps one day I will grow a back bone and learn to turn things down, but these days I'm a Yes girl. Unless it's in relation to eating Fish, then I can No the crap out of it.

After this adventure I realized that baking as work and baking for fun are two totally different things. When I bake for fun, I can mess around with the ingredients, let cat hair get in the goods and lick the spatula whenever I please. Work baking, not so much. Although I MIGHT have accidentally licked the spatula once or twice... might have! That is in no way a confession. I am a weak person. who can say no to spatulas covered in chocolate? If I ever meet that person i might light them on fire to make sure they aren't a witch, or perhaps stab them with a stake to make sure they aren't a vampire. No real, good human being in my association says no to chocolate. At this point, if you hate me because YOU don't like chocolate, you can leave. Go. go right now. check yourself into a mental health facility and figure your sh*t out. Then go eat a chunky KitKat bar and enjoy life. *rant over*

My baking assignment was this: 3 key lime pies, 3 batches of mini 2 heart cheesecakes (new york style) and 2 double layer chocolate cakes with butter cream icing.

The key lime pies turned out super amazingly delicious. I actually followed them up with a batch of mini key lime cheesecakes, topped with a key lime reduction sauce, but i still had more limes left so i made a batch of shortbread lime bars. This, of course, was after some limes had been appropriated as beer limes.

I made a double batch of the chocolate cake recipe and the first batch of cakes stuck to the pan which made them not usable. Apparently reading the directions helped. Step 1, line pan with waxed paper. Apparently greasing and flouring the pan is not sufficient. Oh well, those cakes are in my freezer and will be turned into cake balls at some later date - stay tuned. The other batches of cakes came perfectly.

Third- mini cheesecakes. 72 of them. that's 6 cupcake pans. LFW gave me 2 to use, I own 1 (which is blasphemous and which I will rectify soon by borrowing one of mommy's), and I broke into Cam's apartment and stole two more. Which is 5. So I made a TRIPLE batch of cheesecake batter, which is like 16 bars of cream cheese and a kajillion eggs and three tons of sugar. Deliciousness. Andddd time consuming. I had to pre-bake the mini crusts and let them cool, and fill each cup with filling and then put two dots of raspberry coulis onto each one and drag a toothpick through to make it look like 2 hearts, then i had to bake them in water baths and then chill them. A project and a half. They didn't even turn out that cute. Delicious yes, cute meh.

I made some bucks doing it and it was a neat project to undertake, so I guess it was worth it. My first commissioned baking assignment, and perhaps my last. Here are some pictures for your eyes to feast on: