The Cake (And Everything Online) Is A Lie

A pretty common saying is “don’t judge a book by its cover,” yet we seem to all forget that particular wisdom tidbit when it comes to the internet. This can range from trusting a Wikipedia entry to believing that chick from high school is really as perfect and happy as she seems to be on Facebook. I’m not going to go all moral-high-ground ranty on you, but rather share a silly example of yet another thing not to always trust online – recipe gifs.

There is a subreddit devoted entirely to these things, and they’re popping up on my newsfeeds more often than not. It just so happened that one for a cherry recipe showed up right after I bought a bunch of cherries. The video, which you can see here, made it look super fast and easy to throw together. Since my boyfriend is a huge fan of cherry pie it seemed like fate. I hurried to the kitchen, eager to begin my gif recipe journey.

I had watched the video a few times, but had also grabbed the written instructions as that’s how I roll. I gathered my ingredients and my baking wine and turned to the first step with glee. Here is where things quickly fell to pieces.

Let’s back up for a second. Ya’ll know I bake. I do. A lot. Despite my tendency to never follow the directions exactly, everything normally turns out delicious. What I do not do though is bake pies or too many fruity desserts. I don’t really have a reason for this. I mean I’m not a huge fruit fan so that could be part of it, or it could be that I prefer time savers like jarred/canned ingredients and everyone always stresses how fruit desserts are better when they’re fresh fruit. I dunno. The point is that I’ve only ever made one or two pies in my life, so I am in no way a pie or fruit expert.

This became very obvious very quickly, as the first thing I needed to do was pit my cherries. The video showed a hack involving a bottle and a chopstick. I had both of these things. I washed and de-stemmed my cherries and got ready to pop out some pits real quick.

I’m not going to say this hack is a lie, because it technically works to get the pit out of the cherry. But the easy and clean way they present it in the video? FALSE!

I screamed a little when the first cherry pit exploded in a gush of juice. It was horrifically reminiscent of a certain Game of Thrones scene involving the Mountain. Yes, the pit was out, but my cherry was also rather deformed instead of the perfect looking one in the video. I thought maybe I was doing it wrong, so I tried a few more. Same result. I googled cherry pit removal tips and found several entries about the fail process I was already trying, and then another one involving a frosting tip. After several large gulps to harden my resolve, I switched to that method.

Eventually the cherry pits were removed. Almost all my cherries were basically torn in half, and my kitchen looked like a murder scene. There was cherry juice on the counter, on my wine bottle, and ALL over me as well.

I was a little discouraged that the first step had proven to be more difficult than the video indicated, but I continued on. The rest came together easily enough, and I popped my creation into the oven. I think it was the smell as it finished up that first alerted me that something was off from my expectations. While the recipe was called “pie” it obviously lacked a crust, and the description had called it a cross with a cake. In my mind, this translated as actually being a cake. In my boyfriend’s mind, this translated into being like a cheesecake. The actual end product was neither of these things.

Did it look pretty? Well, yeah. After an hourish of hot, sweaty, and mildly terrifying efforts it was nice to see it turn out looking good. As for the taste… NOT my cup of tea. It was neither cake nor pie but almost more like a flan, which I do not enjoy. I took it into work and thankfully my coworkers liked it so it wasn’t a complete waste.

Moral of the story? Do NOT always believe what you see online!

#TheCakeIsALie #NoReallyItWasThisTime #DontTossWordsLikeCakeOrPieAroundIfItDoesntTasteLikeFreakingCakeOrPie

How to Handle Going (Semi) Viral

Step 1: Make Sure This Is Really Happening

I was thinking today about how slackerish I’ve been on my writing. I logged into Blogger just to see what my last post was even about, since I couldn’t remember. Then I had several minutes where I thought my dyslexia had reached epic proportions of awful because I couldn’t figure out why the graph of recent views had 100+ on what looked to be a LOW visit day.

Turns out, I went (semi) viral.

Step 2: Figure Out WTF Happened

Detailed research soon revealed that a random post from last year (31 Signs You May Have a Jazzercise Problem) was the cause of about 96% of the views. I couldn’t get anymore information except that the bulk of the views were coming from a Facebook link.

So I turned to Google.

Extensive Googling revealed that SEVERAL Jazzercise locations had shared this blog post! Oddly enough my Jazzercise had not posted the blog link, which is why I didn’t know this was happening.

Step 3: Tell People

Obviously it’s not real unless you immediately text or run over and squeal at friends/family to tell them all about it. I figured while I was at it, I should probably write a blog post about my success.

I also realized as I was telling people that it was the perfect time to remind them of all the other facts this reveals. I can now prove that I’m ridiculously clever, have an amazing sense of humor, and am potentially the most amazing person they know. I’m also crazy humble and down to earth about my success!

Step 4: Do a Victory Dance

Maybe even more than one if you’re feeling really excited. I did. I decided it was a baking night so I could have celebratory dancing all night long. This ended when the oatmeal cookies refused to cooperate, but there was plenty of dancing squeezed in before that.

You don't get a picture of the victory dance. Deal with it.

 

Step 5: While You’re At It, Have a Celebratory Meal…

 

(actual dinner pictured on left)

 

…Or Drink

(actual mini champagne on right)

 

You know, or do both. Why not? I’m semi-viral. I totally earned it.

Step 6: Calm Down

Of course a short time later I’ve completely forgotten about it because I’m busy swearing at f***ing oatmeal cookies. It’s important to keep things in perspective. I may be a Master Blogger (also known as Dumb Lucky since this is more a Jazzercise promotion thing than an actual example of my writing prowess), but clearly I have yet to perfect baking. F***ing cookies are ruiners.

Baking with Wry

There’s a common misconception that I’m a nice person. Even people that have known me for awhile get confused on this matter. Someone at my current job said that I don’t “have an angry bone” in my body, which is super untrue. Another friend at my previous job told a coworker that I am “the nicest person ever.”

PB & banana muffins

I think what confuses everyone is the baking. Possibly also my face, but mainly the baking.

I love to bake. My first attempt was in college, when my brother was coming to visit and I wanted to surprise him with cookies. Then when my friend Erin moved to California, I took up the mantle of office baker. Initially I stuck with cookies & cakes. Since moving to Austin I have experimented with breads, cake balls, and one time I tried making a pie. I then distribute my baked goods to neighbors, friends, and coworkers. This apparently gives people the impression that I am a kind person, and baking for their benefit.

Generally, that’s not the case. Don’t get me wrong, there are instances (like birthdays, or when someone’s sad) where I’m baking for the other person to give them delicious goodies, and thus happiness (remember I’m a Taurus, we equate food with pleasure). The majority of the time though, I just want to bake, so I do. Then I’m stuck with all these stupid cookies/muffins/scones/whatever and don’t want to eat them. Giving people the food allows me the pleasure of baking without having to eat it. So in reality, it’s kind of a selfish thing. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at my top 5 reasons to bake:

Cookies!

5. Bored-baking

4. Baking to eat cookie dough

3. Baking to dance around the kitchen (baking/cleaning justifies it)

2. Happy-baking

1. Stress-baking (depending on the stress level, sometimes rage-baking)

Given that I still can’t jazzercise because of my knee (over 4 weeks and counting, I’m having withdrawal), I have been baking up a storm. Everyone at work is getting spoiled. However, I found myself in the midst of a dilemma.

Bread basket (THAT WAS HARD!!)

I do own a hand mixer. My lovely mother got it for me a Christmas or two ago. Prior to that, I never used any sort of mixer when baking. I normally make do with a fork. When I first brought my mixer home I was a little intimidated by it. So to make it more approachable, I named it Ryan, quickly shortened to Ry. This worked to get me to use it a few times but the thing is, if I’m truly stress-baking, I prefer to use the fork. Especially with making bread… it is so amazingly satisfying to beat that freaking dough into submission.

With my knee hurting though, I wanted to bake, but I also wanted to severely cut down on my standing time. I think I’ve used Ry more in the past 4 weeks than I have the entire last year. And you know what? He’s handy. I like him. I think moving forward I’ll be seeing more of Ry for happy or bored baking, but maybe stick to my trusty fork for the rage-baking.

I can’t honestly say I’m a “good” baker. To be fair, the only things that turned out “bad” were my first few bread attempts. I was estimating at my water temperature at first and apparently I’m a horrible estimator. Once I got a baking thermometer my bread started looking like bread instead of scary dough lumps.

Watermelon cupcakes

My problem might be my perfectionism. I constantly think the final result could be better. Just last week I made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I didn’t like at all, but they were DEVOURED at work. Of course, I don’t even like oatmeal cookies. I can’t remember the last time I had one. Which brings me to my top 5 baking challenges:

5. Making things a consistent size

4. Spreading anything evenly (I rarely if ever use my rolling pin, so that could be a large part of the problem)

3. Judging whether or not fruit is properly ripe and should be used

2. Chopping any type of fruit (although apples are the worst. There’s a good chance I will lose a finger making apple cookies one of these days)

1. Attempting to make things that I don’t even know what the final result should look/taste like

I like to expand my horizons and try new things that people request, but half the time I’ve not only never made it before, I haven’t eaten it in years, if ever, so I’m not entirely sure if it really turns out okay or not.

SO MUCH BAKING

Actually no matter what I’m making, even if I’m made it multiple times before, there comes a point in the baking process where I’m convinced it’s going to end horrible and I’ve messed it up beyond repair. So I shrug, maybe take a sip of wine, and carry on. Worst case scenario, it’s inedible, and I can live with that. That may be one of the other reasons I like baking. I know I’m a perfectionist. I know I stress out constantly over stupid little things. I know very well while baking I will become convinced that I’ve done it all wrong and it will be nasty beyond repair. On the other hand, I know I’m having a great time attempting it, and even if something does turn out bad, it’s not the end of the world.

So does baking make me a nice person? I’m going with no. Totes no. If you really want to think I’m a nice person, that’s fine, but let’s all accept that the baking has nothing to do with it.