My first disappointment

I know it happens to everyone, but I have my first disappointed customer and it's mostly my fault and it has made a great "learning" moment. I have a cookbook that makes a GREAT chocolate cake. It also has a very similar recipe for a yellow cake, so I gave that a whirl- without trying it before selling it. I made a spare for my family to try, but I had frozen it for when my son came back, so I didn't try it.

Maybe it was cockiness, but I've NEVER had a flop in American style cakes and same with regular cooking too (I'm sort of a gourmet cook). A DAY after I sent this cake off, someone said that they made the cake from this book and it turned out dry.... EEKS!! So, for the following week's cakes, I made yellow cake from my tried and true recipe.

Well, I spoke with the Mom who had bought the cake from me and she said it wasn't as good as last time and then I asked, "Was it dry?" and yes it was... OMG, I hate that I disappointed someone. The worst part is that I spent OVER 4 hours decorating that cake (not baking, not cleaning up, just decorating it) and it was dry.... when I pride myself on moist cakes. So, I took out the "spare" in my freezer and while the cake is flavorful, and not bone dry, it is MUCH drier than normal. I'm offering a partial refund and just to make good, I'll make a small cake or cupcakes with the "good yellow cake" recipe, but it shouldn't haven't happened in the first place. I should have tested this recipe first.

What makes me REALLY mad is that I trusted the cake would be good, but now that I admitted my mistake to an online community of cake people, people are coming out of the woodwork saying how they have had the same problems with this and MANY cakes from this book - and it's a very popular cake book. But some professionals responded that all this "person's" cakes are o the dry side, so they don't recommend it. DARN IT.... I guess this baker likes drier cakes and assumes most of the consumer base does too... or something. Well, I know that some recipes are OK, but I will be TESTING before sending out from NOW ON... LESSON LEARNED!!! It seems my wonderful Better Homes and Garden cookbook which I keep around (since I got married) is a better book than this "bible". Sigh...

Got my new toy, umm... storage solution!

Well, when I got to home depot they had two choices and I preferred this one. It's actually pretty cool! The top box is a typical tool chest, the middle section (which you can snap completely off too) is two metal drawers, and the bottom is a big storage comparment that has a tipping door... opens like a neighborhood mailbox (do they have neighborhood mailboxes any more?). The handle works just like a piece of luggage and can be stowed to make it more compact. It is all wrapped in stainless steel but is still very lightweight. It's not like those big, heavy Craftsman rolling toolboxes. We have one of those too for "real" tools and we LOVE it. I still don't know how I'm going to organize it, but it will be fun. I must be one of the only people on the planet who LIKE organizing things. I usually have very good organizational skills... I just tend to be slow in GETTING things organized... I won't tuck things willy nilly until I HAVE a home for it... which means we do always tend to have a small pile of somethign waiting for a permanent home.

I think I had to get better organized because we have almost ALWAYS lived in a smaller space than we needed really. Hmm... that wasn't true for the last place we lived... and sort of true for the time before. I had my kitchen very well organized and our closets very well organized because those spaces were small, but we had full basement storage before, so I never had to be very organized in the basement until we moved here. Now, we really don't have a basement because most of it is finished living space. When we moved here I got rid of a LOT of long term storage, but we still had WAY too much. Since then, over the course of the last year I have whittled that down another 50% and have for the most part reorganized all storage boxes to consolidate what's left. I have a bit more work do to with that, but now we have "room to spare" for awhile at least. As a matter of fact, our storage room now has working space. I might make that my "cake" room too. We hung some of our old kitchen cabinets in their, so I can store some things down there and do the details of the cake - the part that makes a HUGE mess of my kitchen to keep my "cake" mess separate from the normal daily dealings of the kitchen. It will be especially useful for the cake projector! That thing is HUGE! I'll have to see - carrying a cake up and downstairs isn't much fun either. I just would really like to contain the mess of cake decorating a bit. I TRY to do things as I go, but when you get to mixing colors, and needing different tips for different designs, in the last bit of making the cake, you manage to pretty much cover all working space in bags, tips, bowls and spoons all with very colorful buttercream and, possibly fondant! I think it's the MESS of making decorated cakes that gets people to buying them from someone else and I understand it.... it's a VERY messy job!

OK... I think I've now bored you to tears, but I'm thinking this whole thing through to make sure I have it all straight in my OWN heady before I set about doing anything about it!

Want to see a BEAUTIFUL toe?

Seems I didn't manage to break it, but just bruised it up pretty good and probably bruised the bone. Even my little guy is learning that "Mama Boo-boo on toe!"... yep, stay away from the toe kiddo!

As with all hobbies, how to be organized?

I have reorganized my kitchen THREE times in this last year trying to organize the cake stuff as much as possible. First, I cleared one base cabinets and the bottom of our corner cabinet. Then, I cleared another base cabinet and got three baskets for on top of the corner cabinet and last, I made space in my spice drawer for the colors. But now I have things in FIVE places in my kitchen! and if I want to use the cake projector, I need to bring a lot downstairs. I'm also planning for these cake parties. I'll have the party supplies, but my guess is that it will also be nice to have some tricks up my sleeve (more tools) when helping kids too.

So, I found this. It's on a super sale at Home depot, but I have to think if this will TRULY save me room and be practical. Otherwise, I'm just throwing $40 away, which is never a smart thing to do!