Culinary coaching...

Emily showed me great mercy today by serving as my culinary coach for my first attempt at a real cake (although I have made a boiled one which is mostly dump, cook, and bake).  I found the recipe rather inadequate and highly stressful, but Emily brought me through the bake like a champ!

This is an Apple Cider Donut Cake.

It is incredibly tasty!

However, it makes quite a mess in your kitchen!!

The part of the recipe I found lacking is that two bits leave you with leftovers!  Who has leftovers in a recipe???????  The first bit is where you peel, core, and chop apples, cook them in apple cider, and then puree the mixture.  You end up with just over double what you need.  I think I would halve this part of the recipe.  When I realized how much was left over, I decided to freeze it for the next time I make this cake.

The other part of the recipe that is too much is the cinnamon topping. I can only surmise it is so much because one ingredient is 1/8 teaspoon and how could you take that down further??  Seriously, I think the leftover part of the recipe should have been noted!

I called Emily in a panic, looking at all that apple mixture, most certain that I had done something wrong and did not want to proceed further lest I waste ingredients, especially the butter.  Emily was aware of the complex nature of the recipe and proffered that perhaps the idea of cooking down just one apple was a bit too small for a pan.  On her way to take her daughter to dance class, Emily encouraged me to plow ahead and coached me through the rest of the recipe.  I seriously would have not make it without her act of mercy!!

My stomach is glad that she did!

What meant the most to me is that Emily understood, without me even mentioning it, that I was cooking, that I was baking as a means of girding my loins for the appointment tomorrow.  The one I don't want to do.  The one I am not sure I will do.  The one that if I do not do I will not have refills of my hormones which I cannot be without.  A true Catch-22.  Dangerous to do and dangerous not to do.

After the cake was cooled, I sliced up the rest of it and put it in the freezer downstairs.  It is in the Rubbermaid cake container that I have owned for 26 years.  Nothing like a quality product!!  I froze it rather quickly because I really wanted another slice ... or two or three.  After all, four is my favorite number....

I have yet to clean the dishes, even though I need to try and shower and crawl into bed since I have to be up earlier than normal tomorrow and drive across Timbuktu for my appointment.  They are all in the sink and the counters and stove top are cleaned, but I do not want to leave them until tomorrow. I think that would be too discouraging a sight coming downstairs in the morning.

Speaking of encouraging sights ... I have made my bed for over a week now.  It really does cheer my weary heart when I stumbled my way up to bed and find visual rest in my bedroom.  Sometimes I do so when I awake, but mostly it has been after I have been up for a while.

This is sooooo perfect!  It really is wretched to faint when you get out of bed.  Getting up, transitioning to being upright instead of supine is rather difficult, so who wants to add the additional labor of making a bed and straightening a room?  Not me.  By waiting until after I am adjusted to the strain of being vertical the labor is less exhausting and I still achieve the blessing of nighttime bedroom visual rest.

Perhaps, now that I have posted such scrumptious photos, I will get Amos to tend to his business and then I will tend to mine.  Each time I am in the kitchen laboring, Amos camps out on his resting pad in there. I am so very, very, very thankful to Becky for providing a safe space for my Fluffnutter and constant company for me!