Experiments with cake

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. All previous nights this week I dropped off with no problem, so my guess is the tapping was helping. In the middle of the night I figured out what I could do with some scraps I'd been given. I made a plan to do that first thing in the morning. But then in the morning, I had a reason to stay in bed until 10am. I forgot all about quilting. I cleared the first round of e-mail. I put on a audio, and exercised, then juiced a lot of veggies, trying to clear them out for new stuff tomorrow. I made breakfast, and listened to the first of two tapping audios from last night. I looked through a quilting magazine while listening. Then I rewrote the recipe for the carrot cake so that the steps were in better order and the ingredients were in the same order as the steps. I printed out the recipe. The first step was to soak the dates. The amount of water was not given. I looked up similar recipes and there was no consensus. So I made one dish with 1/3 C and one with 1/6^th cup of water. Then, while the dates were soaking, I made the bowls of topping. One got coconut oil mixed in and the other got none. I located the grating attachement for my mixer and grated a whole bunch of carrots. The recipe said 6 – 8 medium carrots, but no cup measure. Chris looked up other recipes and they ranged from 2 cups to 3 cups. I used the two cups first. I melted enough butter for two cakes. I chopped nuts first with the nut chopper (too inconsistent), then with Grandma's nut crusher (too fine), and then with the handmixer (just right). I mixed up batter for one cake with two layers. It seemed awfully wet. While it was baking I worked on a second cake. I used fewer eggs, and less water in the dates. I greased the pans better the second time because one of the layers broke when I took it out. I baked the layers of the second cake while freezing the first layers. I cleaned up the utensils and bowls, and ate some liver. I listened to the second tapping audio, and took the cakes out of the oven. After I finished the second audio, I cut one frozen layer in half, and frosted it like half a cake. I froze the second set of layers, then added chocolate shavings to the half-cake, I ate rest of the chocolate with frozen cherries. Chris tried the cake, and liked it. He gave me a bite, but I thought something was missing. Maybe the second cake will be better. In the middle of the third audio, Chris finished gaming with the voices, so I had a chance to talk to Michele on Skype. She told me about her teaching job. Then I finish the third audio and cleared one last round of e-mail before going to bed.