Sheet Cake
3:04 p.m. - 2008-02-17


Today is a cooking day. The spouse needs a sheet cake for the office, so I offered to make one. I am using the Be@tty's Chocolate Cake recipe from the B@refoot Contess@, which is easy to put together and really moist and delicious. It is made with salad oil instead of butter (unusual for the BC) so is also low in cholestrol. Now that I am dieting for far into the future, I don't have much scope for baking goodies, so I told the spouse that I could make stuff to raise tax season morale in the office, like cinnamon rolls and cakes that are healthier than the usual bakery fare. And maybe cheese zombies, but that wouldn't be too low cholesterol. Since the husband is going to be taking stuff to the office, we needed a cake carrier in the 9x13 size. I used to have one, and in fact, still have the bottom and handle, but I don't know what happened to the top of it. Did you know that sheet cake carriers are hard to find? We must have gone to 8 stores or more before I found one in Michaels of all places in the cake decorating section. I am going to go to the restaurant supply store next week and check out their cake boxes, because I know you used to be able to buy bakery boxes there.

I bought a new cake pan in a larger size, about 11x15. I wasn't sure how the cake would bake in this size pan, but it came out great, nice and even. I also have a pot of Many Bean Soup simmering on the stove, and am making up some dough for cinnamon rolls in the bread maker. The hubster wants the cake to be chocolate, frosted in vanilla frosting, and since the party is to celebrate the adoption of a new company name and logo, I have to put the new name on the cake in blue icing. Melissa is coming over for Sunday dinner so she is going to draw it on the cake for me to decorate. My sister-in-law once had a neighbor who took cake decorating classes and then got bored with it, so she gave me all the tips and equipment she had bought. Even an untrained person like me can turn out an OK looking cake (hopefully) with all that equipment.

I was startled yesterday morning by a very loud crashing noise very nearby. I ran to the front window to look out, and a gigantic truck was dumping a huge load of lumber onto the driveway of the house across the street. This poor house, previously owned by some people from Central America who lost it in foreclosure, has been bought by a young guy who is fixing it up. He is a contractor, so should do a good job, and he is going to live there himself so it is not a flip type deal. The previous people had started putting in a cement and brick front wall/fence that looked like they were waiting for a shipment of wrought iron fencing to finish it off, only it never arrived. The new guy took a sledgehammer to the wall last week, so things are looking up. In less than 24 hours after the crash of the lumber, they had an addition up, framed, and sided. I did not know they could do it so fast in real life. Now it smells very nice in my front yard, like fresh cut lumber.

All I have left to do is shape the rolls and bake them, and frost the cake. We are having a peculiar Sunday dinner, soup and cinnamon rolls and salad.

I happened to get a DVD out of the library that the spouse liked watching, 'Wish Me Luck', an old BBC series about spying in WWII. I managed to get the rest of the episodes from the library, so he is watching them every night. Holy cow, that reminds me that I have stuff waiting for me at the library and it closes soon, so off I go to get it.