Birthday Cakes and Tasting Appointment Tonight

I know what you're thinking:

"Two posts in one day?!? Is this girl crazy or something?" Well, as I was writing this one, I remembered that I forgot to post one about the pies. Interesting wording, huh? Anyway, here's a very rare, second post for the day.

I’m so excited about tonight. A friend of mine is ordering a cake—a free cake, but it’s an order nonetheless—and is coming over for a taste test. It’ll be my first time making cake and icing for a customer to try and see which one they like. It was supposed to have happened last night, but the weather was horrible over here. Tornados, straight-line winds, and torrential down-pours lasted until about 9 or 10 o’clock last night, and a tornado watch was in effect until 2:00 AM this morning.

Anyway, her birthday was last week, but she didn’t get a cake. I felt so bad about going to her birthday shin-dig and not bringing a cake. Especially since she knows about Andrew’s and my business dream and has been spreading the word around. So, she called on Wednesday to order and tell me what she wants. She’s ordering a chocolate cake with butter cream or regular sugar icing. The icing is what she really wanted to taste test because I told her in the real cake world, there is a difference and that I prefer the real butter cream icing over the other on a chocolate cake. I didn’t tell her this, I’ll wait until tonight, but I’m also going to give her a choice of chocolate cake. I found some Chocolate Fudge cake mix when I went shopping and knew I just had to try it….umm….I mean my friend just had to try it. So, I got that and some devil’s food. [Thinking about what I just typed] I’ve always said it, but it’s really funny to type that flavor of cake. I guess because chocolate is “sinful,” it’s called devil’s food. Sorry for the tangent thought.

I had been thinking of how to make the cakes and also make her a sample of it without having to eat two whole cakes and buy another mix of the one she liked. It worked out perfectly that we are tasting tonight instead of last night so I can just make both cakes like I normally would, but reserve a little bit and put it in a ramekin for her own tiny cake. I was quite proud of myself for thinking of that. Then, whatever cake she likes the least will probably turn into cake pops like what Bakerella makes. I love those little things! And plus Andrew made some recently and they were SOOOO delicious. And, the cake pops will go with me sometime Saturday to our church where the “youts” are having a car wash.

The second birthday cake is for Andrew’s best man. His birthday was almost two weeks ago. Yes, we’re a little behind, but remember why we are---

I just love this house. The kitchen may be small, but it’s still a lot bigger than the apartment.

And, I love the investment we made in a steel worktop table from Sam’s. It’s one of the best $80’ish we’ve spent on a kitchen item. I got to find out just how much I loved it when I made fried apple pies. Those batches went SOOO much smoother at the house with room to work with than the apartment.

Well, I’ve already made this post a lot longer than what I had planned. So, I’ll post with updates soon—really this time. I know sometimes my soon means months, but seriously, I’m going to do better.

Procrastination Pays Off on Fried Apple Pies

I have a confession. After I posted about National Pie/Pi Day, I completely forgot about it. Here was a holiday that I could fix a pie, and I forgot! I was so sad and couldn’t believe I did. It wasn’t until the day was almost over or the next day that I had realized. So, I did what most procrastinators do best—I waited.

I had thought about making something for a co-worker’s birthday that was the week before. I didn’t know it was his birthday until it had past (he was working on location in Shelby County that week). Several days went by and I still didn’t make anything. The procrastinator in me was doing it again—waiting, I didn’t know what for, but I was waiting.

St. Patrick’s Day rolled around and I still didn’t do anything.

Then it dawned on me: Why not have all three celebrated at once? So, I waited again. lol. Since St. Patrick’s Day was on a Tuesday, I decided to wait until Friday to bring in my pies. But then I thought that wouldn’t work so well because Fridays are bagel/muffin days at work and I didn’t want to compete with that delicious treat. Thursday was just going to have to do, procrastination or not.

The next question was: What am I going to fix? I thought about making tiny apple pies in a tiny aluminum tin and I thought about fried pies. [drooling] I love fried pies…. So, that’s what I went with, apple, cherry FLAVORED cranberry, and apricot fried pies. Andrew’s reaction to my thinking about making fried pies also helped with that decision.


Let me explain why I made “flavored” all-caps. I went to the store to get dried apples, cherries, and one more fruit/berry. I wasn’t paying attention and only saw “cherry” on the bag, and did not see that it was an ocean-spray bag, which usually only sells cranberries…[face palm] I realized what I had done after I emptied the bag into the pot and actually read the print. lol. Needless to say, those cranberries got a TON of sugar to mellow out the tart flavor.




I invited a friend of ours over to taste test because he’s a huge fan of my fried pies. He loved the apple ones and almost would only eat that flavor, until that night. He ended up preferring the cherry flavored cranberries, which turned out to taste a lot like cherry. [sigh of relief]


I love to invite people over for taste testing. Except when the food turns out not as good as I thought it would, and then I feel really bad for having people eat it, even if they’re being polite.


With the exception of having to use toothpicks to identify which pie was which flavor, they turned out pretty good, and only two were left out of the 15 I brought to work for the 7 employees at work that day. This is including me. I had to have one. And, man, was it good, especially warmed up in the microwave. DELICIOUS! And, I made a cute little sign to go on top of the carrier, which said:

Happy Belated
Pie/Pi Day
St. Patrick’s Day
Birthday to CJ

Well, it was just a quick print out of that and how to tell which pies have what number of toothpicks in them on a grassy green piece of scrapbook paper. I liked it though.

Oh, I didn’t mention this. Andrew and I bought a brand new fryer to use for these pies. I hope we didn’t waste 80 bucks on something we’re not going to use that often. You, know since fried food is really kind of bad for you. I think you can steam vegetables in it, too. We’ve got to figure it all out. It’s nice though, since I’m used to old Fry Daddy bucket fryers. Those are dangerous. I would be very cautious and somewhat scared I was going to dump the grease all over me. But, this new one is a sturdy box of a fryer with cool-touch handles and a digital thermostat. This was obviously an Alton Brown inspired purchase on Andrew’s part. Oh! And there’s no plastic lid that you can melt. And, yes, I’m speaking from experience. Lol.



At this point, I think I need to start thinking of a catchy ending phrase. You know, like “You stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy?” Wow, that was a pretty random thought. lol.