Improvisation

 We were going to do dinner last night with friends. We celebrated three of our birthdays that all converged.  I made a cake.  You have to have a cake for birthdays, right?  

My friend thinks everything that comes from my kitchen is magic.  I can do no wrong. It's all wonderful and she said she wants to live in my freezer.  Well.  No pressure there, right?

I decided the cake would be a cake I made before and it's delicious and moist and chocolate and made with lots of malted milk powder - in the cake, the filling and the glaze.  It's a winner.  

But not this time.  I spent ALL DAY Friday on this cake, the steps are many, cooling time is needed, but it's worth it - usually.  This time I couldn't get the filling right.  I spent hours trying to make it right, to fix it, to fiddle with it, to figure out what the problem was.  I knew mostly the problem was something called Clear Gel from King Arthur Baking and I didn't have any this time.  It's expensive for the amount you get and I didn't reorder after I ran out so, as usual for me, I tried to improvise. 

I improvise ALL of the time when I cook but generally know not to try it when baking.  Usually.  But I had to this time.  I tried everything in my magic box of tricks and nothing could or would fix this.

 That ooze?  It's the filling.  I even tried to stabilize it by putting it on the front porch in 1 degree temperatures.

But you know what?  I served it anyway.  I spent just too much time on this thing, it still would taste great,  and above all I wanted to prove to my friend that not everything that comes out of my kitchen is magically perfect. 

And we all practically licked our plates clean.  It was delicious even it if looked like a final result on Nailed It!

There are times, well, most times, I DO improvise and change things up.  When baking that can usually only mean change things up with flavors.  In the midst of the baking of the cake I had it in my mind to make cinnamon rolls but not cinnamon rolls.  I thought lemon instead of cinnamon would be nice.  Lemon and blueberry.  So I made some lemon curd and opened a small jar of home made blueberry jam

It was gooey because I used more curd and berry jam than I should have but that mess was easily wiped away.

This improvisation worked beautifully, deliciously.  No cinnamon needed.  I divided up the  booty and shared it with the group.  

 Improvisation number three.  These stars are another of Friend Sally's cast offs, I put them together and bordered them and  by the end of today this will be another pillow. I will *gasp* machine quilt it (that's the improvisation.)  I can hardly say that out loud but I think after ironing it really good, pinning it really well and going slowly, I can't mess it up too bad.