I like to cook sweets. If I were a better person, I would put more of my cooking energies into soups and other low-calorie, nutritious foods to fill up the belly without breaking the bank. Instead, I think of cookies, ice creams, fudges, and cakes.
I don't normally bake for things at work. I can buy a cake for our small group at Rebeccas or Rosies and have something people will truly enjoy. However, I decided I wanted to make a white cake with strawberries for a birthday (and potentially a second birthday being celebrated within a day), so I've been looking online and thinking about all of the cookbooks and decorating books I have.
One of my favorites is a little gem, Sweets to the Sweet. It's not the biggest or the best cookbook, but it makes up for its brevity with its Mary Engelbreit feel. There is a recipe for faerie cakes in it that I've been dying to try out for a couple of years (a bit time consuming really) as well as profiterole and pies.
Of course, I'm going to be spending a fair amount of today baking. I have this little vision of a white cake, 2 or three layers. The cakes will have a thin layer of seedless strawberry jam (wish I could ask one of my friends who makes jam if he has any, because he makes an excellent Strawberry Basalmic) with a bit of whipped strawberries (whipped cream with a bit of liqueur and either very small pieces of strawberries or a bit of strawberry juice). The frosting will be a buttercream frosting, white, with floral decorations in the lightest pink I can manage. Of course, I've made wedding cakes. They were high on taste and low on presentation. But the image in my head is of a cake with high marks for taste and looks. I wonder if I can pull it off.
