Actually, I’m not really writing a blog post. I’m just summing up 2009 with photos taken during the last 365 days.

First up are some of my favorites of the thousands of photos I took in 2009. It was really hard to narrow these down to just a handful of favorites and I hope to take just as many (or more) pictures in 2010!

Then there’s me through the year. Putting this together wasn’t so easy as both the boyfriend and I have discovered that we don’t take a whole lot of pictures of ourselves. We’re going to try harder next year…and the mosaic I create on 12/31/2010 will be easier to create!

I hope that everyone has had a great year and best wishes for 2010!

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Post title borrowed from a Ben Folds song of nearly the same name.

Last song I purchased from iTunes: When Will I Be Loved by John Fogerty & Bruce Springsteen.

Made for dinner tonight: Chicken, cheddar and onion quesadillas. The chicken was marinated with chipotles in adobo sauce & grilled with the onions before being turned into quesadilla filling.

Currently drinking: Nothing. But a glass of milk sounds good.

Playing on iTunes right this very second: Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen.

Currently reading: Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson and Amarcord by Marcella Hazan.

Laughing about: The episode of Mad Men we just watched. We’re at the beginning of Season 2 and Joan is my favorite character. Tonight she discussed why crying in the break room is bad: “This is why I don’t allow crying in the break room. It erodes morale. There’s a place to do that, like your apartment.”

New to me, easy and delicious dessert I recently made: Tarta de Santiago (as pictured here). It’s a Spanish almond cake with a hint of lemon. Yum. Recipe here. I followed it almost exactly.

Song I can’t stop playing over and over and over again: 21 Guns by Green Day.

Currently knitting: Still nothing. But it’s almost cold enough for me to want to knit again. And I’m hankering for a project that will use some of the Noro Iro in my stash.

In need of: A new immersion blender. We had a generic one that mysteriously died/broke when I tried to puree black bean soup. I need to decide what brand to go with for the new one.

Playing on the iPod now: Something to Say by Toad the Wet Sprocket. I still love this song from the early 90s.

Will soon attempt to learn: Adobe Lightroom. It’s installed on my computer at work and I haven’t had a free minute or hour to learn how to use it yet.

Not getting enough: Sleep. I think the changing season has made me want more of it. And I still don’t know how to go to bed early.

Hyped up about: Autumn weather. I like the sorta warm, sorta cold days and I can’t wait for the leaves to change color.

Something I need to do tonight if it kills me: Decide what kind of cookies to bake tomorrow. Yes, it’s important that I decide this tonight.

Craving: A grilled hamburger. We walked around W&M yesterday and there was some sort of barbecue somewhere and the hamburgers called to me.

Trying to learn how to: Stop buying clothes that all look the same. It takes real effort on my part to buy shirts in different styles and to refrain from purchasing something I like in every color made in it.

Something I thoroughly enjoy: Random cussing in songs that don’t seem like they’d have them. Ben Folds and Glen Phillips are both good at dropping random f-bombs in the middle of a song and I love it!

Hell hath frozen over because: I gave up whipped cream on my Starbucks iced toffee nut lattes. And I’m drinking less of the lattes as they’re not as good without the whipped cream.

Best thing I’ve bought this month: New corduroy pants. I love corduroy pants and these Old Navy ones are pretty spectacular.

What I might be for Halloween: Lucille Ball. Or a devil. Or something else that can involve my red hair.

Still bragging about: The wedding cakes I made this summer. I’m proud of me for having the skills to do that.

Looking forward to: Next weekend and the possibility of our first (and last) camping trip to the Outer Banks this year.

Not looking forward to: More painting in our house. It looks nice when it’s done but the process is so long and tiresome…plus I’m only a moderately decent painter.

Playing on the iPod now: Fidelity by Regina Spektor.

Next up on the reading list: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan.

Can’t believe: That the new season of 30 Rock hasn’t started yet. I need an Alec Baldwin fix.

Absolutely, positively obsessed with: Trader Joe’s dark chocolate covered almonds with sea salt and turbinado sugar. Best new food I’ve tried in a long time. They’re good like dark chocolate covered pretzels are good…only better.

Next in the Netflix queue: More Mad Men Season 2, American Beauty and Away We Go when it’s released.

Must make time to: Get everything ready to get our kitchen inspected by the state so that I can legally bake things for money. After that’s done, there’s a business license to be purchased.

Trying to decide: How to spend less money in October. Less eating out? Less clothing purchases? Too bad it’s fall and I want new cold weather clothes.

Last dessert I baked: Caramel Apple Upside Down Cornmeal Cake from Better Homes & Gardens.

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Shockingly, I’ve managed to take a picture of the day for Flickr for 250 days! Even more shockingly, I think I’ve only missed or skipped 2 days in there and I plan to make those up at the end. When I started this back in early January, I thoroughly expected that I would fail or at the very least not do a good job of keeping up. But I have!

If you haven’t been following along on Flickr (and I don’t really expect that you have been), here’s a preview of the last 36 days of photos. The other 214 pictures can be found in the Year in Pictures set on my Flickr page.

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Since my last post droned on and on without even mentioning what flavors the cake layers were, I figured I should write (boast) a little more about this wedding cake.

Some stats about this one:

• Meant to serve about 170 people. I don’t know how many people ate the cake but I think there were some leftovers.
• I made 5 cakes. Each with 3 or 4 layers. All told, I baked 19 layers of cake in 6″, 8″, 10″, 12″ and 14″ pans.
• The smallest cake was not part of the assembled cake you see here. It was boxed and set aside as the couple’s 1st anniversary cake. In all honesty, the thought of a 5 layer cake scared me.
• Three kinds of cake were made: lemon cake with lemon buttercream frosting and raspberry jam filling, almond cake with almond buttercream frosting and strawberry jam filling and chocolate cake with mocha buttercream frosting.
• It took me 4 evenings and part of 2 weekend days to prepare and assemble the cake. Baking the actual cake was the easiest part.
• A sampling of the ingredients used: 12 pounds of powdered sugar, 2.5 pounds of butter, 2 pounds of margarine, several cups of cocoa powder, 12 pounds of granulated sugar, 12 pounds of flour, more than a gallon of whole milk, nearly 1 large bottle of lemon extract, 1 roll of gauze and 1 roll of waterproof tape (for my cut finger), 4+ dozen large eggs, 10 pounds of fondant and nearly a roll of parchment paper.
• It took 2 online orders from Joann.com, 1 other online supply order, 2 trips to Michael’s, 1 trip to Hancock Fabrics and 3 trips to the grocery store to obtain all of the needed supplies and ingredients. I’ll plan better next time.
• The pieces you have to slice off the cake to make it level make a nice dessert when layered trifle-like in a dish with extra frosting.
• As mentioned in the last post, there was a lot of stress and a few tears involved. And some restless sleep. If I’d had some anti-anxiety medication or sleeping pills, I probably would have used them.
• I’ve been asked how the cake was assembled. It’s stacked on half inch tall cake drums made of cardboard and there are wooden dowels in the cakes to support the weight of the stacked layers.
• I was also asked how we transported the cake to the reception site. Very carefully. In boxes on the floors and seats of my Camry. With the air conditioner blasting out the coolest air it could muster. If I were to start doing this all the time, I think a station wagon or a mini van would be a good vehicle to own.

In the end, it was worth all of the literal blood, sweat and tears. I even think it was worth it enough that I’m willing to do it again (and again and again). I think I’m even willing to sacrifice some of my precious free time to do it. With time, I think I could bake a little faster and work more efficiently. The anxiety over doing a good job might even lessen after a while. So…if you know anyone in the vicinity of Williamsburg, Virginia that needs a wedding cake, I might just be available!

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Disclaimer: Before I write this post, let me reiterate the name of this site. It’s called The Boastful Baker. Please keep the word “boastful” in mind as you read this particular post. If you don’t want to listen to me brag, stop reading now.

As you might be able to tell from these photos, I made another wedding cake. My second one. The cake for my sister’s wedding in July was for about 75 people. This one was for about 170 people! 170 people! That’s almost 100 more people than the first cake! That’s a lot more cake.

Shortly after I agreed to bake my sister’s wedding cake, I was asked to bake this one. The now married couple worked with me at my old job. The bride read about my plans to bake my sister’s cake on Facebook and decided to offer me the opportunity to make her cake. She knew a little bit about my baking skills and aspirations and figured that it was a good way to get a slightly cheaper cake. She also thought it would be nice to give me, the fledgling cake baker, a chance to show off.

I hesitantly agreed. It may have taken a little arm twisting on the boyfriend’s part to get me to agree to it. It was one thing to agree to make my sister’s wedding cake. She’s my sister. If I screwed her cake up, she’s still my sister and life would go on. Making someone else’s wedding cake was a little more daunting.

Planning this cake was a breeze. The bride (and groom) were very flexible about the cake. We met just once to go over ideas and costs and agreed upon most things immediately. Everything else was easily taken care of with a handful of emails. I am sure that most wedding cake planning experiences are not this fantastic. I got lucky.

On to the cake…

I know this cake looks good. Getting it to look this good was not easy. It took many nights and a couple of days of work. It was stressful knowing that if something didn’t turn out right, I could ruin someone’s wedding. There may have been some yelling. Some cursing. Some name calling. Even some tears.

Baking the actual cakes was fairly simple. I baked over the course of 2 1/2 evenings and everything turned out well. I was a little scared about the largest cake layers not baking evenly…but they turned out just fine in the end.

Making the first few batches of frosting was also pretty easy.

Then the going got tough on the fourth night. I got cocky and thought I had plenty of time to finish the cake. The wedding was still almost 2 days away. All 5 of the cakes were baked. Two of them were already layered and crumb coated with icing. A lot of the frosting was made. So I took a nap. I’d been working hard and I deserved it.

I woke up about 2 hours later and got back to work. Very shortly after that, I sliced my thumb wide open. I may have been slicing the caps off of one of the cake layers in an irresponsible manner with my very sharp serrated bread knife. I’ll take full responsibility for my stupidity and the fact that my stupidity cost me a lot of valuable cake preparation time. I spent the rest of the night fretting about my finger and whether or not it would ever stop bleeding and whether or not I needed to go to the emergency room for stitches and whether or not I would be able to finish the cake in time!

In the end, my thumb ended up okay. It stopped bleeding, I got no stitches and the show went on. Slowly. With barely a day until the wedding, you would think I would be trying to get everything done as quickly as possible. No, I took it slow and lazy. I finished layering and crumb coating the other cakes. And then I took another long nap. And then I went shopping. It was now fairly late at night and the wedding was the following afternoon.

That’s when we realized that there was still a mess of work to be done. Five cake layers needed to be covered in fondant. But first the fondant needed to be colored. I also needed to cover 5 cake boards with satin and ribbon. The first fondant layer got screwed up. Screwed up enough that it was removed and thrown away. Which also meant I needed more frosting. Tensions were high and we were tired. We went to sleep knowing that we had to get up early the next day (the day of the wedding) and that there was a LOT of work left.

We did wake up early. And we raced the clock all day. More frosting was made, lots of fondant was rolled and carefully put on the cakes, cakes were chilled, a million little royal icing beads were dotted on the cake, last minute just-in-case flowers for decoration were procured, more little dots were applied, cake boxes were assembled, pearl colored dust was brushed on the dots, more anxiety set in, supplies for finishing the cakes on site were packed, hasty showers were taken and finally…the cakes were loaded into the car. With literally no time to spare. So little time to spare that I left both the iron and the hot glue gun plugged in.

We got to the reception site with all the cakes intact and started the sprint to the finish. If we wanted to catch the wedding ceremony, we only had about 45 minutes to assemble the cake. We missed the ceremony but at least the cake looked great and I could finally breath. Then I started repeating “I made that?” over and over again to both myself and the boyfriend. Even now, I can’t believe I made it. When the cake was in progress and I was stressed out, I thought there was no way in the world that it could possibly come together. But it did and it was phenomenal.

I then got to take compliments about the cake for the rest of the night. Amazingly, I don’t like being complimented in person. Lots of people came up to me to say “Wow!” and to tell me how good a particular flavor was. The best compliment of all was when the bride saw us for the first time that night and turned to give us a huge, approving grin and a thumbs up.

Another post will follow soon with cake details as I think some of you might be interested in knowing what actually went into baking this thing. You might even want to know what kind of cakes I baked.

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I was on vacation in Seattle recently (the first vacation in a year and my first trip to the West Coast!) and I came away from the trip a little wiser than I was when I hopped on the plane here in Virginia. Okay, maybe wiser isn’t quite the word…that would insinuate that actual learning took place.

Here’s a lengthy list of thoughts about my vacation. Some of these thoughts are silly but a few of them could actually be relevant to other people. Especially other people planning their own summer trip to the Pacific Northwest.

1. There is no need to bring 5 pairs of shoes on an 8 day trip. In fact, 5 pairs is 3 pairs too many. All I really wore all week were my Keen sandals.
2. If you’re in a park and the sign says that the loop trail is 2.8 miles long, the sign lies.
3. Even though Starbucks was born in Seattle, my iced toffee nut latte does not taste any better there than it does here.
4. Vacationing in the Pacific Northwest in August? Bring jeans. Lots of jeans. And a couple of sweatshirts. Do not bring 3 pairs of shorts. You will not wear them.
5. On that same note, if you’re staying with family, don’t pack so many clothes. You will inevitably do laundry and not end up wearing 60% of what you packed. All you’ll wear are the same 2 pairs of jeans.
6. Top Pot Doughnuts are incredible. The best doughnuts I’ve ever had. If you visit Seattle, you must have at least one.
7. If I lived in Seattle, I would be a cow because of Top Pot Doughnuts.



8. Small children do not need toys. They are perfectly happy to play with wooden meat tenderizers, laundry baskets and light switches. Save your money.
9. Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon (yes, we took a side trip to Oregon) is the most awesome bookstore ever. Followed closely by The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle. They don’t make independent bookstores like that where I live.
10. Farmer’s Markets in Virginia are terrible compared to Seattle. Even the neighborhood market there was far superior to a citywide market here. Fruits and vegetables are also prettier and cheaper there.



11. If you want to visit a chocolate factory (Theo Chocolate), you should make your tour reservation before your trip. If you don’t, you won’t get to take the factory tour.
12. Coconut cream pie tastes even better when there is coconut baked into the crust.
13. Trolls really do live under bridges.



14. I’d really like to live in a town where you could walk to small stores and restaurants. It was nice to walk down the block for coffee in the morning.
15. Even if my Toyota Camry is getting a little old, it’s still a wonderfully quiet ride. Unlike the Nissan Versa we rented for the week. That thing was obnoxiously loud.
16. Smoked pork barbecue tastes just as good in Seattle as it does in Virginia.
17. The Atlanta airport is too busy. There are too many people there are any given time. Too many scary people.
18. Blackberries are a weed out there. A delicious weed that I would love to have growing out of control in my yard.



19. If there hadn’t been a Jim Henson exhibit at the Experience Music Project, I would have wanted my $15 admission fee back. Fortunately a few Muppets made it worth the expense.
20. Parking in a city is not cheap. Correction: Parking in a city is not cheap if you’re lazy and unmotivated. It was so much easier to feed the meter than to drive in circles looking for a parking space.
21. I don’t know how to drive in hilly, steep places.
22. Poison ivy spreads. Despite your best efforts to contain it.
23. It’s a long drive from Portland to Seattle via the Oregon Coast. Possibly too long…fortunately it was a beautiful drive.



24. Sockeye salmon tastes particularly good when it’s just off the boat and really fresh.
25. There don’t seem to be a lot of redheads in Seattle. Is there a reason for this?
26. Mt. Rainier is not so easy to see. I didn’t get a view of it until we were on the airplane heading home. Fortunately that was a great view.
27. Not eating before a cross-country flight is not a good idea. Two cookies and a bag of pretzels are not dinner.
28. If I ever move to a big city, I should open a bakery. The prices they get away with charging are criminal and I’d like to be the criminal in that situation.
29. Libraries can make you dizzy. And not from reading.



30. Going to Seattle in August when you live in Virginia is kind of like going to Florida in February when you live in Maine. The weather on your vacation totally spoils you and you’re miserable when you get home.
31. Rainier cherries might just be my favorite fruit. Too bad they’re almost too expensive to buy here in Virginia.



If you’ve made it to the end of this post and would still like to see more pictures, visit my Flickr page.

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I made this. Really. I kind of can’t believe I did it. Planning the cake and buying the supplies and test baking kept me busy for weeks and weeks. Many test cakes were baked and frosted (and many samples were taken to both my office and the boyfriend’s office). Some test cakes were covered in fondant. Two of them were even stacked on top of each other just to make sure that we knew what we were doing for the real thing. Despite all of the samples and tests, I have to admit that I doubted I was going to be able to pull this off…right up until the morning of the wedding.

This cake was made for my younger sister’s wedding. She asked me to bake the cake shortly after she got engaged. I’m not going to lie…the thought of it kind of scared the dickens out of me when she asked. But I happily agreed to do it and hoped that I wouldn’t fail her on her big day.

I’m now proud to say I didn’t fail her. We (the boyfriend was a huge help in the entire endeavor) did it! A three tier wedding cake was successfully baked, decorated and transported an hour’s drive from my house.

Details about the cake: Each layer is a different flavor. The top was carrot cake with caramel buttercream frosting, the middle was red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and the bottom was amaretto cake with amaretto buttercream frosting and a layer of strawberry jam. The bride and groom chose the carrot and red velvet layers and I chose the amaretto. All 3 layers were covered in a thin layer of vanilla buttercream and all of the layers were covered in Wilton fondant. Contrary to what you think you know about fondant, Wilton fondant is actually edible. I’ll even go so far as to say that it’s kind of tasty.

The ribbons around the cake were picked out by the bride. The flowers were a last minute decision that really worked. My mom grew all of the flowers used for the wedding and did all of the arrangements herself. The night before the wedding I asked her for a handful of flowers “just in case” I needed them for the cake. My other sister, Tasha, lent some moral support while were assembling the cake and arranged the flowers for me.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I might write a longer post later with more cake making details.

And just in case you’re interested in seeing something other than the cake (the bride perhaps?), here’s a slideshow of the handful of photos of the wedding I’ve shared on Flickr thus far. There will be more…many, many more. Probably a zillion more to be exact.

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Seriously, how has it been a month since I’ve posted? I blame the photo of the day thing I’m doing on Flickr. I’m taking a picture everyday and posting the photos on Flickr with a nice little description…and this is taking the wind out of my blogging sails. Sorry. If you really really really care about what I’ve been up to lately, head on over to my Flickr page. There are lots of pretty pictures of food and flowers and plants over there.

And just to prove that I do still cook….

Pork carnitas. Yummy pork carnitas. If you’re not familiar with carnitas, you ought to be. The pork is a nice change from the usual beef or chicken. But maybe you don’t like pork quite as much as I do. Most people don’t.

These are from the May 2009 issue of Everyday Food Magazine and the recipe is available on the Everyday Food website. I followed the recipe to the letter for the pork. I didn’t, however, use the same toppings they used. Instead I topped my pork with sharp cheddar cheese, fresh pico de gallo (made with just picked cilantro from my herb garden) and sour cream.

As you look at the recipe, I’m pretty sure you’re going to scratch your head and say “Ewwwwww!” Yes, the recipe does instruct you to simmer/saute the pork in a mixture of milk and orange juice. Yes, this does sound gross. Yet I followed the recipe and I can assure you that the pork did not under any circumstances taste gross. The milk and orange juice thing repulsed me so much that I almost wanted the pork to taste bad. Shouldn’t milk and orange juice curdle when mixed together and shouldn’t mixing them together ruin the pork? Despite my skepticism, the pork was scrumptious.

This blog writing thing was fun. Maybe I should do it again sometime soon. Maybe if I do it again sometime soon people will still want to visit my site. Wishful thinking?

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For more Wordless Wednesday posts and information, go here.

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