I've had a crappy week. So, today, I baked a cake. Okay, I got a pedicure, I bought two pairs of shoes, and then, I baked a cake. The pedicure was a joint operation for myself and my sister who's headed on the biggest trip of her life tomorrow, and airplanes make her a little nervous so a little spa therapy was necessary. The shoes, well, the shoes were an amazing steal at DSW for my husband, who has also suffered from lack of sleep and an acute case of desperation the past seven days and deserved something to brighten his day- that and I can never find anything remotely attractive in a size 13 and I found TWO pairs, on sale, for 70.00. Hello. The cake, was for me.
Kind of. I'm not actually planning on eating said cake ( I'm slowly working on losing those last ten pounds of baby weight....only took me 16 months) but I NEEDED to make it. I needed to sift flour through my fingers. I needed to decide at the last minute to scale back on the vanilla extract and supplement with some almond. I needed to slice strawberries and lay them delicately in swirling patterns across the creamy batter. I needed my house to smell like a Parisian bakery, like berries sweating in the summer sun, like everything will be alright and this is just another little step that's a bit steep to climb, but not impossible.
So, it doesn't really matter if the cake pan I put it in was too small and the batter bubbled and danced right over the edge onto the pit of the oven below. It doesn't really make any difference that the left side is the darker, more surely side of the confection. This cake's job was not to look or even taste good. It was just about the process of soothing my aching heart. And sometimes, only something made with sugar will do.