Baking with My Figgy Girl

She is tall and almost lanky in her shorts. Her hair is up in a clip. She has on the cool tube socks I bought her at Whole Foods a couple years ago. [The best friend in Juno had a pair, so I figured Fig would like them. I'm not perceived as right about many things these days, but I was right about that.]

She called me on my ride home from the Cape to ask if we could make a birthday cake for her friend, M. Turns out M. wanted Red Velvet. So I ran out to get the few ingredients we needed this morning--including the red food coloring. Figgy did most of it by herself, with a little guidance. After all, she's been watching me stir and bake and frost since she was in her baby seat in our breakfast nook.

The truth is, I've noticed that Figgy is really happy when cooking and baking, whether sauteing peppers and onions for a quesadilla or whipping up vanilla cream cheese frosting. ["God, that's good," she said. "It's ace. I want to have a show on the Food Network one day."]

Bake & Take
Having toiled shoulder to shoulder with the best food minds in the business [when I worked at Good Housekeeping Magazine for 10 years, writing the copy for the food, fashion, decorating and other pages] and having watched my Dad bake bread and tomato soup cake, and my mom whir her beloved layer cakes from mixes, I have a whole list of rules up my sleeve that I'm passing down to Figgy. I may not be the wisest when it comes to advice a teen girl wants about other things, but I have my baking down pat.

Rules to Bake By
These don't all have the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but trust me, they work.

1. Spoon dry ingredients like flour and cocoa lightly into cup, then level off. Do not pack in and pat down. Your goodies will be leaden.

2. No toothpick--like us right now? Test to see if cake is done using tip of steak knife.

3. No cooling rack--like us right now, since it didn't make it over to the condo? Remove rack from microwave and use that instead.

4. Even though Land O' Lakes may disagree, put your butter out [in the mixing bowl you'll use] to soften the night before, or at least a couple of hours ahead. Same with cream cheese. That way, you feel like you have a head start on the project and will be less stressed. You've already begun! So you'll get it done. [BTW, same goes for most writing projects. Starting is the hardest mental hurdle.]

5. To measure peanut butter, fill cup halfway with water and then add the peanut butter. Drain the water, and the PB will slide neatly out. My mother taught me this. So if you need 1 cup PB, fill a 2-cup measure halfway with water, then add the peanut butter till water level reaches the top. Pour off water.

6. Use real things for best taste and most tender crumb. Real butter, real eggs, real sugar. Try not to bake too often, but when you do, use the real stuff.

7. Make time to bake. Just do. It's usually for a happy occasion, like a young or old person's birthday, a dinner party with friends, a picnic out in nature. It's a sweet ending. But best of all, you did it yourself with your own two hands, used your creative muscle, and made the house smell delicious and welcoming.

Time for Figgy to remove cakes from pans and invert. And I've got to get going soon to tour a big home for an article. Have to drive an hour to get there, after dropping Fig off at M.'s door.

Sweet kisses.

Photo courtesy of three-walls.org. We used recipe from McCormick, and should be good and moist, as has sour cream in batter. But I won't know.