I am definitely starting the New Year out of my comfort zone!! My friend, Montrue, and I are hosting refreshments for the garden club meeting tomorrow...that's where the chocolate pound cake comes in. It's cooking in my oven even as I write...and that's where Eleanor Roosevelt comes in! Maybe I should explain.
Every month the Chatham Garden Club meets in one of the churches here in town. The meeting begins with dessert and coffee hosted by two members. All of the women in Chatham are wonderful southern cooks so this part of the meeting is always a treat. The serving table is always set with a silver service and dessert plates of mouth watering slices of homemade cake or pie. A beautiful centerpiece of flowers completes the table.
Now, I consider myself a capable person. I graduated from college with honors. I can calmly figure out most problems that confront me. If I were asked to write a poem for the garden club, I would do it with joy and confidence. Arranging flowers is something that is fun and calming to me.
But the cake...baking the cake...now that is something that sends a paralyzing shot of fear right down my spine! There are so many things that can go wrong with a cake!! Even a delicious cake can break in half when you try to take it out of the pan...when you ice it...the crumbs can get in the icing and make it look lumpy! Or worst of all...you can leave something out...like the vanilla flavoring...and have to start all over again! It makes me sweat just thinking about it!!
Montrue is a wonderful cook and hostess. But her oven is not cooking right so we decided we would just buy our dessert. She and her husband, Bill, went this morning to the grocery to gather our supplies.
And that gets me back to Eleanor Roosevelt and her famous quote, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." That quote helped me have the courage to get over my fear of public speaking five years ago. So I decided today to see if it would work on cakes!
I called Montrue and told her I really wanted to try to make the cakes and she said okay...she would handle everything else. That shows what a good friend she really is...she's seen me bake before!!
I've been cooking chocolate pound cakes since 10:30 this morning. It's now almost 9 pm... and 2 cakes and 4 dishwasher loads later, I'm finished. Montrue said my kitchen looked like something out of an "I Love Lucy" episode!
I did forget to put the vanilla flavoring in the first cake. I
remembered as soon as I put the pan in the oven...so I took it out... poured it
all back in the mixing bowl...added the vanilla...washed and re-greased
and re-floured the tube pan...and poured it back in. It was somehow able to overcome my abuse and be a real chocolate pound cake after all.
Like me, the pound cakes are not perfect. The chocolate icing could have been a little creamier but I managed to get it on both cakes by pretending that I was spackling a wall...that is something I do know how to do!!
Tomorrow we'll take the cakes to the church and have dessert. It won't be the prettiest or best dessert ever served at the garden club. But it did make me start the year way out of my comfort zone...and I survived the day...and I'm not afraid of cake anymore. Eleanor Roosevelt was right!!
Montrue and I at the Chatham Garden Club
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