Sweet Humble Pie

If you are familiar with services that provide all the recipes and ingredients for you to prepare the meal intended, you will be able to imagine what I am talking about.  When COVID broke out we were introduced to Baked In.  All the Pre-measured ingredients delivered to me in a neat little box.  Now I possess everything necessary to make the dessert of the month!  We did not have any kitchen tools or ability to store excess food because, at the time, we were living in temporary housing and our shipment had not yet arrived from the USA.  This is way back in April, so we signed up for Baked In and thought that the premeasured amounts would be of great help.  Of course, the desserts were far too big for two of us, so after gaining more weight then we intended, I kept two additional month's boxes and then canceled my subscription.  I held onto the boxes waiting for the kids to come, hoping we would bake together.   

1. Pretzels     2.  Raspberry cake

The day has arrived.  We decide on raspberry cake.  Cole begins.  … Add bag #1 to the butter:  whipping by hand (we have no mixer) the consistency is all wrong.  It needs more liquid? moisture?  next he adds the 4 eggs and whips more, still the consistency is not right … but we continue to follow the directions.  Next comes the bag of flour.  Bonus: Cole didn’t realize cooking with me would give him an arm workout!  He continues to whip.  Still, it looks wrong.  Then I taste it.  It is SOOOOO unbelievably bad that we realize that the first bag must have also been flour and not what it was supposed to be…  this explains why the consistency was so off and difficult to whip.  We were forced to throw it away.  As you know,  we are not quitters.  We were wanting a dessert!  I look up some random easy recipe and hope we have all the ingredients.  It is clear by now, the “Baked in" company had messed up the bags or the numbers or something.  It is easy to imagine the worker not caring what bag goes into which recipe's box.… and now, our trash has a floury cake blob at the top.

​… it is time to start the frosting.  Cole reads out loud, “mix the mascarpone with bag #5, so I do this.  We whip it, and again, taste it, and there is no doubt something is wrong, it tastes strange.  THAT bag #5 ended up being yeast.  Then the light bulb goes off.  He had been reading the recipe for the cake but, all the while, using the ingredients for the pretzels.  We laughed SO hard when it became obvious.  We had to throw away the frosting too.  We looked in the fridge and found some cream cheese and in the correct box we found icing sugar… we made an ad-hoc frosting.  I hold my head in shame convinced the mistake was the company’s when it was ours and ours alone.

Between our fits of laughter, we did the best we could to finish the cake. …It is true, the cake looks horrible.  As we learn to be flexible in difficult times, it becomes crystal clear that joy is not obtained by the result, but in the journey making the sweetest memories.
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Take it from me, throw out your recipes.  Create your own.  You might find that your pretzel cake is just what you were after all along.