Welcome to The Weekly Recap! A lite Sunday read about my life and food. This email is free and if you are not currently receiving them in your inbox, click that subscribe button below.
Did you know I send out recipes every Wednesday? You heard that right! Join us in The Kitchen Club and you’ll get a new recipe every week, some details on how it was made, and in-depth explanations to help you make it successfully every time! My grandma loves her subscription to The Kitchen Club and you will too.
Today’s newsletter is coming to you a little later than normal. I have had a busy week and then life happened and I fully embraced time with friends. I spent the first half of my week baking cakes. So…many…cakes..! The first was a complete fail where I made a miss calculation and too much milk caused it to bake into a giant rubber disk. So, of course, I baked another and then decided the 9-inch pan I used was the wrong size. Cake number three, in an 8-inch pan, was slightly underbaked. The last cake I baked this week was a half sheet which was turned into three round layers. Thankfully that one baked fine because it was a ton of cake. To save some of all this cake for another use, I was planning to freeze the 9-inch to have for the future but after all the ups and downs I decided to cut into it and see what the crumb was like. It surprised me and was the best of all four.
All of this is totally normal for developing a recipe but I had already made this recipe many times over the years and never had any issues. I left the testing to the last minute assuming it would be a breeze but it has thrown me some curveballs. That’s on me. After four days in the kitchen doing nothing but cake, I needed a break and I took one. Two good friends from college flew in on Thursday and the four of us explored the city non-stop. The only time I thought about my cake development this weekend was when we sat at the kitchen counter late at night and attacked the three-layer cake with forks. Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be making the fifth test of this cake to make sure it is foolproof before I send it out in The Kitchen Club on Wednesday.
Making myself a cake and having a photoshoot with it has turned into my birthday tradition. It’s ridiculous but I love every minute of it. Thank you for subscribing, reading, and cooking along with me. I’m grateful for another year of doing what I love!
Stuff to Read
The 12 Most Anticipated Los Angeles Restaurant Openings, Fall 2021
A Theory from the 1980s Could Be the Key to Solving Picky Eating
What It’s Really Like to Build an Instagram Bakery From Scratch
Recipe Inspo
Listen To This
This episode of Proof told the fascinating story of the man behind Old Bay. Nazi Germany, traveling spice mills, and McCormick…it’s worth a listen!
Places I ate
We ate out a TON this week but I took zero photos. Q39, Succotash, and Fox & Pearl…we stopped at all three this weekend and loved our meals. Those three spots have become our go-to’s for BBQ, brunch, and a nice meal. One of our favorite spots for a drink is Swordfish Toms, an underground speakeasy. We waited 20 minutes until we were let in but it was worth it. We had some killer cocktails and played three intense rounds of Uno.
Thing Everybody Needs
This week I shared some tips on how I build layer cakes in my Instagram story. One tip is that I bake a half sheet of cake and cut circles out to make layers. This can be done with a metal cake ring but I have always used a 7-inch glass vase like a cookie cutter. Well, it of course broke in the middle of my video and I ordered some cake rings finally 🤦🏼♀️. If you plan on making a layer cake this way, consider getting some cake rings too!
Animal Cuteness
Bartlet giving his daily briefing.
Snag a podium cat scratcher, here.
We are heading to LA next week for another wedding and more birthday celebrations. Talk to you then!
Xx, M.