girlsdontcry's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Positivity (yes) I've always said that making a cake is less to do with cooking and more to do with being a scientist, because it's all about the chemical reaction, right? I'm reminded of that because after months and months of thinking about it, I decided to finally bake this red velvet cake yesterday (because I'm suddenly living on a diet or almost pure sugar), and I think I went overboard with the raising agent. Because the recipe called for "cake flour". Now, I've no idea what "cake flour" is, but I sort of assumed that I would use self-raising flour to bake a cake, so therefore "cake flour" and self-raising flour must be the same thing. Then in the recipe there was a really exciting sounding bit when it said to carefully mix the baking soda and vinegar. I sort of thought that if I didn't do it carefully there might be an explosion or something, and it was too exciting-sounding to not do, especially because I found some baking soda in the cupboard. (mixing the two doesn't make an explosion, it does go really frothy though) Apparently I'm the only person in the world who doesn't know that you don't need to put baking soda in self-raising flour. My brother and my father both knew this, even though I've never seen either of them bake a cake in their lives. So, the cake (which was already in 8 inch pans instead of 9 inch ones) mostly ended up all over the oven floor and the bit that didn't was stuck in the pan, and then this icing stuff I'd bought wasn't what I thought it was. It was a disaster. But it tastes nice. And it's not really red. I only wanted to make a red velvet cake because in the movie Steel Magnolias, which I guess I saw on television recently, they have a red velvet cake shaped like an armidillo (armadillo?), and it's RED RED, like really bright red, and it looked so crazy that I immediately wanted one. But this had a fair whack of coco in it, so I guess then there wasn't much chance for the red food dye to come shining through. Although, as I said, it tasted really good. .......... Anyway, I just said that because otherwise every single entry until June 19 is just going to be about the ways in which my parents are driving me crazy (let me count the ways). And today I'm going to be positive, and not let anything bother me. Not even my terrible hayfever, nor my suppurating wounds, and not even my mother trying to involve me in a conversation about how terrible a mother my brother's wife is, will get me down today. I'm positively cheerful. .......... My mother told a joke last night with the punchline "the arsehole's always in charge". So I guess arsehole is on my list of words. She said that her jokes "usually get a better reception than that" when I didn't laugh heartily. I told her that jokes with a build up including the word "rectum" were really only going to have two outcomes, and that I was sorry for not laughing. .......... I am a lovable, worthwhile human being, who is very very cheerful. 9:23 a.m. - 2003-06-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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