Honestly, I don’t really bake many ‘special’ cakes. The kind with multiple layers temptingly blanketed by sweet, creamy frosting and loaded with enough sugar and calories to make you forget life’s troubles in an instant. No, I hardly bake that kind of cake. It may have something to do with the fact that those kind of cakes require a little more effort, and that baking them ‘just because’ seems a little, well… frivolous. Hans, my husband, gets a double-layer chocolate cake on his birthday, and I’m happy to bake one as a present for a friend, but that’s pretty much it.
I guess you could say that I’m the kind of person who likes to save the good stuff for ‘special occasions’. The Limoges plates and my mother-in-law’s fine linen tablecloth for Christmas dinner, the antique German soup tureen and French silverware for entertaining, the classy jewellery and fancy shoes for business meetings. It is my attempt to keep these treasured items pristine and beautiful. I am also trying to convince myself that I am getting the most out of them this way. If I don’t have something often, I’ll enjoy it more when I do, which is true, to an extent.
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