It's hard to believe that it was only two weeks ago that I baked my second sorry-ass excuse for a yellow cake. I told myself that I wasn't going to fret over it and that I'd wait a bit, until the following week, and take another stab at nailing it.

It turns out I'm as impatient as ever. There is no waiting to be done. I baked the third cake three days after the 2nd one. And it came out all peaches and cream. (And by that I mean it rocked!)

I started baking to take my mind off the stress of writing (trying to write) a novel. But let's get real here. How much stress is there in trying to write a novel? Not much. How much stress is there in baking a cake? Not much.

How much privilege is there in all this? Tons and tons. So really I've got to just shut up and count my blessings, which is what I do most of the time. When I'm not trying to be a perfectionist.

Any who.

You can see from the photo labeled "large icky pancake" -- that my first cake bombed. Big time. But the following cakes. They are cakes of a different ilk and damn tasty.

The secret? I don't know if there was a secret. For the 3rd yellow cake I made sure the oven was at exactly 350 degrees and I used a little butter milk.

Shortly thereafter I ended a very bad habit. I'd bake a cake for someone and think that I should bake one for myself. After a week or two of this and having put on 5 pounds REALLY fast, I've decided only to bake a cake a for myself once every 3 weeks and to share as much of it as possible. (But that 3rd yellow cake, which happened to be the charm -- I managed to wolf that puppy down all by myself. God damn that was good!)

And the upside to all of this is that if I want to eat a double-layer cake by myself I'm going to have to start exercising. (Here I come elastic waistband pants and pedal clips!) I think I'll bring the bike back from the country and start to go on rides after work. You know, during rush-hour when I'm likely to inhale the most car exhaust in any given thirty-minute period during the day.

The most recently requested cake: white cake with mango frosting for a going-away party. I think I've got the cake part down but I'll have to play with the frosting recipe this weekend. (See the photo "white cake.")

And I keep telling myself to wait a bit and perhaps get some writing done before I make hamburger cup cakes... Methinks I'll be posting photos of them early next week.