lessons

As the fall approaches and all the kiddies (to include this big kid herself) enjoy the last few days of freedom before school begins again, I seem to be learning lessons at every turn. First, a lesson in patience, of which, I have none. Not even after 15 months of being a mother have I acquired a never-ending supply of paitience. My daughter was on par with everything regarding her development with one exception: her teeth. Until about three weeks ago, she was the biggest, toothless baby for miles. All of a sudden her four front teeth are emerging and she is just not having it. She's cranky, she's whiny, she's crying--I'm cranky, I'm whining, I'm crying. Lesson #1: get over it. Sometimes things just suck. It will pass. Lesson #2: things don't always work out the way you plan them. What's the saying? 'If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.' Well let me just tell you, I've got the good Lord rolling! I'm a planner to a fault sometimes and when things don't quite work out I throw an inner (and sometimes outer) hissy fit. This week I worked on a cake for the staff at my husband's school. He is a technology something or other at a high school and I attempted a two-layer cake (bottom layer- 10" square and top an 8" round) for the staff retreat. Well, something about the bottom layer just didn't sit right and it sunk in the middle which proved disastrous when I put the top layer on. Fortunately, the top layer worked out fine and I sent the cake along, a day late, but still happy with the results. The cooperating layer was the fabulous vanilla cake recipe from Confetti Cakes (see book to the right) with a strawberry filling and vanilla buttercream by Wilton. This weekend's venture is cupcakes and cookies--I have a new martini glass cookie cutter I've been dying to try. This time, I'll try not to plan so much, but, until then, here's the recipe for strawberry filling:

Strawberry filling

-1 pound of clean strawberries; quartered

-3/4 cup of sugar

-2 tablespoons of cornstarch

-The juice of half a lemon

1. Place the strawberries, sugar, and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the strawberries burst and start to look like jam. Remove from heat and squeeze half a lemon. Cool completely to room temperature.2. Put the strawberries in a food processor and pulse until small pieces of strawberry remain. 3. Move strawberry filling to a bowl and cover. Refrigerate a couple of hours.