high-bar baking

My only thought when the loaf came out of the oven was, “So that happened.”

I’d altered the recipe plenty by that point, but I didn’t think to alter it where it might matter. I didn’t wish to candy any lemon slices, didn’t feel like making simple syrup, simply was not going to stand over the stove until lemon curd presented itself. I trimmed this cake down to its bones, just to see what would happen. 

The answer is: I needed to use a lot less leavener, because the center absolutely collapsed. In its final form, the center of Zoë’s Lemon Loaf was about 1 inch tall. There was a chasm in that cake. 

It tasted fine; it wasn’t a crisis. I cut the loaf in half hot-dog style and then sliced it from there, so every slice looked like a little triangle and not like a phenomenal screw-up. 

I was making it for a breakfast I was hosting for some interns at work. And that was part of my apathy. Not the interns specifically, they’re always darling. A whole class of uncynical human beings? What unicorns. 

No, it’s part of a broader feeling I’ve been having recently. Perhaps not fully apathetic, but… unsettled? Wondering why I’m here? Looking around and realizing that the activities with the women’s network I’ve poured myself into in the past are not fulfilling me the way they used to. 

It’s all a fight against entropy. Every day, you have to wake up and put more energy into the system just to keep it running. Nothing stays humming for long. If I stopped, balls would drop. So I supposed I’ve been trying to figure out, of late, which balls are worth keeping in the air. Which ones *I* want to keep airborne. Not anybody else. 

So I can look at things and say, “That happened because I wanted it to happen.” 

Not, “So…. that happened.”