high-bar baking

I was going to write this post about being bitter. That’s how I pitched this cake to my dance buddies: “It’s good, but it’s a little bitter. Like my soul.” 

It’s Sarah’s Minnesota Sheet Cake, and the description is mostly accurate. It mellows as the frosting cools, though. No complaints, but it’s never beating out the Two Chicks Texas Sheet Cake for me. 

So I was going to write about being bitter. About the fear of becoming bitter, maybe. I look around and I’m not where I thought I would be. Single, professionally lost, occasionally short on local friends when a hard time comes knocking. I’ve felt it recently. 

But I don’t feel bitter today. Today my bestie is back in town. Today there are two fewer tree nuts in the world that I’m allergic to. Today’s my sister’s cool and my kitchen counter is clean. Today I’m sitting on my kitchen counter (because I’m Molly Ringwald) eating sugar snap peas (k, not Molly Ringwald) and things aren’t as much of a disaster as I thought they were forty eight hours ago. 

That’s something. 

So today, just the cake can be bitter. And even that’s probably an overstatement. It’s just not cloyingly sweet.