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I made a batch of bilaminate brownies to bring into work today.  These would be my last as I had no more Mondays before my firing.  People came by throughout the day to issue their best wishes but largely to have a brownie, but one person was moreso affected than most:

Him: Bilaminate brownie!
Me: Yes.
Him: That was the first thing you brought in wasn’t it?
Me: I think so.
Him: *far-away look* These are the last.  *sniffle* Excuse me. *runs out*

I asked him if he was crying.  He insists he was late for a meeting.

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While walking down the hall, I was rushed by a coworker who was very excited by my presence.

Him: Terry?
Me: Yes?
Him: You’re not fired yet?!
Me: No, not until next Friday.
Him: Ohmygodthankyou.  I was so worried when I came in Monday and you weren’t here so there was no cheesecake and there was this lady walking around giving people cake that tasted like it came out of a sarcophagus and I was like “no, this is what it’s like now that Terry’s gone” but I thought “I can deal” and then I was like “I need cheesecake” and there wasn’t around and I just sat in my cube staring at the wall until someone came in.

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I was called mad for making a square cheesecake but after watching a cake cutting pattern best described as cubist I decided on a shape less likely to succumb to the surgeon-during-an-earthquake style that’s currently used by my coworkers.  Square baking is tricky, as there’s the pointy bits that’ll finish first but with temperature control this can be eliminated.

Or at least I thought it could.  The middle cooked but also kinda collapsed as sometimes happens with custards.  I hid my mistake with a pool of ganache topped with fudge.  I got the comfort of knowing that an 8×8 could server 16 people with 2″x2″ pieces and they got… fudge.

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I plot desserts along three axes: ease of preparation, joy of consumption, and appearance.  I focus heavily on the ratio of joy of consumption to ease of preparation as that maximizes the brownie points I receive from my coworkers.  For instance, truffles are fantastically easy to prepare and quite tasty but ugly.  A ganache coating increases appearance but at the cost of difficulty.  Anything with a homemade crust is low on prep ease and medium in consumption so I generally don’t bother.

Cheesecake with a topping or filling sits at the apex of the three, being difficult to prepare well, pretty, and makes one feel like one’s tongue were being hugged.  The difficulty comes from handling as cheesecakes will crumble and crack if you look at them funny.  Additionally, they involve making a separate crust and blank-baking it and require a setting period that alternates between hot and cold and can take in excess of six hours.  So, what if I simply sacrificed appearance and slashed out much of the coddling?  I was going to find out.

One tactic to ensure even heating is to bake the cake in a hot water bath.  F that.  Another is to leave the oven door open a crack while leaving the oven at a low temperature for six hours.  F that as well.  I went for the much simpler “remove it from the oven and put it in the fridge” tactic and was rightly punished.  What emerged looked like the lid of a mason jar.  The cake had rose jack-straight about 3/4″ above the rim of the pan and then caved in like someone had put a belt around it only to return to its original width before flattening to a plateau evoking the cracked surface of a dessicated flood plain.  Hm…

Only in one other case had I refused to serve something because it looked hideous and that was because I literally dropped it.  I think my solution was somewhat clever: I popped the cheesecake in the freezer, firmed it up a bit, sawed the top off and glazed the remaining cake with cocoa powder and melted semisweet chocolate.  The best part was having an excuse to have a breakfast consisting of the top of  a cheesecake.

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At 2:00 AM, Monday, September 14, 2009 a blueberry cake died.  It started off as a good cake, straight muffin mixed and true.  The carrot cake recipe was pushed into service with heavy cream replacing yogurt and shortening for butter to make ends meet.  Instead of carrots of most carrot cakes, this used blueberries, not the freshest but still a blueberry to be proud of.  The batter was poured into a cake pan and the rest has been determined by forensic investigation:

  • 1:12 – Cake batter enters oven, weighted down heavy with blueberries
  • 1:27-The rise in interrupted by the opening of the door to the oven, causing a gust of cold air to blast the top of the cake.
  • 1:30 – The top of the cake solidifies after exposure to cold air preventing the batter from rising properly.
  • 1:38 – The sealed cake top breaks off from the rise of the rest of cake and makes a run for the bottom of the pan.
  • 1:45 – Cake hits boiling point, berries boil and burst, releasing wave of moisture.
  • 1:50 – Cake having just been hit by wave of blueberry burst-induced water vapor beings sagging as foam breaks due to new weight at the top.
  • 1:59 – Cake top has descended, creating an almost perfect spongy square center like some sort of quadrilateral donut.
  • 2:00 – Cake frosting is applied, begins to melt into the central compression where upon the center finally falls into madness.
  • 2:05 – Cake death recorded, given to dog.
  • 2:10 – Dog throws up outside.
  • 2:12 – Cat wants in, confused by dog throwing up outside.
  • 2:14 – Cat salvages cake by spending a solid 10 minutes licking the cream cheese package.

Time to wake up late, hit the bakery, find something nice, slip it into my cake tin and make it look shitty so people think I made it.  I’ve only done this once before, I think people could tell, but they were nice and lied to me.

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I’ve been doing a flurry of my regular baking plus some casseroles trying some options (I’ve yet to use Sabbath mode) but appear to have lost track.  My dad informed me that he finished my pie and he thought it was delicious.  When did I make a pie?  I haven’t made one in weeks, and it was clearly done in one of my pie dishes.  So either I’m baking with such ferocity my mind is repressing the memory or my dad just finished of a pie that saw Obama inaugurated.  Hm..

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I called it an early day yesterday and got 10 hours of sleep.  If I go below 7.5 hours two days in a row I’m useless and if I get more than 11 I’m groggy.  Between the two: magic.  My oven was also replaced and made brownies, so I came into work at 5 AM chipper and armed with brownies like some alternative reality June Cleaver.  This contrasted heavily with a coworker who lives off of 4 hours of low-quality sleep.

Coincidentally, we went out to lunch today and he asked me why I was so chipper and I told him it was due to 10 hours of sleep and his left eye started twitching.  No the “I have a bug in my eye” twitch but the “the previous statement reflects a mode of being I have never occupied nor probably ever will.  I will sleep when I’m dead” twitch.  It was frightening until I realized his decimated cerebellum probably couldn’t muster enough coordination for he to stab me in any reasonably short length of time.  I jokingly offered to replace our luncheons with me driving around New Jersey while he napped in the passenger seat sleeping.  His mouth said “no” but his eyes screamed “yes”.  Maybe one day I’ll replace his Tic-Tacs with chloral hydrate and he’ll get a quality afternoon nap.

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Literal translation from conversation with housekeeping:

Him: Why do you not bring in cake?
Me: I have broken my kitchen.
Him: What part?
Me: The box that heats things.
Him: The microwave?
Me: No, the box that heats things that is not the microwave.
Him: The toaster?
Me: No, the box that heats thing that is not the toaster.
Him: The microwave?
Me: When I fix my heat box I will prepare a cake the size of the Fat Lady.
Him: Good *thumbs up*

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Coworker: Where cake?
Me: What do you mean?  I bring in baked goods on Monday.
Coworker: No, you bring on Tuesday sometime, even Wednesday.
Me: I’ve never brought in a baked good on a day besides the first in a work week.
Coworker: You bring in cake on Friday last week.
Me: I wasn’t even in on Friday last week.
Coworker: You always bring in cake each day.  I remember.
Me: Sam, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
Sam: No.
Me: Ed, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
Ed: No.
Me: John, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
John: No.
Me: Tinh, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
Tinh: Hell, no.
Me: Up until I’m taken on as a full time position where baking is in my job description, I receive a cost center to which I can charge for your Wednesday cake, or you provide for me vacation days such that Wednesday is the first day of the week, you shall never see a Wednesday cake.
Coworker: Ok.  I come back tomorrow.

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The apple bundt cake was heavy, partly from the glass pan, partly from the five gala apples that went into the 13″ x 9″ dish, and partly from the ton of awesome contained within the pecans.  I was hailed as a hero for unlocking the taste of apple and using cinnamon and nutmeg in something besides a pumpkin pie.  I’ve been entered into the running for a Nobel Peace Prize as the recipe may stop wars and I keep getting called by Time Magazine.  A statue is being erected in my honor and the part of my desk that held the tray holding the cake has been cordoned off with velvet rope as hallowed ground.

I picked up my phone to casually call Mrs. “homemade is boxed cake mix plus a tin of frosting” and tension mounted as the phone rang.  I hit the magic 5 rings and heard “I won’t be in today… prattle prattle prattle”.  Slam went the phone receiver as I saw the last piece of cake disappear in a cloud of salivating coworker and when the dust cleared I saw the clock: only 55 minutes had elapsed from arrival in work to first coworker discovering the cake to it being totally consumed.  I’m lucky my rival wasn’t in, as I wouldn’t want to appear to be gloating by summoning her to an empty dish… I need to save that for the actual competition.  She may be prepared for battle, I will win as I’m preparing for war.