Tiramisu Cake

Sometimes I feel like Life is a charismatic game show host. Microphone in hand, he leads you to the center of the stage, your stage, as an unseen audience applauds and whistles. When the convivial music swells and the lights dim, Life turns to you and his voice resounds across the room as he announces that it is time for you to make a decision. The audience immediately hushes to a whisper, rapt with attention, waiting to hear your answer with anticipation.

Three brightly colored doors stand in front of you. As your palms sweat and you wonder how you found yourself here, in this moment, Life turns to you and asks the question again.

Will it be Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three?

I have a decision to make, and soon. The clock is ticking down and I find myself acutely aware of each minute as I panic to choose between the three doors standing before me today. Big Life Decisions were never my forte, but I'm not as afraid of them as I was just a few years ago. I've grown up a little since then (and gotten to know myself a little better). After fumbling around with Big Life Decisions for the last couple years, I've realized that, though they may be "big," there is nothing about them that needs to be permanent.

I don't do well with permanence or finality. As if to illustrate my point, while shopping with my mother yesterday, we stumbled across a set of brightly colored mixing bowls with a pricetag at seventeen dollars. I was thinking of buying them since I don't have a set to call my own. Discussing the pros and cons, my mother joked I would probably have these the rest of my life. The rest of my life?

I put them back on the shelf and walked away, not ready to make a decision that would have such far reaches, even if it was just a set of mixing bowls.

I can recognize the irony of needing to make a Big Life Decision when I can't even make a seventeen dollar decision. However, if there is anything I've learned about Big Life Decisions, it's that life tends to sort itself out and everything ends up all right, even if there are times when it feels like it won't. If I bought the mixing bowls and they weren't what I expected, the world wouldn't end. The walls wouldn't come crashing down. I'd trust that I would find a way for everything to be all right, even if it was just to toss them out and start anew.

So today, I choose door number one. I'm not sure quite what it will hold or where it will lead me. The ideal job for me might not be behind any of those three doors and, if it isn't, it's because it's not the right time in my life for me to find it. I've spent the last few months fearing the need to make this decision and, now that it has finally been made, it's time to find out the answer to the question on my mind.

What's behind door number one?

This Tiramisu Cake is light, creamy, and divine. I made it as a joint birthday cake for my sister and grandfather. The nine of us present at the party managed to finish off all but two small pieces (even after an Easter feast). This cake tastes just like tiramisu should. Two cake layers are soaked in espresso and covered with a creamy mascarpone frosting. The cake is sprinkled with a layer of cocoa powder and covered in a layer of chocolate shavings. To take it over the top, I added a ring of homemade ladyfingers around the edge and secured it up with a ribbon. Now this is one cake I wouldn't mind unwrapping...

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S'mores Cupcakes

In between my break away from physics and finding a job in an established bakery, I worked in a small cake shop selling special order cakes and thousands of cake and cookie decorating equipment. Though my job title was "baker," it was a far stretch from my actual job description. I spent one or two mornings a week baking up boxed cake mixes; my employer hovering over my shoulder convinced I was going to mess them up.

It was frustrating in many aspects. Though my boss was truly a lovely woman who went out on a limb to give me a chance, the job wasn't quite what I had dreamed of. I spent my hours daydreaming of a bakery where I had freedom of ingredients and the trust to make something delicious (it would eventually happen, but not today). The cake shop didn't even have a stick of butter buried in the back of the fridge. I looked.

When I wasn't in the back of the store baking, I was out front helping customers and keeping the shelves stocked. The store was never terribly busy. Most of my time was spent languidly lining the food colors in stick straight lines, the sound of my breathing and the shuffling of paper in the back the only noises in the stilled shop. Among the quiet activities, attending to The Wall of Sprinkles became the most time consuming. The wall held at least a hundred different packages of sprinkles of every imaginable shape and color—jimmies, nonpareils, dragees, sanding sugar, crystal sugar, holiday sprinkles, and so forth. It was, in essence, a sprinkle lover's mecca.

Rather than "baker," my job title really should have read "sprinkle curator." I attentively filled the sprinkle containers by weight, tapped them shut tightly, and priced them with love. I arranged them by color, type, and holiday on the shelves—five containers in back and four in front. I never meant to get irrationally obsessed with The Wall of Sprinkles, but it was beyond my control. As soon as a customer bought one of the sprinkles off the shelf, I would run to the back to grab another to make my sprinkle-lined shelves even.

Looking back, I think I was looking for validation. Validation in my decision to switch careers and validation to pursue baking. If I couldn't prove to my employer that I could bake, perhaps my devout attention to The Wall of Sprinkles would, in some small way, redeem me. It took a couple months of hard work before she allowed me to frost the cakes for her to decorate. It was the smallest of steps for me, but for her it was as large as the Grand Canyon. Though I set out to learn to bake, the true skill I came away with was patience. Honestly, I think it was more valuable in the end.

Well, that and I have an unusual fondness for sprinkles.

These S'more Cupcakes are delightful, irresistible, and impossible to ignore. The cupcakes have a crunchy graham cracker base, topped with a sweet chocolate cupcake, rich chocolate glaze, and toasted marshmallow meringue. I love the texture of these cupcakes—crunchy, light, soft, sticky, and gooey. It truly is a s'more in cupcake form. These are perfect for birthday parties, long summer nights, and when you want a special treat just for you.

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Grapefruit Cake with Grapefruit Buttercream

Lately I've had intense cravings for sour and tart foods. With my traditionally sweet and salty palate (with nary a deviation), this sudden change in taste took me (and my cupboards) by surprise. The cravings would hit me out of the blue. On long car rides, I suddenly found myself buying sour candy (a rarity for me) and finding myself disappointed at the lack of a face-scrunching flavor punch. "Sour" snacks were hardly sour enough to nix my cravings.

After hitting that particular dead end, I turned towards citrus fruits.

My grocery cart began filling up with lemons. I was buying six or seven at a time, determined to create a dessert with a sour taste so pungent even I could be satisfied. What I didn't account for was that baking usually includes sugar (and sugar often puts a stop to that sour hit I so desperately craved). I made lemon bars. Lemon cookies. Lemon cupcakes. Lemon poppy seed muffins, twice. Each time a new dessert was attempted, I used less and less sugar and added increasingly more lemon juice or zest.

Though they were all delicious in each individual form, they just weren't what I was looking for. They weren't sour.

I spent nearly $20 on lemons in a single month, with nothing to show for it. It was a rough period for me, as a baker. I felt defeated, defeated by such a simple craving. I assuaged my sorrows by eating lemon slices, but it was hardly the spectacular dessert I had imagined.

During my next foray to the supermarket, the grapefruit found me. I'm on sale, they shouted at me. Buy us! Eat us! We will be sour enough for you! The grapefruit was, in fact, right. If ever a food should scream out at you from the supermarket shelves, do take heed. Paired with a sour, plain Greek yogurt, I found my breakfast of champions. It was only a small step to turn these ingredients into a tart (and softly sweet) cake.

This cake is fresh, bright, with a flavor you can truly appreciate whether you simply love a good grapefruit or have spent a month and unaccountable dollars trying to replicate.

This Grapefruit Cake with Grapefruit Buttercream has an original flavor, both clean and pure. After the warm cake emerges from the oven, it is brushed with grapefruit juice which soaks deep into the layers, making an unbelievably moist and tender cake (with just a hint of true tartness). The Grapefruit Buttercream lends a sweeter aspect to this cake. Made with a grapefruit juice reduction, the sourness of the juice balances out the sweetness of the powdered sugar. This cake itself, however, is the true star and is lovely when enjoyed in the afternoon, when the sun is bright and thoughts of spring are on your mind.

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