Sweet Genius Baking Challenge

The night before school started I decided we needed one last creative hurrah at our house before the drudgery of homework and the dread of early morning alarm clocks set in.  Over the summer my two oldest girls and I had become obsessed with the show Sweet Genius on the Food Network.  This show is hosted by the creepy, quirky, and wonderful Chef Ron Ben-Israel.  The premise of the show: accomplished cake/sugar/candy artists are presented with strange mandatory ingredients (like caviar or fruit roll-ups) that must be used in the creation of a dessert that fits into a particular category such as candy, chocolate, or cake.  Contestants are also supplied with an "inspiration" (like disco or puppies) that must be represented in their final, delicious product.

On September 2, 2013 we had a Sweet Genius inspired competition in our kitchen.  My kids, who are novice bakers, were allowed to use recipes as references.  They didn't have a strict time limit, and I gave them each a unique mandatory ingredient.  The category of dessert that they were to create was CAKE.


Chef Sophia's mandatory ingredient: condensed tomato soup

Chef Emma's mandatory ingredient: the humble zucchini

Both girls were given the same inspeeration for their creations: Hagrid, keeper of the keys, from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series.


A representation of Hagrid is seen here posed next to our cat Clementine who was terribly impressed by all of this.

There was an immediate flurry of activity in the kitchen.  My inner-control freak bit her tongue and sat on her hands.  This was a truly excellent exercise for me, and by the end of it all, I was shocked by how much my kids were able to do with very little help from me.  (I have an extremely difficult time keeping my hands and opinions to myself in the kitchen.)

Emma created a zucchini cake with ginger and topped it off with an amazing cooked caramel penuche icing. 

Sophia stirred tomato soup and raisins into a spice cake batter, then concocted a rustic cinnamon butter cream that captured the essence of Hagrid rather perfectly.

And then the most awful thing happened.  My girls wanted someone to judge whose cake was the best.  It was a competition after all.  It felt like a bit of a Sophie's Choice, and I couldn't do it.  In the end my husband and a friend who was visiting made the impossible call.  Our Sophia was NO Sweet Genius.  Chef Emma's creation decorated with beastly creatures and creepy crawlies which would have undoubtedly met with the approval of Hagrid himself took the cake.

At the end of the day everyone felt like a winner.  It isn't every day that a kid gets to repeatedly sample two different kinds of cake in order to form an opinion on which one is the most reminiscent of Hogwarts and the Forbidden Forest.  I think we may be on to something!



Middle School

I sent this beautiful person off to middle school for the first time this week.

She wasn't wearing the war paint when I hustled her onto the wrong bus at 7 am.  She was dressed in a pair of orange shorts and a t-shirt, an outfit she hadn't agonized over very much, by the looks of it.  She was nonchalant and relaxed, but as I watched the wrong bus carry her away into the darkness of the early morning, my insides seized up unexpectedly and I had the unnerving desire to chase after the bus screaming, "Come back, sweet girl!!"  What the hell happened?

The overwhelming sense of worry that overtook me that morning was completely unexpected.  After realizing that the number on the bus that my daughter was riding was NOT the number of the bus she was supposed to be riding, I hurried home and called our public school transportation office.  The rather bored secretary confirmed that Emma would arrive at her own school after the high school kids on board were dropped off at their school.

That settled, I fed my fourth grader and sent her out to catch her bus, then made breakfast for a gleeful three year old, who couldn't believe how fabulous it felt to have her mama all to herself again.  Still butterflies gnawed away at my stomach lining every time I thought about my eleven year old trying to find her classes, open her locker, and contend with the girls she always described as "popular" punctuated with air quotes and an annoyed roll of the eyes.  "Dear Lord," I prayed, "Please don't let anyone crush my baby's delicate feelings today!"

Of course you know that I cannot and should not protect her from the "mean girls" and the occasional jerky teacher, but, oh y'all, I want to SO badly! 

I was waiting for her the minute she got off the bus and have never been so happy to hear her recount every minor detail of her day.  She did fine, everybody!  I know.  You weren't worried a bit.

And now, having survived the first week, my heart rate has slowed a little.  Letting go really blows, friends. 

Love,
Meredith