Hooray for people who like my baking and actually want to pay me for it! My first non-cheesecake paid request for a cake came from one of my husband's co-workers. And, although I have dreams of opening my own bakery on Freret St. when I win the lottery, my aspirations are oh so silly when you consider the way I work. I find my baking process somewhat similar to my writing process, and it brings me back to freshman year of college in my Communications Writing class. Sure I could whip out a story or a press release in an hour if you asked me to, but I'd much rather mull it over for a week. Let it simmer in the back of my head for a few days before I actually sit down and pop something out. Most call it procrastinating...I prefer to think of it as planning.

Baking is exactly the same way--it's a process. It's my process. I like to sketch it out in my head, tweak recipes, mix up the cake I found here with the frosting I got from that other book someone gave me. I like to research what other people do to overcome different obstacles. I think about how I can make crawfish made from fondant really look like an actual crawfish or how to get those edges nice and sharp. This cake on the other hand, while my process was definitely there it was packed into a short time frame from finding out via text message Monday that I had a request for a cake for Wednesday. That left Monday for mulling and Tuesday for making. It all worked out, but I would have liked to spend more time on the presentation.

So after picking up a new cake book, All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray (the producer of NPR's ATC), my co-worker (and fellow cake aficionado) and I decided we needed some Cake Mondays in our lives as well. Why let those NPR folks have all the fun? Initially, I really wanted to make my Baklava Cheesecake because it is one of my all time favorite recipes and I haven't made it in what seems like ages. Keith however, staunchly disagreed, "Aryanna. You cannot make cheesecake! It's against the rules. The whole point is to be a challenge and you've already mastered the cheesecake discipline." Now according to Melissa Gray's rules, it has to be a completely from scratch absolutely no cake mixes recipe and you have to change it up every week. I don't recall the challenge being part of it, but I guess it was one of those unwritten rules.

Begrudgingly, I tucked my Baklava Cheesecake recipe to the back of my head ready to make an appearance eventually some Cake Monday in the future. Once I finally accepted the fact that I would be making a completely new cake I've never tried before, I thought it was only fitting to use one of Ms. Gray's recipes since she was the inspiration for the project and what better recipe to choose than the cake that inspired her project: Martha Washington's Great Cake.

By the time it came around to frosting and decorating the last two batches of cupcakes for my sister's shower, I had about 30 minutes to make the frostings, decorate the cupcakes, take a shower and get be in the car ready to go. In hindsight, having everyone over for breakfast that morning might not have been the smartest idea when I obviously had other things to do. Thankfully, mom came to the rescue and picked up my gift from the store. Thank goodness Zuka Baby has online shopping and in-store pick up!