I want cake.

[haele]

I want a slice of lemony (not really tangy, but with that light lemon freshness) 3- layered chiffon cake filled with raspberries and hand whipped cream. Powdered sugar with maybe some candied violets and lemon peel on top. Just like the one I made for a casual wedding 30 years ago off my Great-grandfather's 1910's recipe notes.

That or a large parfait glass filled with a tin roof sundae. Lots of hot fudge and fresh cranked vanilla ice cream.

Youngsters don't know how good special treats like those were back in the day. I was just considering treating the family, but my hands are beginning to fail me and the granddaughters are fighting us over dish-washing.
They just don't understand how good home made is when using fresh ingredients. "Let's go pick up instead..."
Like you can get a good Tin Roof sundae with real ice cream and non-plastic spray can whipped cream at Dairy Queen.

I hate growing old and getting arthritis...

Haele

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. A few years ago I got in the habit of baking

cookies, or brownies, or a cake once a week to bring into work and share with my co-workers.

It was embarrassing how much they loved the treats, and distressing as I realized how many of them had never had any of those things made from scratch.

Even bakeries apparently use mixes for what they make these days.

[haele]

4. I know. Time and space are critical for good baking.

Half of my baking is usually done on the dining room table shooing cats.
But since I've had to rely more on the grandkids to help clean the kitchen over the last couple months, the house is beginning to look as if we were just hit by a tornado and there's no room for anything.

I can't even bribe them with baking lessons and treats to get them to do more than four dishes at a time, or just picking up off the floor and half-assed put away.

First thing I learned to make - at the age of six was home-made strawberry shortcake and whipped cream. After that I had no problems helping to pick up and put away, so we had room to make treats on the weekends...

Haele

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. When my older son was very young, he'd help me out.

Especially when we were making chocolate chip cookies.

When he was four years old and in pre-school, and was (with the help of his teacher) putting together an "All About Me" booklet, one page was "What I like to do with my mom". He said, "Cream". The teacher was quite puzzled, but I laughed when I saw it, because I knew EXACTLY what he meant: we'd cream the sugar and shortening together at the beginning of the cookie making process.

I fortunately can still do my own cleaning up when I do bake. Although since I live alone and no longer work, meaning I no longer have co-workers I can foist my baking on, I don't bake very often. Although I should do some, since cookies and brownies do freeze quite well.

I recall as a young child making strawberry shortcake. I'm thinking we probably bought those already prepared shortcake things, and just added the strawberries and whipped cream. I loved it when my grandmother (mom's mom) visited, because she was an amazing cook. She'd grown up in Ireland, came here when she was about 20 or so. She of course had wonderful baking and cooking skills. Near where we lived there were crab apple trees, apples far too sour to eat, but she could make the most amazing apple pies from them. I suppose the secret was simply using lots and lots of sugar, but I don't know. Unfortunately, I never thought to ask her about that.

One important use of time travel would be to travel back and visit people like relatives now long gone, and ask them various questions. Heck, even though I was 50 when my mom died, there are lots of times when I mentally kick myself when I think of yet another question I wish I'd asked her when she was still alive. It's why I try consciously to tell my children and nieces and nephews, different stories all the time. It's so easy to fall into the trap of repeating the same limited number of stories to them. We all, every one of us, have had an interesting life and have many, many stories to tell. Really, we do.

[Yonnie3]

2. I hate growing old and

not being allowed sweets.

[CrispyQ]

3. I made chocolate pudding cake parfaits for my birthday last month.

And not that crappy one pan recipe where you pour boiling water over the top of the cake & pudding ingredients, either. Inferior cake & inferior pudding!

I made a deep choco cake, & velvety choco pudding, & layered them in a parfait glass with whipped cream. It was wonderful!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. That does sound wonderful.

Not something I've ever made, but still.

I learned a very long time ago that cakes actually made from scratch, no mix involved, are vastly superior. During my marriage, I got to the point where I told my husband not to buy me a cake from a bakery for my birthday. They were never as good as the ones I could make, and I was not at all bothered by baking my own cake.

One year, when my son was in grade school, I'd signed up to bake treats for one of the holiday parties. Valentine's Day, I think. I was all set to bake something or another, when I got a note from the mom in charge of us volunteer bakers. I needed to bake cupcakes using a strawberry cake mix. At least I think it was strawberry. Whatever the flavor, it was not one in my repertoire of cakes/cupcakes I could bake from scratch. Sigh. I made what was expected, and never again signed up to bake for a class party.

Later, when my son was attending a much smaller secular independent school, I got into the habit of baking chocolate chip cookies at final exam time. During the final exams, there was a request for parents to send in treats for the kids to have between exams, and lots of parents were happy to help out. I was baking from scratch, and the cookies were still warm from the oven when I got them to school. I put them down on the table, students looked at me, at the cookies and said, "Are those POINDEXTER'S cookies??" and promptly scarfed all of them down. I barely got out of the way of the mayhem. Fortunately, I'd set aside a couple dozen for the teachers which I'd placed in the teachers lounge.

I sometimes joked that my son made it through high school thanks to my cookies.

[CrispyQ]

11. Yum. I think bribing with warm chocolate chip cookies is acceptable.

IMO, mixes are tooooooo sweet! Most recipes, too. You can't even taste the chocolate or other flavors over the sugar. I use 2/3 the sugar called for, sometimes even half. Strawberry cake sounds wonderful! I may have to go recipe hunting.

When I bought a new stove several years ago, I asked the men who delivered it to level it, please. They'd never been asked to do that before.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. The recipe I use is one from a 1930something cookbook.

It has half the sugar that's in a modern recipe. Plus, it's so old it tells you to chop up a semi-sweet bar. Not sure when the chips we currently buy came on the market, but this recipe apparently predates that.

[lark]

5. Real banana puddings like mom learned from Grandma are not made often today.

Mom made it from scratch, including making the pudding from scratch, layering a layer of crushed vanilla wafers, pudding, bananas for 3 layers ending with a very lightly browned meringue. That is real banana pudding. I hate standing over the over and stirring this, it hurts my back and it's too hot and my arthritic hands get tired. So my version is the same but with cooked pudding from a store mix (not instant pudding) then make the rest the same except I don't make the meringue, I use whipped cream instead. Mine's really good, but hers was glorious.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. You have my sympathy.

I don't happen to have the arthritic hands, but it's easy enough to imagine what they are like.

Most of the things I make don't involve anything like standing over a stove and stirring. Lucky me. I'm 72, so hardly a spring chicken. I'm fortunate in that I don't have most of the issues so many people my age have. Again, lucky me.

[lark]

10. Yeah, that's why I switched to a cooked store version of vanilla pudding.

Even that requires a little stirring, but that much I can do. My back is worse than my hands most days, but I walk 30 min. daily and do yoga stretches several times a week, so I'm doing ok for an old timer. I'm even going to attempt snorkeling for the first time in many years in a few weeks!

[XanaDUer2]

6. I want a Peppridge Farm lemon cake piece nt

[Vinca]

13. I made a chocolate zucchini cake this morning. We already taste tested it. LOL.

It came out great and it was an experiment to make it diabetic friendly substituting some of the ingredients like almond flour for wheat flour.

[CrispyQ]

14. I've never been big on zucchini bread,

but I had zucchini brownies once that were awesome. Super moist. I'll bet that cake is great!