Day 1: A Baking Frenzy

My first day of senior project started with an immediate thrust into greasing half-sheet baking pans. My first impression was that I would gradually work up to baking cakes, but within a half-hour I was not only greasing cake pans, but I was pinning cloth towel strips around the pans, weighing cake mix, and pouring batter into the pans.

The funny thing about each successive step was that each step had an element of complexity. Greasing cake pans needed to be done with an even stroke and steady hand. The corners were of utmost importance and knowing that if I did not adequately grease the pan then the cake would stick to the pan and end up becoming a waste. Adding towel strips also had great importance to it. For an amateur baker, I learned that towel strips were a neat trick of the trade. Sandy MacDonald, told me that in order for the edges to bake evenly with the rest of the cake, the damp strips are needed to keep the edges cool so that the cake edges don't bake faster then the rest of the batter. Pinning warm towel strips along the edge of the cake pan turned out to be a tricky ordeal, and when I finally secured the towel with a pin, I triumphantly showed it off. During the next step, I immediately regretted not working out more often. I was weighing out fifteen pounds worth of cake mix and dumping it into a mixer that was about four inches shorter then myself. Luckily, I split the total cake mix amount into measuring out eight pounds and then 7 pounds respectively. After that thirteen cups of water was added to the mix. Next came the oil and about 10-15 minutes of mixing.

Picking up a 25 lb mixing bowl of batter is not an easy task. I asked for some assistance this time. I was able to pour batter into the cake pan with some success. I did have to leave my neat and OCD side of my personality at home, because pouring cake batter and filling cup cake foils is messy work.

The day ended with over an hour and a half of scrubbing dirty cake pans and utensils. Overall the entire day was a great success, except for my continuous efforts to stay as neat and clean as Sandy. Maybe tomorrow I will be successful.