Black Forest Cake

I made this pseudo-black forest cake for Andrew's birthday last weekend. It turned out alright, but only because I decided not to make a true black forest cake, which is apparently the hardest cake ever. I really like baking, and I think I'm pretty good at it, but the recipes I was reading were intimidating. For the real deal, the cake is initially extremely dry because you soak it in Kirsch after you bake it. The recipe for that part alone involved mixing with a handmixer for something like 20 minutes total. Then you coat the top and bottom of each layer in liqueur, fill with a whipped cream-ish filling, plus a cherry filling, frost the whole thing with whipped cream and cover it in chocolate shavings. For this one I just made regular chocolate cake, filled it with whipped cream and cherries and iced it with chocolated frosting. Unfortunately the whipped cream did a really poor job of keeping the layers together, but it tasted pretty good, so I don't mind. Thanks to Dr. Jason, a good bit of it was consumed at the party, leaving only a few pieces to eat in a hungover haze in the morning. And speaking of thanks, many many of them to Evan G. who cleaned up the whole house while we were at the afterparty and who also made awesome avocado deviled eggs (Oh! I can't believe I didn't take a picture!) on Sunday.

Last weekend was a lot of fun, but this week has been pretty stressful. I finally got my tax id for buying wholesale, so I've been planning and buying fabric. First of all, most manufacturers have what is for me a very large minimum first order. Second, it's a big commitment to make based on fabric that you're not seeing in person. I'm very particular about colors, and it's hard to say whether two fabrics will look good together when dealing with the inaccuracy of viewing something online. When it all arrives I'll have fabric for something like 80 quilts. Needless to say, that comes out to a whole lot of money, which makes it that much more stressful.

All this makes me think that I should go to the Spring Quilt Market in Portland, OR in a couple of weeks. That's where one goes to see all the new fabrics, etc. It's my chance to see the product up close. But since we're already going to Orange County to visit Evan's family this month, that would mean two trips to the West Coast in two weeks. I can't tell if it's worth it. The energy commitment is enormous. And the idea of walking around a trade-only quilt show sort of makes me feel like an imposter. But if I'm going to get stuck in the same situation in a few months if I don't go, then I should probably just suck it up. Oh, if only I had a quilting buddy to go with me.

I've gotten some other things done besides the fabric this week, thankfully. I'm having my labels printed and Press Charming has started work on my hangtags, which I'm very excited about. I took a look at Jenny's portfolio of name and business cards when we met and they were all amazing. Also, we had band practice on Tuesday, which could have gone better, but was at least helpful in figuring out what to do moving forward. And now off to work on the Cigar Box flier!