so, the task was just to bake a cake from scratch. a four-layer german chocolate cake was perhaps overkill for my first attempt, but, well, i had to run with the inspiration i had at hand. i’m having a dinner party tomorrow night, and it was a perfect excuse to make a cake that (according to the recipe) feeds 16. and i pretty much love dark chocolate and coconut so much that i want to marry it.

the verdict about how it tastes will be out tomorrow. right now i’m just pleased with myself that the icing all went on smoothly – i have memories of trying to ice cakes as a kid and it always turned into a big botched up mess of icing and cake crumbs. also, the baking of the cake layers made my apartment smell awesome.

the useful lesson to be learned here is that it’s not enough to read the recipe for the ingredients – it’s also necessary to read through and make sure i have all the required tools, too*. so, some improvisation was required, but it all worked out in the end. necessary substitutions included:

pastry brush = damp paper towel
flour sifter = a narrow-mesh pasta strainer, shaken gently
icing decorator tips and bag = ziplock baggie with one corner sliced off
parchment paper = butter and flour the pan the way i learned to bake from my mother
cake lid for overnight refrigeration = carefully tented tinfoil

start to finish (including cleaning up) took…five and a half hours. i may or may not have gotten chocolate in my hair, i’m not telling.

*not dissimilar to the time that i got all the way through making my own pie crust for, what turned out to be, the first time, only to discover that i didn’t own a pie plate. emergency run to target ensued.