My first layer cake.
Where I come from, dessert is a meal reserved entirely for itself. It would be no special occasion for my mom, a humble baker extraordinaire, to have 4 dozen cookies, a cake and a bar cookie freshly made, waiting in the kitchen to be devoured. As a matter of fact, it would just be another Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday) night. Dessert is sacred in the Fava family, that’s for sure. When I first started dating Mark, I of course tried to win him over by baking him a batch of cupcakes – “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” my mom – but all too quickly learned that he was just “Not a dessert person.” These people – who ARE they? (I still don’t believe they exist.) I mean – come on. We are all dessert people hiding inside healthy/stubborn/depraved/naive bodies. If you aren’t a dessert person – you clearly have not had enough dessert in your life :) I say this because Mark is a dessert loving convert who has seen the light (thanks to enough time spent around me and enough desserts passed his way via my mom’s kitchen).
Eating dessert has always been a big part of my life, but over the past few years, baking has become equally as comforting. There is something so rewarding about baking (or even cooking) something from scratch that ends up being not only delicious but sometimes beautiful, too. For whatever reason – I mostly blame it on our previous tiny kitchens designed for people who eat microwaveable everything – I haven’t ever attempted a layer cake. Until today. Maybe it’s that Valentines day is right around the corner (doubtful) or maybe it’s
because we finally live in a place with a big enough kitchen (yes!) OR better yet – maybe it’s because we have enough people to share in the layer cake eating (you need at least 3 people, I say, otherwise every night would end in a sugar coma – my studies have shown, anyway) – but today was THE day it finally happened. And of course I went all out. Why wouldn’t I? Every big moment in one’s life needs grand gestures (and grand documentation, I believe, too)!
I got my recipe for the chocolate cake and various buttercreams from my favorite food blogger, Sheena.
Please please please visit her site! It is a daily source of inspiration in my life :)
Chocolate Cake with Buttercream & Strawberry Buttercream
Chocolate Cake
2 ounces semisweet chocolate
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup boiling water
6 TBS butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Buttercream Frosting
1 cup Crisco (vegetable shortening)
1 stick (1/2 c) butter
3 cups powdered sugar
5 TBS milk
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Using a mixer, cream the Crisco and butter in a bowl and set aside. Using a mixer, cream the sugar, milk and vanilla in a separate bowl.
Slowly add the sugar mixture to the butter mixture until the consistency is even and fluffy.
Strawberry Buttercream
1 cup fresh strawberries
Leftover Buttercream Frosting (about 1/2-3/4 cup)
Puree the strawberries in a food processor. Strain the strawberry puree with cheesecloth, removing as many seeds as possible.
Using a mixer, blend the strawberry puree into the leftover Buttercream Frosting.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Line bottom of three 8″ pans with a round of parchment paper. Butter paper, and sides of pan.
Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with boiling water and cocoa powder. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.
In a bowl add flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat butter and sugar until combined. Add eggs (adding one at a time) until thickened slightly and light colored (about 3 minutes). Slowly add buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture, beating until combined well. Add flour mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.
Spoon batter into pans, and bake two at a time until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 20-25 minutes.
Repeat with the third cake.
Cool cakes completely before frosting.
Disclaimer: All three ladies who tried this cake ate TWO PIECES. Survey says, it’s dangerously good. Enjoy!
February 13, 2012 Leave a comment
Life IS sweet.
True to form, I write less when things are really (dare I say it again) really good. (Also, when I am very busy and feel like writing in here would be counter-productive. Nonetheless. It’s time to write.)
This has easily been the most life-changing year of my life to date. I am constantly learning with my business endeavors and realizing things that I never thought possible are soon possible (like hiring employees! what?! and actually enjoying living in PA. DOUBLE WHAT?!). 2011 is my investment year, but we can talk about that at the end of the year. (Invest in yourself, people.) (Especially you, dreamers & entrepreneurs.) Birdhouse has leaped to such great heights in just one year of going full-time with it and I couldn’t be more stunned. I decided one night this past winter that I was going to start hosting a series of wedding shows for creatives. So now there’s that, too. And then my forever-hanging-on dreams and projects like this mini-comic for NEW TERRITORY (sorry, Alex) and THE YELLOW BIRD. And the children’s books. And the list goes on. (YEESH.) But what I never planned for this year, that became the biggest and most important investment, was our engagement.
Mark Wallace. I knew it was you since the moment I first talked to you on the phone, when you interviewed me, long-distance in Italy, for an internship at WITF-TV. Amy warned me about you, said I would like you… a lot… and she was right. (Like you, she is always right.) (I should just listen to the both of you, always.) The old sentiment is true that real love presents itself when you least expect it – when you are finally ready for it, and not searching. I must have been the world’s worst intern, because I avoided you like the plague, knowing you and I both had serious relationships. I didn’t want to like you for that reason alone but liking you wasn’t my choice. It was just written that way. Somehow, it worked that when we actually did start talking to each other, we were no longer in those serious relationships. Somehow, after years of approaching guys and getting turned down, I still had the gusto in me to give it one last shot with you… because I knew – I just knew – you couldn’t turn me down. It wasn’t even possible (in my mind), because even without knowing you, I knew that there was no one in this universe better for you than me (and better for me than you). Somehow, it only took one phone call for you to see it, too. It is possible to fall in love on the phone and to know your path before it has even begun. (For some us, the more intuitive, almost cosmically aligned ones, this is just natural.) Anyone else may have found it weird/odd/IMPOSSIBLE to share dreamworlds, secret hopes and be another person’s muse from states away. November 2008 was easily the most magical month we will probably ever live and there is no other way to explain it than that.
See, a month before we started talking, you met a woman who told you you were going to meet a fish who would change your life forever and make you happier than anyone has ever made you. And I had a dream about losing the single-most important person in my life and then you were there… around the corner, waiting for me, reading poetry for me… and then a woman in a wedding dress came over to me and gave me a ring, from you. All of this before we even actually had a date. (For some, the stars just align because we are driven by them.)
My entire life has been preparing me for the person that you are and the person that you make me. It is beyond my wildest dreams to say that I am going to marry someone with such an open mind, so creative, so music-oriented, so fair, so honest, so focused, so supportive who pushes me to be me… someone with such a fantastic family… the list is just endless. Mark Wallace. Man of my dreams. Because of you, life IS sweet.
September 16, 2011 1 Comment
Oversleeping
We fell asleep with the windows (and a door) opened, knowing
anything could happen in the middle of the night -
burglary/intrusion/birds flying/scents of the city seeping/dreams escaping/rain, pouring -
and we woke (I woke) -
so suddenly
to the deafening burst of raindrops pounding on the window
adjacent to my dream space. Sleepwalking,
almost, all four limbs sprang from the covers
to the bathroom, to the windows, to the door, closing,
slamming, somehow knowing we would have otherwise woken
up soaked
(in more places than one.)
Lately, we’ve been oversleeping,
ignoring the sounds of thunder and the radio calling
us every morning for an early rise and shine. (We know
the snooze by heart and how to turn a broadcast into a lullaby,
programmed, like the rest.)
The only good remnants about waking up
late, aside from being next to you, are the moments
when headlines dissolve
into dreams and really, there is no deciphering
life from make believe.
(Reality is relative.)
Lately? This:
April 28, 2011 Leave a comment
Life (in photos) Lately.
Life has been a flurry of activity so far this year. I’ve been trying to keep up with the constant stream of work coming in the door, endless ideas for future projects running around in my head and of course, managing the birdhouse business (plus my other creative endeavors business). It’s a lot a lot a lot to maintain but I’m not complaining because life.is.good. In the simplest of terms, anyway.
In late March, my family traveled up to Massachusetts to celebrate my niece, Emma’s, 1st birthday! (My brother is such a great dad!)
George, Christina and I pitched in and got Emma a pink baby grand piano! (She’s a music lover, already. Must be the genes.)
Loving it!
George & Bo, zonked out.
I’ve been spending all of my days with Mabel and Riot. It’s pretty much the greatest.
March is a big birthday month in my family. George and I turned 24 on the 5th and celebrated our elderly-hood in Killington, VT, snowboarding and fooding it up. I am convinced I belong in VT. Someday, it’ll be permanent.
(We stayed in the Snowbird. Birds follow me everywhere.)
(My snowboard matches my spirit to a T.)
[All above photos taken on my new Diana F+ Mini - thanks to my great lady friend/film editing soulmate, Taylor, and the Killington ones, a disposable camera.]
THIS IS MY FAVORITE PICTURE OF MABEL & RIOT, EVER. Because it’s totally representative of who their owners are – Riot, the guy who hates being in front of cameras and Mabel, the crazy child. (Me.)
We filmed an event in the pouring rain. Ha.
Mabel keeps me laughing. She’s totally bonkers but I love her so darn much.
And today, I made blueberry muffins for breakfast. Sometimes, I do that.
It’s great to be alive.
April 18, 2011 Leave a comment
Sailing or Soaring
All throughout college, my film friends would get on me for notoriously saying, “I don’t like watching movies.” “How am I supposed to feel comfortable with you directing my script if you don’t enjoy watching films?” my one friend would sometimes say. In all honesty, it wasn’t that I didn’t like watching films. (How could I not enjoy watching films?) It was really that I didn’t want to know too much. I didn’t want to be influenced too much or inspired in the wrong way and I definitely didn’t want to be faking anything. Plus, in college, watching films was homework for us and I was never one for homework (or school). So what happened to the films I made? I came to everything fresh. I knew who I was as a director. What I wanted as a storyteller and what I strived to evoke from my audience. Honestly? My films were alright, but it was more the fresh perspective and untouched creativity that ring a resounding bell in my life today when I look back on it. The only way/rhyme/reason my films are better now (even though I don’t really totally agree with this) is because I am more seasoned, I’m shooting constantly and I have way better gear to work with. But to me, I’m not better. I’m just sailing.
The thing is, in the pursuit of creativity, in the quest for memorable storytelling, you have to KNOW who.you.are. You have to trust in yourself and allow yourself to gather inspiration and weed out too much influence. Influence is an interesting term. I’m influenced by my parents, by Mark, by my closest friends… and that’s about it. Influence, to me, is beyond inspiration. It’s trusting in another source enough to let it change or mold you. With my creative life, I find it so easy to be inspired but so difficult to be influenced – and at least I am proud of that. But I could be better with this, and all of us creatives could (especially in the wedding industry).
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of inspiration vs. influence. Do I even need either? What would my work be like uninspired? Uninfluenced? I’ve been pondering letting go of social media – as much as possible – and not letting myself watch other wedding films. Judging by my college days, I think it could only help me. I’m on a quest to bring real cinema back into weddings, to bring my directorial perspective to my films, no matter what I am capturing on the other side of the lens. I think the world is getting all too cluttered with copycat creatives and wannabe workerbees and it’s time we all decide one thing: do I want to sail? Or do I want to soar?
Here’s to soaring.
April 3, 2011 Leave a comment
