If its possible to have a bad cake relationship, I think this is mine.

In my small summer resort community, local grocery store options are limited and in winter months stocks get low. Sometimes I get excited to see certain items, like goat’s milk butter and organic salmon. This year at the end of the summer many cartons of grass-fed buttermilk appeared in the milk section and I knew that soon they would be gone and not replaced. It’s strange, I had this compulsion to buy this buttermilk and use as much as I could, but for baking not drinking.

So, I searched for recipes and this one was obvious. It took me weeks to make it, though. When I did, I was disappointed. I think I’m getting tired of making so many things with lots of the same spices and that seems strange to say, too.

When I made the cake, I finished the brown sugar I had and instead of going right out to get more to make the icing, I waited for a couple of days. The cake was actually good without it. The icing came out terribly, which I am fairly certain was because I used whipping cream that had separated. It just lay on the cake in a puddle. It hardened in the refrigerator but then the cake also got hard.

The taste was all good, but I’m feeling disheartened by my baking mishaps and wonder if I will ever be a better baker.