great news for people who love baked goods

today at the house of m's workplace, we had our annual bake sale fundraiser. lot of pressure here--on two fronts. first, there's the pressure to raise lots of money for homeless kids. second is the pressure to outbake coworkers. and sure, the second is much less important, but hey, i'm competitive. let's get our bake on people. there's a rumble in the sugar jungle. bring it.

alas, the whole process starts three weeks ago. magazines are perused, the internet is scoured, recipe books are cracked open. eventually shopping is done. only the right baked items would do. only the best of the best.

then begins the baking. now this is where i usually get in trouble. i've been accused by some that know me of not reading recipes. to them i say this: i do read them, just not all the way. i skim. i'm a skimmer. it's the efficiency coming out in me. it cannot be helped. just the hand i've been dealt. to love me is to love the fact that i may, only occasionally and completely not purposefully, mess up a recipe.

this "problem", as some would term it, only manages to get me in trouble once during this voyage of baking. the kind of trouble where you might find yourself standing in the kitchen, looking at the recipe saying, "ahhh shit"--shaking your head in shame as you realize that you were supposed to add egg yolks, not egg whites...or that you merely left out one silly little ingredient (what exactly do you need flour for anyway? really now).

luckily this time, i find myself in this spot only once. and to my credit, it was not a huge mistake. and easily fixed. (no, you're not going to find out what it was. that's for me to keep and for you to only ponder).

more so than missing ingredients or setting the oven to the wrong temp, this task was more about the labor involved (thanks a bunch Martha S., thanks a bunch). so much labor in fact, that phases needed to be implemented. hours had to be chunked out and planned accordingly. lists had to made and monitored. only the strong would survive.

but in the end--after 3 long phases and countless loads in the dishwasher, 4 yummy sets of baked treats emerged. and they came out pretty decent (at least that's what people are saying--you never know). the neopolitan coconut strips shined in their pink, brown and white splendor. the lime thumbrints beckoned cookie lovers in with their light frosting of powdered sugar. the peppermint cookies went fast as their presentation promised. and the raspberry pinwheels, in all their sticky glory, satisfied the true jam lover in all of us.

money was raised, calories were taken in and in the end, i could only sigh in relief that the whole thing was over (and that i managed to outshine some of the previous years baking braggers).

someone remind me next Holiday season not to bake. really. for the love of all things holy.