baking and bundting
for the past few years, before each game, i've racked my brain about what to bake. being the nerd i am, i like puns and good tasting treats, so baking this weekend combined the best of both worlds. my grandmother makes this incredible (yet totally simple and easily available recipe) rum cake. i devoured it as a child--yes, i developed a taste for rum at an early age. blame good ol' fashion midwestern values--, and she snuck one to me when, as a freshman in college, i was living in substance-free housing (the premise of a rum cake in an alcohol/drug-free residence hall perturbed my roommates a tad, but they still gobbled it down...). this weekend, i modified the recipe a tad and, ta-dah! andrew bailey's irish cream cake!
now, you're probably thinking, becca! you can't serve baseball players alcohol. ah, but you can! when you bake things with alcohol in them, the actual alcohol bakes out, leaving the sweet, luscious flavor behind. and even with the glaze heating for just a few minutes, if, after a piece, you're drunk off the cake, you've got a whole other problem and may require a special
being a slave to my art, i tasted the goods saturday night (and sunday
morning), and lo and behold, everything tasted just dandy (although note to self: next time, when baking for non-athletes, more irish cream and less water in the glaze...). after sitting in the fridge overnight (the flavors deepen over time), i sliced the cake into palm-sized pieces, layered with wax paper, and boxed. and off we went!watching thousands of little leagers slowly circle the field(could heelys puh-leaze sponsor little league days? the walking part would go soooo much faster), i conceded that i wouldn't be delivering cake at the end of fielding practice. and i feared delivery would be tough during the game, as i was sitting in the second portion of the lower level. thankfully, about 15 minutes pre-game, i breezed right by the security dude and down to the bullpen. and who better to present these to than andrew bailey himself? our scintillating conversation went something like this:
me: andrew!
AB: hey, it's you! you're back!
me: yes! and this week, these are in honor of you.
AB: whoa! cool! thanks!
and with the exclamation points all hopping about, i tip toed back to my sunny seat amongst the sweethearts. but could the day get any cooler? not weather-wise, and i slapped suncreen on every hour, on the hour. but yes, the coolness factor rose a percentage or two, when the dot race began. but not any dot race. this was live dot racing! way cooler than that CGI thing they presented last week. now my only question is, how do i become a dot? and can my dot resemble a chocolate chip cookie? and would i be required to wear smurf shoes?
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