Ketchup

I'm sorry. I've been a teensy tiny bit slack with this blog. According to one reader, it's been 20 days since my last blarticle. But I'm back on track! Let me tell you what I've been up to since the spiders started to attack me at work.

I went to Isle of Palms (right outside of Charleston) with my mom and sister for Mother's Day. I haven't taken a full on family vacation since I was 11 so I was slightly nervous. I get along fine with my family, but whenever we get together I know that the one thing they want me to talk about is my plan for the future i.e. will I ever get a job in marketing or give that up completely and apply to law school. I always say no and no and leave it at that. Luckily, the what will you do with your life speech was only brought up once. Otherwise, it was a nice weekend. We went to the beach, I got sunburned on the front of my legs, went to the spa and got a hot seashell massage (the hot stone massage's cheaper cousin), watched "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" and "The Vow", ate junk food, drank a lot of wine and the piece de resistance, played tennis. Watching my mom play any sort of sport is like watching a newborn horse trying to stand up. She is a great long distance runner, but she has absolutely no eye-hand coordination. To give you an idea, I toss the car keys to her and she just throws up her hands like they're attacking her or she just lets them fall to the ground. It's always a treat to watch her play any sport.

Besides my girls weekend, I've been spending a lot of time (and money) baking with my friend, Lauren. Funny thing is, neither of us like eating sweets that much but it's really fun and indulges her OCD and my dormant artistic side. Also, when you roll up anywhere with a plate of perfectly decorated baked goods, people treat you like a god. Eyes light up, people come to attention and stop what they're doing just to see if they can get their hands on whatever you've got. Mostly, we've been mastering the cake ball. If you're unfamiliar with them, they are exactly what they sound like. A ball of cake. You'd be surprised how many people could not deduce what a cake ball is based on the name. Anyhow, Bakerella re-popularized them over the past couple of years and she has, by far, the most creative and impeccable cake balls and cake pops. We aren't quite up to her level yet, but we have tried five different varieties and all have gotten great reviews. The problem is, they are deceptively easy. Bakerella's instructions are as simple as:
1. Bake a cake
2. Add frosting to the cake
3. Make cake into balls
4. Cover with chocolate
5. Enjoy!

After our first failed batch of cake balls I wanted to smack Bakerella across the face. I thought my first batch was going to look like this:

They actually turned out like this:

And we looked like this:

After an afternoon reading baking blog after baking blog, we finally got the right technique down and turned back into Dr. Bruce Banner. Lesson learned: if you ever say "easy enough, right?" before you start baking, it will probably result in disaster and Hulk-like transformation.