Double Chocolate

Rolling her head around, stretching the muscles in her neck then rolling her shoulders to stretch those muscles as well. Two jobs… why on earth did she want to start her own business? She was not established enough to quit her 9-5 and she was exhausted every night.

But here I am. Looking around at the various ingredients on the counter Cecilia exhaled as she began to work.

The flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and most importantly sugar. The ingredients felt like they were coming from a never-ending list tonight. She measured and added each ingredient to a medium size bowl she had laid out on the counter with the various ingredients.

Wiping her brow with a paper towel she realized how hot it was in her kitchen. The oven was on, the temperature outside was in the mid-eighties.

“What am I doing?” She asked herself as she wandered into the adjoining living room and powered up the air conditioner. She could feel the sweat running down her back and between her breasts.

After washing her hands, again, she tried to pick back up where she left off.

"Did I add the salt?" Cecilia lifted the bowl and examined the contents. "Ahhh yes." She smiled to herself, setting the bowl back down mixing the ingredients together.

The cocoa powder seemed to coat everything else in the bowl.

Pulling another slightly larger bowl from the cupboard she began adding the wet ingredients. When adding the last egg, she spotted a few shells.

"You have got to be kidding me." She shouted, lifting the bowl, and stomping down the hall. In the bathroom she flushed the bowls contents.

Making her way back to her workspace she dropped the bowl in the sink, washed her hands again and retrieved another bowl from the cupboard.

Taking a deep breath, she added her liquids again. Buttermilk, vanilla, oil, and the eggs. This time she pulled a cereal bowl from the cupboard, cracked each egg into the bowl, inspected them for shells then dumped them in with the other wet ingredients.

She mixed the wet ingredients together, then gently added the dry ingredients and began to prep her cake pans.

Yawning, she checked the clock. Already? She thought with a groan.

Shaking her head, she tried to clear out the thoughts of all that needed to be done tonight and tomorrow…

Once the pans filled, she tapped them off the counter to release the air bubbles within.

Opening the oven her face was greeted with a burst of hot air.

"Oh, what kind of whipped cream filling did they want?" She asked aloud as she searched her phone for the messages she had exchanged with Martha.

Martha was an older woman ordering a cake for her husband's birthday. He was turning 60 and they were planning a small family gathering. “Wow, she just about told me their life story.” After scrolling for what felt like ever, she came upon the message. Raspberry.

"Alright Martha, raspberry it is. Since it's your husband's favorite." She moved back to the kitchen and returned the ingredients for the cake to their homes and now placed the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and homemade raspberry jam on the counter.

Before starting on the cake, she had placed the bowl to the mixer in the freezer. She had discovered freezing the bowl would help the heavy cream to whip up faster.

She poured in the heavy cream and sifted the powdered sugar on top. The mixer was positioned on high, and Cecilia took this moment to check her cakes and then her social media.

She scrolled through photos of families out to dinner or playing outside. She read posts about the girls she used to hang out with, going to the beach, they had stopped inviting her since she always seemed to be busy.

Why am I doing this? I don't even get that many orders. She chastised herself. Wondering if all this work was worth her missing out on spending time with her friends. The buzzing of the oven pulled her from her musings.

Cakes were done and placed on the top of the oven to cool. The whipped cream was done and ready for the raspberry jam.

The jam was never measured, it was added by taste. She added a few spoonsful and folded it in. Tasted it. Mmmm needs a bit more. She added two more spoonful’s and folded that in as well. Once it was all mixed together, she tested it again.

“Perfect.”

She covered the whipped cream and placed it in the refrigerator.

She spent the next few minutes removing the cakes from the pans. There were two six-inch cakes and two eight-inch cakes. Each was placed on a cooling rack.

Taking a moment to stretch again she got ready to begin on working on the frosting. Checking the time again she mentally calculated if she could go to bed now and finish everything else in the morning.

Ticking off remaining steps on her fingers she would be able to finish the cake in a matter of two hours in the morning. Frosting, stacking, decorating, and then clean up.

She cleaned up the counters and wrapped each of the cakes in plastic wrap and placed them in the freezer. Another trick she had learned, freezing the cakes made stacking easier and would keep the cakes moist.

She lazily changed for bed and climbed under the covers. Her eyelids were heavy and difficult to keep open as she set her alarm to go off a little earlier in the morning than usual.

When they finally were able to close, she was asleep almost immediately.

Then the alarm was going off. She groaned and contemplated snoozing it for five minutes but decided against it.

She made her way to the kitchen and got coffee started. There was no way she was going to be finishing that cake without reinforcements.

While the coffee was percolating, she scattered the counter once again with ingredients. She made her coffee and sat for a few minutes savoring the hot beverage in her hands.

Hoping the butter would be softened she got to work. She added the butter to the bowl and beat it until it was creamy and light in color. Time to sift, she did not know why but she got immense satisfaction from sifting ingredients. She sifted the powdered sugar and cocoa powder together. She then added half of her sifted mixture to the bowl.

Once that was incorporated, she added the other half of the powdered sugar and cocoa powder to the bowl along with the vanilla. At this point the mixture was thick and resembled thick mud.

Lastly was the heavy cream, it was not on the counter with all the other ingredients. Crap. She checked the fridge and just as she was afraid there was none. Taking a sip from her coffee she got an idea.

“Half and Half.” She said searching the fridge once more, this time she was able to find what she was looking for almost immediately.

She added the replacement cream and finished mixing up her frosting. This was her favorite of all her frostings. Giving it a taste test, it earned a smile and nod of her head.

Pulling the cakes from the freezer she prepped the cake platform for cake assembly. Transferring her frosting to a piping bag she put a dab on the bottom to keep the cake in place. The cake was centered on the cardboard platform, and she created a retaining wall of frosting all around the edges of her cake. The center was filled with the whipped cream she made the night before. Once the second eight-inch cake was placed on top of the other she began giving the cake a crumb layer of frosting.

Those cakes were placed in the fridge to set.

“One more set.” She told herself as she rolled her shoulders and topped off her cup of coffee.

The six-inch cakes were placed on a smaller cardboard round and frosted and filled in a similar manner. Once the crumb layer was finished on the second set of cakes they were also placed in the refrigerator.

While the cakes set with the first layer of frosting, she cleaned the counters, it felt like that was all she did. Wash her hands. Clean the counters. Wash her hands again. She began to doubt her dream. Maybe this was all too much work.

The cake needed to be delivered before she went to work. She had to push through her second-guessing.

She pulled the cakes out of the refrigerator and began to work on the next thicker layer of frosting. She piped random lines around the cake in crazy patterns, then smoothed it all out until it was impossible to tell the lines had ever been there.

Plastic dowels were placed in the middle of the larger cake, then the smaller cake was stacked on top. She used to use wooden dowels but stopped after seeing the damage they had caused when someone decided to smash their friend’s face into a cake online. It still made her cringe to think about it.

“Now the fun part.” Cecilia began to do a dark chocolate drizzle down the sides on the top layer. The chocolate ran down the sides like rain on a windshield. It stopped just before reaching the bottom. She loved the look.

Each tier was given a boarder at the bottom and some swirls piped on the top.

The cake was done.

She smiled at her handiwork as she took some photos and placed the cake into a box.

She quickly showered and got ready for work.

Please don’t topple over, Cecilia thought to herself as she got the cake ready to be loaded into the car. That was one of her biggest fears, to have the cake done and then ruin it on the drive to her destination.

Drop off time was set at 7:00, she arrived at 6:55 without incident. She gingerly removed the cake from the passenger seat and made her way up to the house.

Well, this wasn’t very well thought through. She tried to lift herself onto tiptoe to ring the doorbell with her elbow. She had thought about setting the cake down but her only option was to put it on the ground, that was not happening.

Cecilia was almost there when the door swung open. Martha stood with a big childish grin on her face.

“Thank you dear.” She said happily taking the cake from Cecilia. “I will put this in the fridge and be back with your check.” Without another word Martha disappeared around the corner. She had left the door open but had not invited Cecilia in.

What to do? She decided it would be best to remain outside.

Martha reappeared with an envelope in her hands. “Thank you so much dear. On our first date we visited a chocolate shop and Reggie’s favorite was a raspberry filled dark chocolate.”

Martha’s thoughtfulness spread a smile across Cecilia’s face. “How could you remember that after all these years?”

“Some things you will never forget dear.” Martha said with a smile extending the envelope to her.

Cecilia took the envelope with more questions, but she could tell their business was finished. She asked Martha to let her know how Reggie likes the cake and went to work.

The day was long, she was tired.

She arrived home and made herself a simple dinner not wanting to be on her feet anymore. She wanted to sit down and relax. Just as she sat down her phone buzzed.

“What now?”

Checking her phone, she saw a photo of Martha and Reggie sharing a piece of cake.

This was one of those moments, and it was all worth it.