Introduction and going back four years

Hello sweet reader,

Even though this is not the first post, it will be the first ‘official’ post and therefore, I would like to start by introducing myself.

I was born and raised outside of Guatemala City, in a family of five: dad (an architect), mom (an interior designer and a baker), sister (a nutritionist), brother (a chef de cuisine), and me: a lawyer who is expecting to become an early childhood educator in the next year or so but who really loves cooking and baking.

I always enjoyed being in the kitchen. My mom can confirm that I sat on a corner and watched her prepare the meals for the family. I just watched. I would say that it could’ve been pretty intimidating, but my mom stayed chill and pretended to be leading a cooking show or class… a very good teacher, I must say!

It wasn’t until I moved out of my parents’ house when I realized that cooking was going to be a huge part of my life. I moved in with my husband (fiancé at that time) and I was in charge of the meals. Since then, I claimed the kitchen as my territory and cooking became my passion.

Recently I was encouraged by my biggest fan and critic to share the fruits of my passion, and well, here we are. As my first official post, I would like to start with the first cake that I made. Most of the cakes and treats that I’ve prepared have been for my husband’s office events: birthdays, meetings, parties and so on. It hasn’t been until now, that I have started to make cakes for my family and friend’s events.

The cake in the picture, as I said, was the first one that I made. I remember that it was during a hot summer (like every summer in Ottawa) so I planned on something light and fresh: lemon poppy seed pound cake with lemon curd filling. The icing, well, there is a story behind it: my mom loves a good cake with Swiss or Italian meringue icing, so I followed her steps… first big problem! Like I said, it was a hot day, so trying to work with meringue was nearly impossible. I don’t know how, but I made a good meringue, so I spread it all over the cake… but wait, let’s go back a few steps and pay attention to the fact that I used a pound cake with a custard filling… yes, I know now… as soon as I put the top layer, the lemon custard oozed all over and the filling was no more a filling but a “dipping” custard!

Anyway, without the experience or the proper tools, I manage to pull the cake together and I finished it with a flower from my own garden (organic and pesticide free, I must say). It obviously didn’t look as I envisioned in my mind, but from the reviews, the flavours where there!

So that is it, four years ago I started to play with cakes, not knowing exactly what was I doing and, somehow, my experiments turn OK-ish…

Don’t forget to subscribe, share and comment if you like it and I hope to be back soon.

Sweet wishes,

Regina