I used to be a cookie girl. But then a good friend gave me a book called "The Cake Mix Doctor," with hundreds of variations on cake mixes. And so, naturally, Mark and I had a moral obligation to purchase the sequel, "The Cake Mix Doctor (Chocolate)."
And that is the day when unadulterated cake mix cakes died to me. Don't be offended if I can't eat one that you might make. It's not you. It's me. And the Cake Mix Doctor.
It is true that Mark and I used up a #10 can of chocolate pudding mix (dry) without ever making actual pudding. Just by adding it by the 1/2-cupfuls to the dozens (hundreds?) of chocolate cake mixes we have doctored up. (Please don't do the math....it's embarrassing.)
It is also true that we had to join a gym to offset our new hobby.
With those hundreds (times two) of cake ideas came dozens of recipes for frostings, ganaches, and glazes.
Yum. Frostings.... Somewhere along the line, the frosting became more important than the cake to me.
Which is why, when The Sweet Tooth Fairy (cupcake) shop moved to Murray, my waistline died. Also, my "eating out" budget.
One of the best parts of the Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes was that they came with an approximate ratio of 1:1 cake to frosting. GENIUS!
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| Lily's face is priceless |
And then came a day that changed my life. A friend told me that she had heard that if you go into The Sweet Tooth Fairy on a Friday and say, "I love America's First Federal Credit Union," then the worker would give you a free cupcake.. And lo and behold, Fridays gained new importance for our family that far exceeded that of merely marking the start of the weekend.
We may have turned into too-frequent visitors to The Sweet Tooth Fairy on Fridays. In fact, maybe that's why they closed down the franchise closest to us. Either that or my doctor called and told them they were giving me diabetes.
Well, fast forward a little while. Today, in family scripture reading, we were reading 2 Nephi 27:25 (compare Isaiah 29:13),
"Forasmuch as this people draw near unto me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their hearts far from me...."
I asked our kids what it meant to draw near unto the Lord with our lips, but have our hearts be far from Him.
Eliza answered, and she started giving this long explanation that went something like this.
"You know that cupcake place—The Sweet Tooth Fairy—how we go there on Fridays?" (At this point in time I was thinking, Earth to Eliza!). She continued, “And we say, ‘We love America First Bank’ but we actually have never even been there, but they give us a free cupcake for saying it?”
Yes, sometimes our children call us to repentance during family scripture time.
