What I'm about here....

So where to start....well at the beginning of course.

Me, I'm a cook; well former chef.  And I have long maintained that cooking is art.  Baking is Science.  I really couldn't get into strict measurements, and if you've ever used too much or not enough of say flour in your cookies, you may have noticed they don't come out as planned.  Whereas, this really isn't that much of an issue in cooking.  I could attribute this to being sloppy, lazy, or as anyone who knew me early on, will attest; Science is not my strong suit....hence why I don't work for NASA, but worked in kitchens.

Now, I just cook at home.  But my daughter has a passion for baking.and is really good at it.  So when we go on the hunt for lost treasures (at our local thrift stores) we are always on the search for pans, baking utensils and baking reference books.  Her Current passion is Cupcakes. So while searching the bookshelf for finds, I found nothing on cupcakes.  My wife on the other hand, asked if I had seen the book on cakes?  Silly me, if you have a recipe of a cake, you can make cupcakes just as easily from the same recipe, just bake it in different pans!  When we opened the book my wife was holding, our eyes were drawn to the wonderful photos of cakes inside, each more tempting the next.  By the 4th or 5th photo, I was ready to eat the book itself!

So as we left the store, book in hand, my wife inquired, "would you make me some of these" To which I replied, "perhaps it would be better if our daughter did."   To which, she responded, "did you ever see Julie and Julia?" Of course said I, "but what does that have to do with cake?"  Much more than I imagined then.  The rest of the conversation in a nutshell centered on stepping outside our normal bounds, trying new things, growth.  I have a few other blogs, where I talk about some of my passions.  Growing Veg, raising chickens, getting healthier etc.  So she challenged me to write a blog about this book, the cakes we bake from it, how they taste, how easy or hard they are to make etc.  Now she didn't say "I double dog dare you" or anything like it, but I am almost always up for a challenge.  But I would do this my way, or no way.

The ground rules:

One cake every two to three weeks (as we can't eat that much that fast.  Some times we will do more than others, but I will do  two cakes a month (or this would take forever!)

I will bake the cakes just as described, no letting my penchant for fiddling with recipes take over.

I will post honest reviews of the recipes.  I have seen some of the recipes from the book on other websites, but have not checked them out. So I will not have any particular bias towards a cake in question.

Today, that's it for the rules, that isn't to say that I won't add more, it's my blog, so I get to say.

As for the title of this blog.  When I was a youngster, I bough 45's and usually ended up liking the B sides better than the song I bought the 45 for!  The B-sides were always another song, not really played on the radio much, so in a way it allowed you to see if you liked the artist, more than just the song.  I am a cook, that's my A-side.  Baking that's my B-side.  And yes, I have baked a bit, and find that I always listen to music when I bake.  Hence this blog is B-sides while baking.

Now the book in question; Close Up on Cakes edited by Suzie Smith.

Now there are over 80 recipes in here, and I wanted a way to make baking them random. My wife wanted me to do them in order (like in Julie and Julia) but I felt, and feel, I don't want to make 5 Chocolate Cakes in a row ugh.... so to randomize this process.  I cut up small pieces of paper, and wrote down the name of the cakes and the page number.  folded up the little pieces of paper and threw them in an old cigar box.  We will draw one slip of paper, and whatever cake comes up, will bake it.

Now, just to eat up the Carrot Cupcakes with white chocolate cream cheese frosting my daughter made up for a birthday party on Friday....

I must say, in writing out all those little slips, a few recipes really caught my eye, and made me want to scrap this whole idea and get to baking....but temptation is fueling to anticipation which is better than any sauce or syrup you can apply.  So I will have to wait, until the fickle finger of fate prompts me to draw out that recipe from the box.

I plan to bake the first of these cakes sometime mid week, and will update this blog when each is baked, and the first slice eaten.