Desperation comes in many flavors

"It was very sweet of you to make me such a nice meal last night. However I don't think I have romantic feelings for you. You are a sweet guy and have a lot going for yourself. I hope you understand and maybe we can just be friends?"

I baked a cake. And not just any cake. I baked a chocolate hazelnut meringue cake. And this cake was to DIE for. 3 light delectable layers of perfectly baked egg whites and sugar, held together with lushes amounts of homemade whip cream and flakes of dark chocolate. Granted, I could have done a slightly better job at marbling the cake. It is harder than it appears to pour melted chocolate into freshly beaten meringue. That must have been it, that thing that turned him off of me, it was my marbling.

I won't even begin to mention to you (whoever you are reading this) the other things I made for this...gentleman. Lets just say it was an amazing meal of stuffed, bacon wrapped chicken, pan fried green beans and garlic potatoes.

And what did this extravagantly prepared meal that took about 7 hours of my life to throw together (I'm telling you, that was some chicken and one awesome cake...)? Nothing. Not even a flirty grab of the leg, or arm over the shoulder. Which prompted my text to my suitor asking if anything was up, and the quoted response above.

I made a cake.

Chocolate Hazelnut Meringue Cake.
Recipe from pg. 324
Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2011

I made a cake out of desperation.

You see, I'm looking for love. And I'm super fed up with this awful dating trend I've been on. It seems to be impossible to find a man who's interested in me, with a lick of personality, gainfully employed, educated, and vaguely attractive.

So what am I doing about this? I'm writing a blog. And here we are, finally defining the theme. This blog will be a baking blog. A baking blog with dating experiences mixed through it, because ladies, gentlemen and others who fall outside of standard gender norms, I am not going to stop making cakes for my dates. Because one of these days a man is going to take a bite of one of my cakes and fall in love...with me.

When I can I'll post my recipes and any tips I can provide to you if you would like to replicate my experience. I'll always try to avoid violating any copyright laws (I'm assuming I can't copy and past recipes from a printed cookbook onto the web). And I'll post pictures of my accomplishments (and any failures).

So join me, on a journey.