Creating from scratch

So while it is de rigeur for the Baker to make all of her baked goods from scratch, this story certainly raises the bar as far as all of that goes. She wanted to bake a cake- simple enough, though this is a polenta rather than a regular cake. However, she also wanted this cake to be covered in fondant. Granted this would be a little trickier. And, instead of deciding to go the easy route and buy her own fondant, she decided to make her own. This, knowing the Baker, is not really surprising. The trouble was that fondant requires high fructose corn syrup, something that the Baker would not want to buy because as she doesn't really like it, she'd be unlikely to use it again. So instead she figured out that she could use a mixture of vegetable shortening (which she already had) and simple syrup (which she could easily make) to make fondant. It's the stories like this which, at least in my mind, make her completely awesome.

Here's a version of something that is kind of like the recipe (according to her she may have forgotten ingredients):

The cake:
less than a cup of polenta
half a cup-ish of flour
3/4 cup-ish of sugar
some baking powder
less baking soda
less salt
an egg white or two
vanilla

Now, the for the fondant:

1/2 cup simple syrup
1/2 cup veggie shortening (as she puts it- aka oil)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
1 pounds confectioners sugar

But of course this just left her with a fondant covered cake. Hardly a good enough end product. So she decided to cover it with a mixture of peanut butter, Bailey's, chocolate and coconut. And of course letters with the recipient's name and more decorations, as the simplicity that the baker desires for her own desserts translates into elaborate elements on cakes for others.