A childhood friend who visited my blog sent me an interesting observation – that she has noticed in me a lifelong tendency to (1) anthropomorphize inanimate objects like the Bunny Cake and the GPS Dominatrix, and then (2) fight with them.

Is that so wrong? Especially considering that bunnies are mammals just like us, and can have some bad intent, I’m sure. And that is a woman’s voice coming out of that GPS contraption, right?

But meanwhile, I guess my friend has a point. I do tend to have my best confrontations with non-humans. With people, not so much – not even when confrontation is absolutely needed.

My book characters, though, are another story. They can fight and confront and assert themselves quite well. Maybe that’s why I love them!

Anyway, good call. I’m going to keep an eye on this because I want to be fair, and if I’m blaming my car or my shoe or whatever for things they didn’t do, I should really apologize to them.

Kate

As I mentioned in my comment to mizkit , it went pretty well this time, although it got off to a scary start. Before I even commenced making the frosting, I removed the cooled, white layer cakes from the pans, and on the bottom of one pan, the residue formed -- I'm not kidding -- the face and ears of a bunny.

And a scowling one, no less.

It was intimidating, but I forged onward, and the frosting came out as close to "right" as it has so far. Not quite stiff and voluminous enough, but once spread on the cake and covered with coconut, it looked and tasted perfect.

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Kate 

As you know, I planned for this battle all year.

Apparently, so did the Bunny.

My new weapon was the candy thermometer, but he continued to prefer psychological warfare. And he’s amazingly good at it. This year, by increasing the pressure with his standard psyche out – will I burn the mixture? will I melt a spoon in it again? when does a drip become a thread? – he managed to make me sooo focused on the sugar mixture, I forgot to buy the coconut!

Bad, brilliant Bunny.

Of course, the grocery store was open, and I was able to buy coconut, but the omission shook my confidence, and so even with my new weapon, I went into the battle with trepidation. At the last minute, I panicked and went on the internet to find more and better – and more foolproof – recipes. They varied so much, it actually made me less confident.

Eventually, I came up with a good batch of frosting. Very tasty and pretty, and very, very close to the correct consistency. The family was delighted. I was still smarting from the coconut incident.

And fyi, the thermometer was useless. Why? Because my mother-in-law’s recipe calls for me to cook the sugar until it drips in a thread that curls back on itself. The cookbook recipe calls for me to cook it until 245 degrees. This year, the thread formed at 230 degrees – so I had a decision to make, and I had to make it quickly. If I kept going till 245 degrees, I was afraid I’d burn the mixture, so I stopped.

I’ll never know if it would have been perfect had I just waited another minute or two. But we were already up to 9 minutes, and since it’s sometimes-called Seven-Minute-Frosting, I just couldn’t take the chance.

The internet calls it Italian Meringue, by the way. Most of the cooking sites make their Seven-Minute in a double boiler. I’m tempted to try that next year, but I think that’s the Bunny’s latest mind game, so I’ll try to resist.

Bye for now!
Kate

p.s. Next year, I’m going to post a picture of the result. It’s always pretty in a sloppy, homemade sort of way. He’s always smiling an evil smile no matter what kind of candy I use for his mouth. I meant to take a picture this year, but the coconut incident rattled me so much, I forgot!