Baking Adventures

I made a bunch of goodies for a dessert auction fundraiser. Here I am cooking.
My first cake was a chocolate chip bundt cake. It came out of the oven looking beautiful! The recipe said I should let it cool 10 minutes in the pan, and then turn in out onto a cooling rack. That part didn't go so well.
In retrospect, that's really the best cake for me to have messed up on, because it tasted amazing and David and I got to eat it!

For the next cake, I was super careful about getting it off the pan. I succeeded. (I know, this picture shows it still on the pan, but trust me.)
I was going to make a cheesecake, but cream cheese wasn't on sale and I only had 2 packages. So I tried a no-bake cheesecake recipe, which really had so little cheesecake filling that it was more of a cheese torte. And then I made it look pretty. Here, I needed three hands to hold spatulas to make sure the graham cracker crust didn't break as I moved the torte from the pan to its platter. This dessert created a bidding war.
I also made a moist chocolate cake with fudge filling and whipped cream frosting. It looks pretty plain compared to the other cakes, and consequently sold for a lower amount. Even the lemon bars beat its price.
Here are the lemon bars. I kept them in one piece because it makes for a nicer presentation. This kept sliding around on my "platter," and every time it moved, I could see the grease that was transferred to the paper underneath. Not the most appetizing thing.
All in all, a good contribution to the fundraiser.

Another Baking Story
I made David a cheesecake for our anniversary. (This was when I still had 5 packages of cream cheese in the fridge, so it was a real cheesecake.) I made it the day before, and then washed and put away all the pans that would give away the surprise. I hid the cheesecake under some tortillas in the fridge, where I didn't expect David to look.

I decided to make Sesame Chicken for dinner, which incidentally happens to be the first dish I ever made David. When I pointed this out to him, he jokingly asked, "And is there cheesecake in the fridge, too?" There went my great surprise.