I neglected to post on here yesterday because I was pretty exhausted and I spent my free time trying to make my way through all of the Chicago pictures! (Coming soon) So I will catch you up.
Yesterday I made the delectable French toast muffins with maple syrup and a dusting of powdered sugar. I realized after I was filling the cakes with maple syrup that children running around with sticky fingers is my worst nightmare… but then I realized that I didn’t have to be around them until after lunch, yay! Crisis averted! I made the muffins once before and they were a bit dry so I infused them with extra syrup to try an alleviate that problem. I think they turned out pretty well!
After muffin break, I had to come up with a dessert. Rick (my boss) had a recipe for Crack that we made and it was a hit. The combo of salty and sweet was delish. I have another post devoted to that right after this one.
Since we have so many birthday’s to celebrate here it never hurts to have a few cakes in the freezer ready to go. One of the cooks had also asked if I wouldn’t mind making her a cake and decorating it all pretty. I made a huge batch of chocolate cake batter and baked a few cakes up and made some frosting so I just had to decorate it today.
The counselors are doing a secret buddy program arranged by the lovely Grace (as seen in the Rice Krispie Treat Fiasco of 2011) where all the counselors draw the name of someone who they have to send little notes and treats to throughout the session. It’s just something we can look forward to and be thinking about when things get stressful. So I walk back up to my room and there is a note attached to my door/shower curtain from Eva. She saw one of those toys that expand in water and thought of me because it is a snake. She assured me that she wasn’t actually my secret buddy though. Which is probably for the best because then she shouldn’t have signed her name! Later that day a note and pretty little cupcake colored anklet from my actual secret buddy was hand delivered to me. I am sure feeling the love this week! I guess sugar really does make people happy!
This morning, all day actually, was filled with even more baking. Since I have Sunday off, I had to prepare some things so they don’t run out. I woke up and decided today was the day to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, so I got started. Those whipped up pretty fast so I was able to move on. *Side note: everyone always asks me what the muffin is going to be for the next day, and I honestly have no idea! They think I’m being coy and leaving it a Rockbrook Surprise, but I literally have no idea what I am going to make until I walk down to the kitchen and wake up enough to figure out what I have a taste for!* On Saturday’s Rick likes to serve breakfast breads so I came across an extreme banana bread recipe that i had to multiply by 12 in order to make enough. The convection ovens that we use are super toasty which caused the tops to darken while the bread was still soupy. We covered them with foil and cooked them a bit longer. After we took them out of the oven, and let them cool enough to try out, they were a little too moist… hopefully Rick will know how to fix that.
Once those came out of the oven I started decorating that graduation cake. It was already going on 11:30 when I was supposed to be meeting Mandy to drive into town and pick up a new floor loom(!!!). That’s a whole ‘notha story. By the time we got back, it was lunch and I still had tons to do! After I ate, I finished writing ‘congrats’ on the cake and I had to start on dessert for tonight. We decided on pineapple upside-down cake. The cooks prepped the pineapple and got everything situated, I just had to make an 8x of the yellow cake recipe to have enough for everyone here. I still wasn’t done.
We had enough cookie dough for tonight but tomorrow has an extra special event that requires an extra 250 cookies! We also ran out of the peanut free ones so I couldn’t put that off till tomorrow :( 2- 6x’s of M&M cookies mixed up and then I had to shape them into rolls to freeze so the night people can easily cut and bake them. Then, I was done. Finally. I know that was a long winded version, but today was a long day. Total, I made enough muffins, banana bread, and pineapple upside-down cake for 170 people, enough cookie dough for 300+ and 4 birthday cakes. Luckily it stormed so the only class I am supposed to be in got pushed back to right after I got done baking, conveniently. I spent that class tearing up the sheets I got from Goodwill so we can start weaving with them next week.
Suddenly it was dinner time! I am kind of an orphan here since I don’t have a cabin of girls to sit with. Several tables have extra place settings so I can just pick where I want to sit for every meal. I hadn’t seen Michelle all day and I knew that Penthouse had 2 extra spots so we decided to join them. The 12-ish girls that live in the Penthouse cabin are all around the ages of 15-16 and are called CA’s. They are the second oldest campers and they are in charge of planning the big banquet at the end of every session. The oldest campers are called Hi-Ups. They get to ring the bell at dinner to start songs (which is a HUGE deal) and they have to do tons of prep-work: i.e. setting the tables, doing dishes, etc. It sounds bad, but if you’ve been coming here most of your childhood, it’s just one of the steps you take before you get to be a CIT (Counselor in Training) and eventually a full fledged counselor. Anyhow, the Hi-Ups and CA’s are so close in age, they are sort of rivals and like to play harmless pranks on each other. Yesterday the CA’s hung the Hi-Ups’ bell from the ceiling. Today, when we walked in the dining hall, the Hi-Ups had flipped the CA’s table upside-down and served all their food on that. Michelle and I happily joined them on the floor and ate our dinners picnic style in the middle of the dining hall. It was a hoot! (I tried to tell Roger and James that story on Skype and they didn’t think it was very funny. Maybe they’ll actually laugh when they see the pictures!)
So stay tuned for how to make crack (the good kind) and more about the loom(s) coming tomorrow! Also, I am going on leave tomorrow night and I am super duper excited for that! Oh, and I almost forgot! Roger sent me a lovely care package in the mail that i received today! It was full of all sorts of goodies: gummy worms (so Ringo and I can eat worms together), books, a magazine, and best of all, a post-it puzzle letter! I think he may have just been bored at work, but it was fun to try and put back together so I could read it!
