My dear readers, today I bring you news that I honestly never expected to relay. It is with sincere regret that I share this information, which I only just received:
“This is clay’s final month and ultimately last year of publication.”
I know how shocking this is. I could never have foreseen such an event, but when I saw Julia’s name pop into my inbox, I knew something terrible had happened.
Now, you must understand that whenever clay columnists see Julia or Mari’s name in their inbox, they brace themselves for the worst–often waiting days to open an email. You can imagine, then, my fear when I opened the email, and as you can see, it contained the worst news I could receive. I understand that you were (hopefully) not dreading opening this article and are therefore not as prepared for this news as I was. However, I trust that by following the directions for Farewell Cake below you will find this goodbye just a bit more bearable.
Why bake at a time like this? you may ask. That is a very good question, and there are many reasons, but perhaps the most important is that baking provides you with a way to cope with stress, mainly food to then stress-eat, which, contrary to popular belief, is not unhealthy at all, but, rather, helps you handle stress in a far faster way than many other methods.
Now then, begin by preheating your oven to approximately 4000 degrees Fahrenheit. This will allow you to bake your cake much faster than if you use the traditional 350 degrees. If you have an older oven that cannot reach 4000 degrees, just preheat it to the closest you can, making any adjustments to the bake time.
At this point, no doubt, the reality of never opening clay again to procrastinate your many assignments is beginning to truly sink in, and you are overwhelmed with emotions. I encourage you not to suppress them. In fact, unleash them, because we all know that only from pain can we create something truly beautiful. (Not to mention, the most popular baked good, the chocolate chip cookie, was made by mistake, and letting yourself be conquered by emotion tends to lead to some wild mistakes).
Once you are thoroughly overwhelmed with grief, pull out your flour, sugar, eggs, milk, butter, salt, vanilla extract, and anything else that catches your eye as you scan your cupboards. Grab a mixing bowl and wooden spoon, and begin mixing the ingredients as you wish. Don’t worry about measuring cups and spoons–they only hinder the creative process. Don’t let anyone convince you that certain ratios are necessary for a delicious cake because those people only want to hinder your growth as a baker. In fact, ignore all “facts” as you make this cake. We all know that facts don’t care about your feelings–well, feelings don’t care about facts, and that’s what this cake is all about!
Once your batter is ready, pour it into the pan of your choosing and place it in the oven. Don’t worry about parchment paper or greasing the pan. It will be just fine! Keep an eye on the cake as it bakes, and when it looks ready to you, leave it in for another fifteen minutes or so just to make sure (better safe than sorry!).
Don’t worry if something goes wrong. An explosion in the oven or salmonella poisoning is all in a day’s work for us TPSers–we’re used to things going unexpectedly. Just think about how the chat box explodes when a teacher goes silent for a mere second with students spamming “0,” “I can’t hear,” “we can’t hear,” “is the teacher talking?” “we can’t hear” and on and on and on for what seems like minutes (but is merely a few seconds) before the teacher pops back into the meeting. This is just one way that we TPSers put our resilience on display, but I could go on.
When the cake is finished, let it cool in the pan for at least ten minutes, but if you’re feeling impatient, go ahead and take it out. Feel free to eat it then and there, or ice it first. The important thing about Farewell Cake is that you must eat all of it in one sitting without letting anyone take even a crumb. After finishing the cake, you will be left in a state where you will no longer feel as concerned about whatever you are saying goodbye to, in this case, clay.
And that is how simple it is to make Farewell Cake! It uses far fewer dishes than any other cake and is sure to have a unique texture and flavor every time! Enjoy!
Note: I do not mean to treat this painful news lightly, but I have found that humor often helps ease the pain of saying goodbye, so I hope my attempt at making you laugh leaves you with one more fond memory of clay. I would like to thank you all for your tremendous encouragement as readers–your comments always make my day. I’ll miss clay very much, but I hope to leave you with a few smiles.
Photo Credit: https://cakestudio.in/items/index/farewell-cake/chennai