With your permission, a personal story. Years (OK, decades) ago when I was in 4-H, baking for the county fair was almost a sacred act. Well, sacred and (silently) profane, depending on how much havoc August's heat and humidity wreaked on achieving a brownie's shiny crust or getting a uniform trio of cloverleaf dinner rolls.
Sometimes, I'd make several batches to get results worthy of pitting against the county's other young bakers. So, one year, when I walked into the Sioux Empire Fairgrounds' vast hall with all the entries and saw no sign of the spongecake over which I'd labored, I was crushed.
They had lost my cake. Or maybe tossed it as inedible. Or maybe they'd eaten the whole thing, but never told anyone. When you're 12 years old, the mind races.
When I finally asked one of the superintendents what could have happened to my entry (you know, the one I'd labored over), she in turn asked if I'd checked the wooden display case off to one side — for entries that had earned purple ribbons.
I believe I came home from the fair that day with perfectly clean shoes, because my feet couldn't have touched the ground.
The judges' decision may have been preordained, for the recipe was called Grand Champion Sponge Cake and drawn from the hallowed Farm Journal magazine that arrived each month in our mailbox.
Still, you can prepare a recipe well, or you can prepare it poorly. I will always regard my victory as validation for giving close attention to the necessary steps.
None of the steps are difficult. No, not a bit. They just need to be done thoughtfully, even reverently. Because the end result is an angelic cake.
