Take that, cake!

You've heard of slow and steady wins the race, but this takes the cake. And I mean the literal cake.

Let me explain.

This time of year, whilst great for making resolutions about healthy eating etc, also brings the most challenging temptations for me. And so I've had a slow start.

For a good month after Christmas we have no less than 8 birthdays and 2 wedding anniversaries in our family. Add in the regular feasts at Christmas and New Years and it's cake city - mostly chocolate (my absolute favourite), but sometimes cheesecake, trifle, steam pudding, banoffie pie, ambrosia, etc, etc. 

Okay that's not all cake ... but it's pudding, it's yum, and eating too much of it makes you fat. Just like cake.

And so it is that I find myself making yet another chocolate cake. I'm using the Hershey's recipie that is so easy and mmmmm caaaaaaaake kinda yum. I'm only mildly ashamed to admit that I just looooove to lick the spoons, beaters, rubber scraper and bowl. 

(Raw cake mix - it brings out the extended syllables in me!)

But this time I thought about my goals (and my overindulgence in recent weeks) and decided to mix up the whole cake from start to finish without licking or sampling along the way. And because I want to pass on good habits to my kids I wasn't even going to call them in to have my spoils.

That batter was looking sooo chocolatty and delicious. Not unlike some of those rebels-without-a-cause I used to be attracted to as a teenager. But, as I learned to do then (after much trial and tribulation), I employed the nonchalant almost-scowly attitude and kept my eyes focused on the task at hand ... and it worked!

And because I was feeling so good about myself I also decided to clean up the cocoa/flour-bomb effect going on in the kitchen. (I can see the relief in my husbands eyes already.)

Now the cake is baked and almost cool enough to ice. The kitchen is semi-clean (since I finished several kids have had reheats and there's bowls strewn around the sink like half-sunk ships). I haven't had anything unhealthy to eat today ... yet. I'm still going to eat a slice later because it's birthday cake after all!

So even though I may have had a slow and steady start to this journey, I'm still on it, learning and achieving as I go. Small steps will get me there.

And the next time I'm baking a cake I can just poke my unencumbered-with-batter tongue at that empty bowl and dripping beaters, then wash that bad habit down the drain!