There are life lessons everywhere we go if we choose to receive them. Today I am going to share the Lessons of the Cracked Egg.

While Bisousweet no longer ‘officially’ makes cakes as part of our regular product line, we occasionally pull out the cake pans for special events. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Idylwilde Farm for the simple truth that they believed in me before I believed in myself. I go out of my way to do whatever I can to help them. This includes making Easter Egg cakes even though, for the most part, my cake pans are retired.

Lesson #1: Remember and honor your roots

Saying yes to making Easter Egg Cakes requires my pastry department to adjust and carve out time to add these gems into our production schedule. I am blessed to work with people who consistently go out of their way to do almost anything to keep this business chugging in the ‘direction of the week’. We always find a way to get everything done, we do it as a team, and we do it with love, humor and determination.

Lesson #2: Shower those who support you with gratitude, appreciation & bagels

We made 65 Easter Egg cakes this year. We baked the chocolate egg cakes, made buttercream, sliced the cakes in half, filled them with buttercream, crumb coated them, made ganache, glazed the cakes, mixed pastel shades of buttercream and decorated each cake. We tucked them away in our walk-in cooler overnight and came in early the next morning to package them for delivery. However, when we arrived in the morning, we opened the walk-in door to discover 65 cakes, perfect and unblemished just hours earlier, now covered with cracks. Holy cake fail.

Lesson #3: When the shit hits the fan, stay calm.

The lessons started piling up quickly at this point as did the questions. What the hell happened to the ganache?  What do you do when you make something that isn’t up to your typical standards? Do we send the cracked cakes and hope people are understanding? Do they look as bad to other people as they do to us? What are our options? I sifted through multiple different conversations and scenarios with the pastry team in hopes that we could discover a quick fix. Deep down, however, I knew there really was only one solution: scrape off the frosting, re-crumb coat, re-glaze and re-decorate.

Lesson #4: Have integrity and do whatever it takes to make things right

We got to work. We stayed late, we showed up early, and we laughed over and over again at the irony that I had just written this article about chocolate for Edible Boston. We worked quickly, we had fun, and we delivered these labors of love just 12 hours behind schedule.

Lesson #5: Laughter makes everything better

While I think I know what factors contributed to the ganache cracking, I have some research to do. Perhaps the best lesson of the cracked Easter Egg cake is this:

Lesson #6: Pursue learning with relentless passion

Yes, there was a lot of bread burning at the bakery this week: cracked eggs, shortage of biscotti bags, last minute pie production, cake containers that were too small and more. And yet, as we started cleaning the bakery Friday afternoon, I was flooded with quiet satisfaction that we worked as a team, we found solutions, and we made good choices.

Lesson #7: Allow yourself to feel pride

Wishing everyone who celebrates Easter a day filled with happiness, laughter, too many jelly beans and hopefully just enough chocolate to satisfy your sweet tooth. Oh, and if you happen to have picked up one of our very special Easter Egg cakes, please enjoy every bite.

With love –

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