A wise woman once said, “The key to being a successful spouse and parent is to take a one week vacation by yourself (or with friends), a one week vacation with your spouse, and a one week vacation with your whole family each year. A week is just enough time for you to get dedicated and purposeful time to enjoy you, enjoy each other, and enjoy your kids.” Now… I have been a parent for just over 5 years and this will be the first year that I even come close to fulfilling this task. In April our family took a 9 day trip to California, in June I took a 5 day trip to Paris, and I am now coming to the end of a 5 day stay-cation with my husband while our kids are with relatives “farming it” in Wisconsin. While I am wary to label anything a “key to success”, I can attest to the fact that my wise Auntie Debbie was hitting on something with this advice. Parenting is hard. You can get completely lost in it. Making an effort to find dedicated carefree time for each part of the family is important.
When I heard this little piece of advice the first time (which was when my daughter was a newborn, so about 5 years ago) I thought it was completely brilliant and had every intention of making it happen. Family vacations are the easiest to execute and thus we’ve done one every year. David and I taking a trip together has been a tad more touch and go, and that trip to Paris? that’s the first “by myself” vacation I’ve ever taken. There are many reasons why those two types of vacations are so difficult to accomplish but the main one is… leaving my babies in the hands of someone else is SCARY. I am lucky in that I have relatives that I trust to take care of my kids, and yet leaving them is STILL SCARY. What if they fall and call out for me and I am not there to comfort them the way they like? What if they wake up in the middle of the night and are terrified that I am not there? What if leaving them for a week emotionally scars them forever and ever and they hate me? (ok… that last one is a little overboard but, hey I’m a mom and I worry about irrational stuff sometimes ;) ) Parenting is hard and it is extremely difficult to take a leap of faith and entrust my tiny blissful beings in to someone else’s hands, no matter how qualified they are. However, the more years of parenting I accumulate, the easier it becomes to take this leap because through countless trials I’ve learned that the wonderfully overused adage, “They will be fine, they will survive.” is completely true. What I have also found to be true is that dedicated time for my spouse and dedicated time for me is extremely important as it has given me a renewed sense of mental well being and family vision. Could we survive without it? Perhaps. Will it be feasible to accomplish it during every season of parenthood? Nope. Do I think every parent should try this at home? Maybe :) If you’re a parent with kids at home and the cookie cutter advice my aunt gave seems completely unattainable and maybe even somewhat ludicrous, I get it, but please don’t roll your eyes and scroll to the cake pictures quite yet… Yes, there are so many reasons to brush off this goal besides it just being scary to leave your kids. 3 weeks of vacation, that’s a lot of money and time that many cannot spare, yes I understand that. However, I won’t relent in encouraging you, oh exhausted parent that I know you are, to consider how you can prioritize some amount of carefree and fun time for yourself, for your spouse (if you’re married, if you’re a single parent, I believe double time for yourself should be in order :) ), and for your family because each of you completely deserve it. It may not be a week, but consider what is feasible for you, take a leap of faith, and go for it! If you are reading this and aren’t a parent with kids in the house… thanks for stopping by! A fun cake recipe is coming ;) On a more serious note though, maybe consider helping a parent get some of that time? Obviously it doesn’t have to be a week (but hey if you want to offer that, by all means!) but maybe consider babysitting for free some time, I can speak from personal experience, it means SO MUCH to us parents!
It didn’t take me very long at all to figure out what cake to make this week. We had no children nipping at our heels for cake scraps so of course… it must be booze filled! It’d been years since I’d made this Red wine Chocolate cake, and I wanted to douse it with the good stuff because once, again, I had no children nipping at my heels begging for second and third bites of my slice of cake. I headed over to The Spice House in Old Town here in Chicago and bought some high quality cinnamon, cocoa powder, and vanilla. Then I crossed the street to La Fournette to pick up some amazing raspberry jam for the filling. I lived a bit adventurously with the cake recipe, it’s adapted from this one from Smitten Kitchen though it may not seem so at first glance. I added a bit more spice and used a red wine from Spain that was spice and fruit forward, the end result was fun and David and I enjoyed every wine-filled bite! While it has been a lovely week, those tiny blissful beings are sorely missed and will be heartily welcomed back tomorrow by two refreshed parents.
Red Wine Chocolate Spice Cake
Ingredients:
12 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
2 large eggs + 2 large egg yolks
1 ½ cups red wine (a spicy and fruit forward red wine will be best)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups + 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325°F.
Butter 2 8-inch round cake pans (or medium sized heart shaped pans like I used) then line them with parchment paper, and butter and lightly flour the parchment.
Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together in to a bowl, mix together with a whisk and set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and yolks and beat well, then the red wine and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Pour the dry ingredients directly over the wet and slowly mix until 3/4 combined, then fold the rest together with a rubber spatula.
Spread batter in prepared pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. The top of the cake should be shiny and smooth, like a puddle of chocolate. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, then flip out of pan and cool the rest of the way on a cooling rack. This cake keeps well at room temperature or in the fridge.
Chocolate Glaze
Ingredients:
6 oz high quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp corn syrup
Directions:
Place chocolate in a medium size heatproof bowl. Bring the cream and corn syrup just to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat; pour mixture over chocolate. Let stand, without stirring, until chocolate just begins to melt (about 45 seconds). With a whisk, and starting at the center of the bowl, whisk in a small circular motion clockwise increasing the size of your circle until the ganache is 75% incorporated then start whisking counter-clockwise just until the ganache is silky and fully mixed together. do not over mix or you'll be sorry :)
Assembly
Ingredients:
8 oz high quality raspberry jam
35-40 fresh raspberries, half whole, half cut in half length-wise
Place a layer of cake on to a disposable cake round or cake plate. Fill this layer with enough raspberry jam to completely cover the cake but don't let any spill over the sides or reach the edge. Place the other layer of cake over the filling. There should only be a small amount of filling showing through the layers. Gently pour about half the glaze over the cake and smooth out the top, ensuring any glaze that spills over the sides gets smoothed around the cake as well. Pour half of the remaining glaze over the top and smooth out excess again. Use remaining glaze to cover any open patches of cake, using an offset spatula to smooth out and glaze the whole cake. Decorate with fresh raspberries by arranging whole raspberries on top and arranging halved raspberries around the bottom. Cut and enjoy sans kids in tow as that wine does not completely bake out ;)