Thursday, April 22, 2010

A Case of Work Overload and Marbled Pound Cake

It has been some time. I've been a mix of lazy, busy and uninspired. Mostly lazy.

A few updates:
 I am NOT getting my apartment. Apparently, I can't trust the leasing officer enough to feel safe with my deposits. The total rent ended up being so much more than I thought. But it turns out okay because I'm going to continue living where I am, but in the upstairs apartment. Yes, I get to come home to that huge beautiful house except WITH MY OWN KITCHEN. All for the same price as the room I'm living in now. The best thing about it is I get to share the apartment with my Auntie Bining who is so much more than what people think. This also means home cooked filipino dishes. This makes me infinitely happier.

I have been applying for higher paying jobs. One of which I hope to become a future employee. HOWEVER, I'm slowly enjoying where I work now. Everyone at my job is VERY friendly. After two weeks, I would be sad if I left.

My diet is terrible. There is absolutely no sign of vegetable in it. This brings me down. Not only is my health going down, but it does take effect on my stress levels. Healthy foods are not really influenced here as much as it is back home. I'm still having a hard time with the kitchen. However, I AM getting there. I've managed to bake a few things. Though baking is much easier than cooking. I'm also led to believe my sugar habits as of late is what is making me feel zombie-like at the moment. I'm fighting to keep my eyes open.

(IT HAS BEEN SOME TIME)

Last night, I had a chicken soft taco and a chicken bacon tortada from Taco Bell. It was not good. After, I had a pint (yes a WHOLE fucking pint) of Ben & Jerry's cake batter ice cream. Oh. My. God. If EVER you have a super simple chocolately craving, this is what you want. Heaps of nutella swirled into ice cream is YES in my book. No, it's not really nutella, but it had the same consistency. The only thing I would down vote about this is that the yellow cake batter ice cream did not taste like cake batter. Nonetheless, it was still amazing. You want to try this. Just don't be dumb and eat the whole thing. Save some for later. Or you'll end up buying another pint like me.

I was looking through a few blogs and came across a pound cake recipe from Martha Stewart. All of last week I had been craving something chocoately, dense and bread like. Pound cake sounded amazing to me. Now I had never made anything marbled, or anything cakey...that last part might be a lie. I had it saved as a document and wrote it down. I do not recommend writing out recipes, for chance of writing it out wrong. Now it's one thing to write it out wrong, but to write it out right (HAR) and STILL GET THE RECIPE WRONG is another thing. This was my ding dong fault. For some reason, instead of putting the 2/3 cup of sugar, I put the measurements of the flour: 1 1/4 cup. Of sugar. I mean, I had it written out. Not sure how I ended up doing that. About a half hour after putting it in the oven, I looked over the recipe and realized I did this. I raged. Pulled the cake out of the oven. Tried it. NOT BAD. Definitely not as sugary as I thought it was. But very bland. Not marbled at all. This resulted in my finding of B&J's cake batter ice cream. So either way, I'm happy.

The cake did actually taste better with the cake batter ice cream. But then again, anything tastes good with ice cream, even hot dogs.

Marbled Chocolate Pound Cake
by Martha Stewart

8 oz unsalted butter
2/3 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/4 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
5 oz semisweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350F. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into a medium bowl. Cream butter and sugar in another bowl. Add in eggs, one at a time. Alternate the flour mixture and milk. Do not over mix, only till combined. Melt the chocolate in the microwave if you're lazy like me, or a double boiler.
Add half of the cake mix to the chocolate. NOT THE CHOCOLATE TO THE CAKE MIX DUMB DUMB. Drop large spoonfuls of each batter into a buttered loaf pan, alternating. Use a knife to swirl the mixes together. Don't get excited and swirl the batter until it's all chocolate.
Bake for 1 hour, depending on your oven. I had to bake for an hour and 10 minutes because I'm a ding dong. Let the cake stand for 10 minutes before serving. I always find that it tastes better after completely cooled, refrigerated even.

2 comments:

  1. that's awesome that you get to have your own place that ISN'T a butt load of money! we have both succeeded in the living arrangement situation. :)
    my diet is also very terrible. this past week i've been eating brownies and star crunches for breakfast... <.< and where are you when i need you??!! i crave sweets all the time, and here you are, creating them. i wish texting food was possible, then you could text me some cake.

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  2. nice blog! (: and i once finished a pint of ben & jerry's fudge brownie. bad and good at the same time :P

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