MUST.BAKE.CAKE

As much as I love to cook, I never bake.  Why?

1. Baking requires measuring devices and those are against my religion.  I don't own them.  I belong to the school of "throw it in the pot until it tastes good."  This approach NEVER works with baking.  Far too many years ago when I first started cooking I measured everything like a good little girl and my food always had to be adjusted to fit my taste so I decided to save on much needed living space and get rid of the measuring devices.
2. Baking usually contains fat and sugar and I have reached that time in my life when I can just catch a whiff of something baking and gain 10 pounds.
3. I also don't have any other baking gear such as cake pans, cooling pans, etc.  I do have this pretty blue green mixer my mom gave me after Hurricane Katrina ripped my life away...

I do, however, read a baking blog (just to torture myself) and usually I am able to read about Eat,Run,Read's mouth-watering creations, slobber a little bit and then go about my life... BUT...

Then she featured this cake.  Why did she do this to me.  I MUST HAVE THAT CAKE!


Just so you know her pictures make the cake look a million times better than my pictures do.



I tried the logical sneaky approach.  I emailed the link to the recipe to every single person I knew hoping they would make the cake but sadly, it never appeared on my doorstep.  So 2 weeks later when I was still slobbering over that cake, I came up with a plan to make it myself.

CAKE BAKING MASTER PLAN

1. Call up friend who has baking and measuring supplies and tell him I am just dying to bake him the most wonderful cake I have ever seen because he is so special and all I need to do so is to borrow his kitchen and dishes, etc.  Friend, of course, agrees.
2. Load up my car with the incredibly heavy yet oh-so-beautiful mixer my mom gave me plus 2 shopping bags loaded with ingredients.
3. Spill pure vanilla extract all over the interior of my car.
4. Use iPod to read recipe and smear cake batter all over iPod while unlocking the screen.
5. Cover friends kitchen from top to bottom with powdered sugar because I did not know big mixer would spray it over the entire room.  (The dog loved this and was licking the floor.)
6. Find out friend does not have cake pans so improvise with cupcakes.
7. Cover cupcakes with delicious tasting icing in a way that it looks like white poo piles because I don't know how to ice anything (not to mention I used a Ziploc bag as my icing bag).

My master plan, vanilla-ed car, powdered kitchen and little white poo piles were worth it because these are the most delicious cupcakes I have ever had.  Thank you Eat,Run,Read .  If you want the recipe click here.

Since I both smelled and ate the cupcakes, it remains to be seen how much weight I will gain but sometimes you just gotta bake.