On Cake

Ok. I know I said I was going to post the recipe and photos for my delicious romanesco cauliflower pasta, but I am a jerk and I forgot to do it, so for now, we're dealing with something much more important:

Cake.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, cake isn't as important as, say, bathing or taxes or laundry (which I should probably do today), but today cake is pretty important. 

For his really awesome anniversary present, I took Le Boyfriend to Bodies The Exhibition yesterday. It's certainly not for everyone, but I myself am a big fan of seeing how things work and I think that the chance to view people in a very stripped down (and really not terribly yucky) state is something not to miss out on, so off we went to peruse muscles and bones and organs and all manner of people parts. While standing in line for the touching part of the exhibit, Le Boyfriend told me that it was all me and that he'd not be touching ANYTHING. Imagine my surprise when, a moment later, I was standing there with a human liver in my hands, marveling at the size of the blood supply that it once harbored and I looked over to see Le Boyfriend cradling a human brain in his lovely hands. It was a bit surreal, as he was staunchly against even the tiniest bit of touching these things and then all of a sudden, he was saying, "Wow. WOW." I am quite proud of him. Such things are fascinating and humbling and I am really happy that he put himself out there like that. Again, it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but we were really in awe the whole time.

Anyway. DIGRESSIONS. I am so good at this. Have you noticed yet? It's a running theme with me. I begin talking about something like broken shoelaces and end up deeply entrenched in a conversation about the intricacies of social justice, without a discernible segue in sight. I pretend like it is a talent, when in reality it's a bit of a trainwreck. That being said: cake.

After parting ways with said lovely man last night, I headed home to cuddle my puppy, watch some really poorly made 1990's horror movies (Candyman, anyone?) and catch up on all things Internet. As I was watching that wretched movie (which I first saw in the theater when I was a freshman in high school with my friend Lauren), I caught up on my Livejournal friendslist (shut it. 75% of my AMAZING friends are with me because of my Feelings Journal). One of my favorite LJ communities is bakebakebake. There are gorgeous things posted there every day and that community really has made me want to become a more skilled baker and in a lot of senses, that has worked. Thanks, bakebakebakers! 

As I was skimming my friendslist, a bakebakebake post popped out at me. Pumpkin pie snickerdoodle bars? Are you serious?! After my brain registered a "HELL YES!", I informed Le Boyfriend that I was going to make these delicious-looking things RIGHT NOW. My only real issue is that I had no pumpkins of any kind and that the recipe looked like it would feed an army. I did, however, have a gorgeous acorn squash that I picked up at the farmer's market last week and I could certainly cut the recipe in half, so I set about it.

The end result? Decidedly not pumpkiny or in bar form, but I think I might even be happier with this:

After steaming my acorn squash to a mashably delicious consistency, I realized that I had more than the 3/4 cup that the halved recipe (the full version is after the link jump above for the post) called for. I didn't want to use a ton of butter, so I snagged he remainder of the nonfat sour cream out of the fridge left over from making Le Boyfriend's salad dressing and also decided to use my springform pan rather than a rectangular pan. 

Recipe after alterations:

Yield is 12-14 servings

Snickerdoodle layer

1.5 cups flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4c packed brown sugar

1/2 stick butter, softened

1/2 cup nonfat sour cream

1 egg, beaten and at room temperature

1 tbsp vanilla 

Pumpkin/Squash layer

2/3 cup flour

1/3 cup raw sugar

1/2 stick butter, softened

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 egg, beaten and at room temperature

1 cup steamed acorn squash, mashed to a silky texture

Additional

2 tbsp white sugar mixed with 2 tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Place a square of waxed paper or parchment paper on the tray of a 10" springform pan, close the ring around it and trim off the excess. Very lightly grease and flour the paper and the sides of the pan. 

In a large bowl, prepare the snickerdoodle layer by whisking together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add butter and mix in with a wooden spoon until the mixture breaks down into marble-sized bits, then stir in the vanilla, egg and sour cream. The batter will be thick, but stir for a moment until it becomes a bit fluffy, then spread into the springform evenly. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to release any major air bubbles and then top with half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

In the same bowl, whisk all of the ingredients for the pumpkin/squash layer together. This batter will be much easier to pour and will be a bit thinner. Pour on top of the snickerdoodle layer and sprinkle the remainder of the cinnamon sugar on top.

Bake on the middle rack of the oven at 350 for one hour. The cake will have risen and the sugar coating on top will have formed a sugar crust. Turn the oven down to 325 and place the cake on the lowest rack of the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick/cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 45 minutes before unringing the cake and slicing it.

At first, I was a litlte bit skeptical. The acorn squash doesn't have the same bright color that the pumpkin does, but it still turned out lovely.

The snickerdoodle layer is so delicious and dense and the sour cream makes it just the tiniest bit tangy without adding (more) fat to it. The squash layer is also really moist and dense and I think the acorn squash worked really well as a pumpkin substitution and I will likely use it again in this recipe. I will be handing some off to a neighbor and will try this again with sugar pumpkin puree soon to see which I like better, but I have a feeling that this will remain the winner. I think you should make some of this and then you should put it in your mouth and then you should tell me what you think of it.

Coffee-ish cake out of squash. Broken shoelaces to social justice. Same story, all the time. At least this result is delicious, right? Right.

Catching up

I have been so busy and so neglectful of this little thing lately. I come home from work and I eat something like an apple or a hanfdul of Goldfish crackers for dinner and then I fall asleep. The past month has been so crazy that I haven't even kept up with things like doing laundry. Well done, Jessica!

Le Boyfriend and I celebrated 2 lovely years together at the beginning of October. He kicked things off by sending me flowers at work, which was the biggest surprise EVER.

We then went to dinner and came home to cuddle a puppy and get some delicious sleep, but we first took our official 2nd anniversary family photo because we're nerdy.

 

For dinner, we went to a pizza place a couple blocks away from my apartment, where we proceeded to ingest the largest slices of pizza ever made, EVER. Nick's arm is right next to that pizza, so there's no depth perception trickery going on to make it look bigger. The slices are 14" long and they are DELICIOUS. Really bad for you, but it was our anniversary, so what the hell, right? RIGHT.

The next morning, some gorgeous peridot earrings and a matching pendant (I said I liked peridot a year ago, in normal conversation. HOW DID HE REMEMBER?!) and an entire BOX of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day cleaning supplies arrived via UPS and I pretty much cried under the weight of feeling so spoiled. I just made him a nerdy scrapbook, printed and framed one of his favorite photos of us and bought tickets for us to go see some plastinated dead bodies. Le Boyfriend clearly wins the anniversary gifter award.

Later that afternoon, I headed out to a gigantic lodge in the middle of nowhere to spend the weekend with a group of my friends. One of the group is moving to Scotland and this was her farewell gathering.

 

Our weekend away took place at Big House Lodge in Cle Elum, WA. 17 people, 4 dogs and an incredible amount of debauchery all fit quite nicely into that 5500 square foot house.

Meals were cooked, delicious cocktails were served and poker was played (I won. I KNOW, right?!) and it was absolutely lovely. The first night, one of the lovely ladies let me in on an awesome piece of news: she and her husband are expecting their first child. WOO! This group of friends is made up of some of the most intelligent, well-traveled, witty, generous people I have ever known and we had a blast. Did I mention that there was food there? Oh my.

I didn't cook an entire meal, but I did make some pretty amazing soft pretzels filled with bacon and caramelized onions.

The weekend also marked my first foray into eating hot wings. My friend Heather's husband Michael is something of a wing master.  I was hesitant to try them, but I am so glad I did. So spicy and delicious! I ate mine with a bit of gouda and some waffles that contained pearl sugar (you can buy it at IKEA). HEAVEN.

Given that the wings and waffles were merely an appetizer, I should have known that dinner would be incredible also, but I was not quite prepared for what was about to happen. I am notoriously anti-bones when it comes to meat. I dislike gristly things and connective tissue, so I tend to stay far away from meat that isn't boneless. Friends Tom & Katie made incredible mashed potatoes, green beans and ribs for dinner and while I was a little bit wary of the ribs, I ended up eating FOUR of them. Four ribs. Four pieces of meat with bones in them. Four pieces of meat that were so gloriously delicious, I was intensely sad that I was too full to eat just one more.

The morning we left, Jeremy and Renee made crepes for everyone. Making crepes for 4 people is work enough. Making crepes for 17 starving people with hangovers is for champions. They stood at the stove for FOREVER and I am so grateful. It was one of the most delicious breakfasts I recall ever having. I ate my crepes with a bit of ricotta, some lemon curd (which I staunchly maintain is the most delicious thing on earth), bananas, strawberries and blueberries and I became a firm believer in the power of crepes.

  

Penelope had so much fun playing with the other dogs. The dog with her in the photo above is a pitull named Marley, and she is the sweetest girl ever. She allowed Penelope to run her in circles andboss her around and she kept coming back for more. I am so glad they had a good time. It was adorable watching them run amok together.

The drive home from Cle Elum is about 90 minutes and winds through the mountains. Driving back from that area of the state is one of my favorite drives because it's so pretty, year round.

Poor Nelly was so tired on the way home that she crashed out on my lap. When she's in the car, she's sitting on my lap and looking out the window, without exception. She hates to miss anything and LOVES going for rides, so I knew she was beat when she zonked out.

Two days after getting back, it was my 32nd birthday. I walked into the office to find that my coworkers had decorated my desk.

In case I haven't mentioned it yet, I really do love working here.

That Friday, a bunch of my friends came out to hang with me to celebrate. I was again reminded that I am incredibly lucky to have such great pals. The only photo I have of that is one that my friend Russell took. l-r are Nicole, Emily, me and Summer. A dear friend gave me the BEST birthday present ever that night by telling me that I would soon be Aunt Jessica, as she and her husband are expecting their first baby. YAY!

The next day was my nephew Luke's first birthday party.

 In keeping with the theme of the month, my sister Kristine is expecting a younger sibling for Luke. Do you have any idea how exciting this is for me? THREE BABIES, coming right up! So excellent. It makes me happy enough that pretty much whenever I think about it, I cry a little bit. I am the mushiest girl alive, for certain.

Friday evening, Nick and I went and saw Where the Wild Things Are and I would like to demand that you go see it NOW. It was so gorgeous and the effects were so good that being able to see the sad expressions in the eyes and faces of the puppets pretty much drove us to tears. 

Yesterday my brother picked Nick and I up and we headed out to my aunt's house, where she and my uncle were holding a birthday party for myself, my cousin Nolan and my sister Elise. Nolan turned 14 and Elise turned 18.

Upon walking into her house, my aunt handed me a tiara and a feather boa and informed me that birthday girls needed to wear these things. Fine by me!

We spent the night catching up with my family and drinking delicious cocktails. Nick gave Elise a fair ration of teasing throughout the evening. It works out pretty well because my sisters think the world of Nick and he's never had any sisters, so getting 5 new sisters as part of the Jessica-package-deal can be pretty fun for him. He loves to torment them and they eat it up. Win/win. 

When my mom called me this week to tell me that she was baking my birthday cake and to ask what kind I wanted, I cried. No one has baked me a birthday cake since I was 17 or 18, so it was a pretty awesome thing to hear. Naturally, I got greedy with it and asked for a Funfetti cake with cherry frosting, and that is exactly what I got. Elise's cake was strawberry and I made a cake for Nolan that was devil's food with homemade dark chocolate buttercream, topped with more chocolate. Needless to say, cake is GOOD.

It was so lovely to spend so much good time with my family. I don't see them as often as I'd like to and they really are the most wonderful people. They are so kind and generous and brilliant and GOOD that it makes me a little bit teary talking about them. I am incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such people.

We came home and crashed out for the night and when we woke up, we headed out to breakfast and then to the farmer's market again. I picked up a bunch of leeks, some garlic, squashes, onions, broccoli raab and I even stumblled upon the vegetable I have been most interested in trying but haven't been able to find:

I made the most delicious dinner EVER with it and will post the recipe with photos tomorrow. For now, I have a delicious glass of wine to drink and a little black dog to snuggle down with for the night. I hope your October has been as lovely as mine has so far, Internet.