VANILLA BEAN FLECKED MINI POUND CAKES
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I recall in a previous life as a newly married woman without children, I had a desire for my husband to bake for me. He is no baker. He has no experience baking. However, in this day and age, there are no dragons to slay nor villains to be saved from and so I felt the need for him to meet some sort of a challenge that would push his comfort level.
These were the days when we still bothered with a ?date night?. With kids now, there really doesn?t seem to be a point anymore!
Well, along with the new-wife trick questions like: ?Do you like my hair cut short or long?? and ?Would you marry again if I were to die before you?? and ?Do I look fat in this?? early on in our marriage, my husband had to manoeuvre his way around a couple of other challenges in order to reaffirm his love to me. One of these things was baking a cake. I told him I thought it appropriate for him to bake me something because I always baked for him. Heck, I did stuff like washing the cars, installing carpet and grouting and re-siliconing all the bathrooms and kitchen. Wasn?t it fair that he should try at least once?
Since Stomach enjoyed pound cakes and chiffon cakes?about the only cakes he ever ate?I suggested he make a pound cake. It was easier and didn?t necessarily require operation of heavy machinery (my KitchenAid! don?t touch it!)
I left him with a suitable cookbook opened to the appropriate page and left him to his own devices as I kicked back and watched t.v. with a pile of cooking magazines on my lap.
How hard could baking a pound cake be after all? Mine always turned out pretty good.
After taking the golden cake out of the oven, I nodded and sniffed and thought it quite impressive. We allowed the cake to cool and cut a few slices to try. It looked good, it smelled good?it tasted pretty good fresh out of the oven! wow.
Unfortunately this did not last. The next day it wouldn?t cut easily. It was hard as a rock.
Man was it heavy. We dubbed it a "kilogram cake" because it was a tad heftier than a pound cake. I don?t really know what he did. He could have gone wrong anywhere: inaccurate measuring of ingredients, overbeating/underbeating or forgetting something? I never asked him to bake again.


If you were wondering, I have long gotten over trying to get anyone to prove anything to me. Eventually early on, he along with his buddy, compared notes and came up with some sort of a cheat-sheet for newly married husbands of appropriate answers ("great haircut...you're so fortunate to carry off long AND short hair", "no, that doesn't make you look fat, but I really liked the red dress because it makes you looks sexy" etc.) for all those new-wife questions...the kind of answers that don't get you in the dog house! The funny thing is that the "right" answers don't get you in the doghouse, but they're no fun either. Besides, that's what girlfriends are for. They tell you the truth and husbands are supposed to tell you that they love you no matter what.
Girlfriends are also great companions for chick flicks. I saw "Eat, Pray, Love" on opening day with my girlfriends and liked all the food porn. Did anyone else like it? That spaghetti in Italy looked amazing. I'm not surprised Roberts gained 10 pounds while filming! I was primarily into the "Eat" part of the movie. I have decided I want to visit Bali someday too.
You'll find the recipe in Rose Levy Beranbaum's Rose's Heavenly Cakes.
CAKE ON THE BRAIN
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