Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

I’ve decided to do something earth-shattering. Get up early. It’s hard to get up early either way, but since my current job doesn’t require me to come in until 9, 10, or 11 depending on the day, it’s hard to get up at 6:15 when my “other half” does. But, due to an office party last night and a cake that didn’t get made on Sunday like I wanted to, I got Doug to drag me out of bed at 6:30 to have breakfast and make my cake. He helped, actually, by measuring out all the dry ingredients. Measuring is the worst part of baking. I like to cook, not bake.

I made Nigella’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake but I used this recipe because I’m a bit rusty on my metric system.

Anyway, my most important realization of the morning was that we weren’t interrupted by the cute little pup at all. See, I let him out around 6 to “use the facilities” and then we both go back to bed. Then, thankfully, he does this until around 8:30:

Too cute, right? Well I’ve decided if I want to get stuff done, the window between 6:30 and 8:30 is going to have to be when I do it. Because all the other times I have to make sure he’s not destroying book corners or getting tissues out of the bathroom trash, etc, etc, etc.

I was worried about my cake when I put it into my round pans because the batter wasn’t pouring and I had to spread it in with a rubber spatula. Also, once in the pans it was less than an inch thick each. Panic! But, all in all the looked like they were okay. Then came panic part two: they wouldn’t turn out of the pans easily! But again, my trusty spatula helped me pry them loose and they didn’t even crack :)

Instead of making the chocolate icing Nigella calls for, I used cream cheese frosting (store-bought) because, yum. And it’s my cake so I can frost it how I like.

Voila. The finished product. A two-layer chocolate cake, made from scratch! Turning cakes out of their pans and decorating them like this really makes it seem like more of an “event,” doesn’t it? I think I’ll have a piece for breakfast with my coffee ;) Don’t look at me like that. Cakes and muffins are largely the same thing… so why not have cake in the morning? A sugar rush to start my day!

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Espresso! Cappuccino!

Do you remember when I blogged about wanting this?

Well, we went to The Spice Merchant and they were having a sale, so I got one for only 16! It is a huge difference from the Mr Coffee my dad got me when I moved to San Diego. We still use Mr Coffee when we are too busy to tend the espresso maker on the stove, but when we have a few spare moments to make coffee in our new “Marimba” by Bialetti we certainly savor (literally and figuratively) the moment!

Also, how about those blue counter tops and backsplash? Yeesh.

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Filling the Blank Frame

As you know a month or so ago I filled up my huge, sad, blank wall in the dining room with a simple gallery-style placement of paintings and posters.

Well, as usual, my oversized empty gold frame was proving to be a challenge. I love the way it looks, but with the other, full frames on the wall, it looked, well, empty. THEN! I came across this inspiration photo on pinterest and within mere minutes, my problem was solved.

My empty frame became this!

The higher camera is a Polaroid my parents gave me for my 19th birthday and the other one is Doug’s Pentax SLR he uses when he wants to experiment with film photography. Better than sitting on the shelf, right?