Chocolate Cake with Coffee-Cream-Cheese Icing

Aaron the Baker, who helped me make those beautiful pies a few weeks ago, moved into my neighborhood on Monday. After seeing my pathetic chocolate cake attempt, he wanted to help me make a cake that actually looked like a cake. So this week I picked another chocolate cake out of Good Housekeeping, along with a coffee-cream-cheese icing (using a package of cream cheese from what I overbought for my cheesecake).

He was waiting for the gas people to come to his apartment, so I measured out the ingredients, packed them up, and swung by the grocery store to buy cake tins and some additional ingredients, then walked to his place. It was a drizzling, grey morning, but not cold. This was my first time baking at someone else's house for my project.

On my walk I thought about the book I'm reading that Aaron lent me. It's called Flesh and Blood and is by the wonderful Michael Cunningham. I first read him my junior year of college, when we read The Hours in my postmodernism course. The professor, who I had a raging crush on, said that The Hours was the book he wished he'd written himself. I know what he means. Cunningham's writing is gorgeous. He is like a boiled-down Woolf, specifically a Mrs. Dalloway-Woolf. He writes in such detail about the "little" moments in life that make up the entirety, with a sharp focus on the home and family. Flesh and Blood is about three generations of a family from 1935 to 1995. There are only rare moments described from the characters' work days--for the most part it is all set in homes, and revolves around the futility of the American Dream. There are moments that echo The Hours. One of those is the description of a housewife making a birthday cake. It's a beautiful picture, and like Woolf, he elevates a household task into art. There is a huge amount of pressure the wife feels to make a perfect cake, and a conflict between creating this piece of artwork, made up of dedication and love, for your family, but at the same time feeling suffocated by your family and the need to make a cake.

Aaron's place was covered in boxes. Nothing was unpacked, and the kitchen counters were invisible. We shifted things around and I unpacked my bags and my tiny little "recipe:"

The recipe was simple. You mixed the cake ingredients together on high for five minutes, then pour them into the greased pans and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Then you mix the frosting together and coat the cake when cool. Aaron showed me how to make it in a way that was a little more involved, and would make a better result. In his KitchenAid mixer we whipped up the sugar, eggs, and vanilla bean until frothy, and then added a third of the wet ingredients, then a third of the dry, and continued until everything was well-mixed.

We then poured it into the cake tins and put in the oven. Then we made the frosting, mixing the dry ingredients first, and then adding the evaporated milk. He told me this was more of an "icing," which is thinner than a "frosting." It tasted delicious. Aaron laughs at how old-fashioned my recipes are. I reminded him I'm using a cookbook from the seventies.

He played one of his favorite musicals for me and told me sad stories.

While the beautiful cakes cooled, we moved some of the boxes and furniture around in his front room so we could put the rug down. Then we arranged the TV where he and his roommate wanted it ("So you could see it wherever you are in the room"). They have so much furniture! I thought about when Elise and I move. We have our beds, a couple of nightstands, and a hand chair. Plus two cats and loads of books.

We iced the cakes in a rustic way, and sprinkled some coffee struesel in between the layers and on top. The cake looks great, and I can't wait to eat it. I didn't expect this blog to become such an occasion for socializing, but I love that about it. Here it is: