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:

Diary of a Dairy Queen

I have a cold this weekend, so I cancelled my plans yesterday and stayed in watching The Office, which wasn't a bad way to spend a sick day. Today I went to get the ingredients for my baking project, which is a dairy extravaganza. For example, it calls for FIVE 8oz packages of cream cheese. Even for someone who struggled with his multiplication tables, that's a big number. I don't want to think for too long about the fact that what I'm making takes forty ounces of cream cheese, plus heavy cream, butter, and sour cream. I stood there in the grocery store looking at the rectangles of cream cheese and thought: "My goodness. Eight is quite a large amount of cream cheese to buy all at once," and put eight packages into my cart. Again, it wasn't until I was on my way home that I thought over my list in my head and remembered that it called for FIVE 8oz packages. I have more cream cheese in my fridge than I've had in several years.

Should have bought bagels.

Today I'm going to make a cheesecake. What does that make you think of? Whenever I think of cheesecake, I think of The Golden Girls, where any problem, no matter how big or small, could be tackled with your housecoat-wearing friends and a cheesecake. When I was in high school and getting interested in writing, my parents told me that if I end up writing for television, I should make sure it was like The Golden Girls. I didn't watch an episode until my junior year of college, when I was studying abroad in Norwich, England.  I became hooked, and watched all eight seasons (thanks YouTube!) through the course of my year. I watched the last episode just days before leaving England.

Cheesecake makes me think of takeout lasagna and Tangueray in my sock drawer.

Making a cheesecake is pretty involved. You mix part of the crust but then refrigerate for an hour before you continue. You have to bake part of it, then put part of the mixture in, then a separate mixture goes on top. There are lots of fluctuating temperatures and in-and-out of the oven action. It gives me plenty of time to write between baking. Or play with Twinkle Toes, which is what I end up doing. He never gets bored playing, and it's fun to see him get better. He jumps a lot more, but sometimes does a funny twist and ends up landing on his side, heavily.

I'm headed pretty full-fledged into single cat man territory. When I go to a dinner party with other single gay men, I actually have the thought that I would rather be home with my cats, reading Jane Eyre. The guys at the dinner party spent the night talking about being home owners, eye creams, who's hot in chorus, and finding boyfriends on dating sites. I spend my weekends thinking about what I'm going to bake next, and would rather spend my nights curled up with my old cat than at a bar making small talk. Still, one must make some sort of effort, I suppose. I have almost decided not to go and adopt a third cat because...well, I guess it's obvious. You don't want to be the single, otherwise normal guy with three cats. Not until you really give up, at least.

Damnit. I left out the whipping cream and egg yolks. I actually opened the oven after ten minutes cooking, wondering if I could still mix them in.

Here is the finished creation:

and even without those two ingredients it's delicious. Off to watch Mad Men with Elise.