birthday cake for two.

Oh Monday. Every week, I wake up to you, so determined that the day will be good, a strong start to the rest of the week. And every week, without fail, I end the day exhausted. tired. not in the mood to yoga & workout, but I usually do anyway.

Well I give in this week, okay? My day started at 6:40. I put on winged eyeliner despite the way it made my sleepy eyes burn. I went to all my classes despite my intentions of skipping every single one. See this bear cake? (Third one down. Below the creepy as hell Cookie Puss.) A friend of mine and I ate it all. Including the nose, which consisted purely of crunchy bits ... so good. I went to Rutgers Club with Andrea. I ate massive amounts of German Chocolate Cake. I ate buttery pecan bars. I ate two rainbow cookies. After all that, I skipped yoga & the usual hourly gym session I have. I walked back to my dorm from Sonny Werbs instead, to digest ... hair curly & down. plus incredibly windy. equals bad. I later went to Shoprite to find that they did not have challah. #upsetting. I bought birthday Oreos and ate one instead to continue with the theme of fatass for the day. It was so sweet.

How was my Monday? Long. So long.

That's what she said. But I wouldn't end on a bad note. Complaining sucks (hopefully the above narrative was at least slightly amusing. funny how one's pain is another's amusement, right? whatever works.), so I am here to tell you how my Monday turned up.

The chocolate part has a candle on it & there's funfetti filling! 

I did, in fact, skip yoga. And you know what? It felt pretty good. I came back to the suite, and the light in my room had died, so I plugged in the fairy lights encircling the edge of the ceiling. It was so romantic. If I had a boyfriend, I would have dragged him over.

Mood-setting lights. Sweatpants, hair tied, chilling with Carlito thing (Drake reference, anyone?). Empty suite. Caramel in the fridge. No obnoxious blond-haired, black-eyed girl running amok calling people and spouting water everywhere like a CRAZY PERSON.

Just kidding about the caramel. Not yet, anyway ..

But yes. The suite was really relaxing and I was glad to savor the quiet for a little bit.

Earlier in the day, I assembled the little cakes I had planned for my two friends. Yesterday I had made these brown sugar vanilla cakes in the teeny loaf pans I have! It was a small batch recipe enough for four itty bitty "loafs."

I had also made some candied almonds in the most ghetto fashion. The entire thing, really, was so ghetto resourceful.

Cakes: Did not have egg yolk, so used tofu instead. From the dining hall, yes. Also used yogurt from the dining hall. And butter.

Almonds: Consisted purely of almonds, butter, and sugar packets (yes, the ones you use for coffee at DD) all from the dining hall. Turned out fabulous.

Cream Cheese Frosting: All components from dining hall. Prepared in dining hall.

What did I use that was my own? The dry ingredients ... and vanilla.

Oh and I didn't have any granulated sugar, so I used all brown sugar, which is sort of really weird unusual in this type of recipe. But the cake came out with perfect crumb and moist. The frosting was delicious and tangy, like it should be. And the almonds .. oh baby. The assembled little tiny layer cakes looked gorgeous and each component tasted great, so overall, it should have worked.

The fool who's birthday it was today had this huge thing of Jarlsberg cheese & the other kid's (the one who ate the ice cream cake with me) birthday is tomorrow, so they were both really full and said they'd eat it later. Hopefully they enjoyed it and will confirm. It's weird not knowing how the entire thing tastes .. huh.

Those were the interesting parts of my day. I'm currently in the kitchen studying.

Andrea got into a fight bidding on a particularly speedy ostrich at the
annual ostrich races, like in Prince of Persia. Her ostrich won. (just kidding.)
It was worth it. I am ecstatic. Punit is imitating the ostrich.*

Soon to go to bed, right after this post. Hope you guys had an awesome Monday & hooray for the rest of the week!!!

Enough excitement. Here's the recipe (with my severe improvisations in parentheses).

*Just saying, I really like Prince of Persia. Watched it with my brother. Ostrich scenes were the best. Poor ostrich with bag over its head ... everything will be okay. There WILL be more ostriches.

Birthday Cake for Two

• 1/2 cup flour 
• 1/4 cup + 1 Tb brown sugar 
• 1/8 tspn salt 
• 2 Tb melted butter (I used half butter, half oil) 
• 1/4 cup buttermilk (I used plain yogurt diluted with milk) 
• 1/8 tspn baking soda 
• 1/2 tspn vanilla 
• 1 egg yolk (or 1.5 Tb tofu smashed up into a paste) 

1. Stir together flour, sugar, and salt. 
2. Add melted butter to the dry mixture and stir till evenly crumbly. 
3. Stir together buttermilk, baking soda, vanilla, and egg yolk. 
4. Add wet mixture to the crumbly mixture. Beat till super fluffy! By hand (you will need to use that muscle) or with a mixer (much easier. but don't you want a challenge?). 
5. Bake in four petite loaf pans (they are smaller than the 3x5" ones) or two muffin cups, at 350 degrees, for about 15 minutes. Check early for doneness. They will bake quickly because they're small. 
6. Remove from oven and let cool 2 minutes. Invert. Cool completely. 
7. Wrap in plastic wrap until assembly. 

Cream Cheese Frosting 

improvised by myself, so adjust everything as necessary. 

• no more than 6 oz. cream cheese, room temp 
• 1 Tb honey 
• 1 Tb maple syrup 
• 2 packets of Splenda (or confectioner's sugar, to taste) 
• 1/8 - 1/4 tspn cinnamon
• 2 Tb marshmallow fluff (don't measure, just use two big spoonfuls!) 

1. Mix together all the ingredients. Stir vigorously. 

Candied Almonds 

improvised by myself. 

• 1/2 Tb butter 
• 1/3 cup slivered almonds 
• 2 packets regular sugar (equivalent of 2 tspns sugar) 

1. Melt butter in saucepan over low-medium heat, until slightly sizzling. 
2. Add almonds. Stir to coat with butter. 
3. Let cook and brown a minute or two. Add sugar. Stir to mix everything. 
4. Let almonds roast and caramelize a couple minutes. As soon as the almonds become very fragrant and golden overall, remove from pan into a bowl or onto a plate. 
5. Let cool a couple minutes. Break up with fingers. Let cool completely.