Cake Cravings

There is a hilarious scene in an episode of Sex and the City where Miranda makes herself a homemade chocolate cake. She starts off by eating one thin sliver of the cake and then walks away. The camera frame doesn't leave the kitchen the entire scene. You see her walk back into the kitchen just seconds later and help herself to another minuscule piece of the sinful treat. After she leaves the shot she is once again back within seconds and cuts herself a third helping. This time she is more realistic and portions out a sizable piece of the cake. After her third tasting she covers the cake in aluminum foil trying to make it less accessible. The tin foil wasn't strong enough to keep her out. After a short while she returns to the kitchen and has another piece. This time she covers it with foil and places it in the fridge assuming it to be the final resting place until a later date. Time elapses and she is back once more. She eats another piece; visibly frustrated with her lack of self control she throws the cake in the trash. Miranda thinks this will deter her from ever eating the cake again. In one last desperate scene, they show her back in the frame hovering over the trash can about to make a very dirty decision. She heads over to the sink, grabs the dish soap and pours it all over the cake making it unedible to her tempted tastebuds.

It is a brillant scene and my paragraph above does it little justice. I think the will power struggle she goes through during the short 2 minute scene is captured perfectly and with so much humor. I never could relate to the scene on a personal level because I am not a chocolate lover. I have never had something so rich and decedant tempting me in my own kitchen - that was until this weekend. Although it wasn't the chocolate cake of the sitcom, this pound cake was addictive. I couldn't stop eating it. Everytime I passed the cake stand I lifted the lid and helped myself to a sliver. I felt like I was headed down the Miranda dish soap road very quickly. I made sure to cut up slices to bring to work on Monday in an attempt to get the cake out of my house so it didn't end up in the trashcan drowning in Palmolive.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake
Southern Living November 2001

Yield

1 (10-inch) cake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened at room temp
  
• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened at room temp
  
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy (do not over beat);

gradually add sugar, beating well.

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating until combined. Crack eggs into a bowl first before adding to the mixture to make sure you avoid shells in the cake mix.

Sift 3 cups of flour. Combine flour and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla from the huge 1 liter Mexican vanilla bottle my mother in law shared with me.

Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch Bundt pan.

Smooth the top of the cake or bottom of the cake (depending how you look at it) with a spatula to even it out.

Bake at 300° for 1 hour and 40 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan, and let cool completely on wire rack. My pound cake had a crazy crusty layer on the bottom that I just peeled off. It was like candy, it was so sweet and cruchy but it wasn't pretty so I just threw it away.