Oh, my, how I do love honey. Sticky and sweet and soooo good! I'll give you the recipe first, and then if you want you can keep reading to hear about how the last couple weeks have been. There will be pictures of fire if you do!
No picture of the cake, though. It's not too impressive to look at, and I was much to excited to start eating it when it came out of the oven. It's sweet and earthy and moist and crumbly and everything I love about cake in one wonderful bite. Cloves and cinnamon and allspice and honey and brown sugar and oh dear... I think I'll have to go have another slice!
What you'll need:
3 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup strong chai tea*
1/2 cup orange juice
What you'll do:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease 2 9'' round cake pans. Set those aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Make a well in the center and add the vegetable oil, honey**, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, tea, and orange juice. Mix together, making sure to get all of the dry stuff from the bottom, until it's no longer lumpy. It'll be a bit stiff for a batter; consider using a mixer of some sort. Spoon the batter into the cake pans and bake in the middle of the oven for around 45 minutes***. Let it set 15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Serve! And again... and again... and again...
*Chai tea - I poured 1 cup boiling water over 2 chai tea bags and let it steep for around 5 minutes. Worked great.
**Measuring out the oil before the honey ensures that the honey comes out of the measuring cup without a lot of mess. I also guessed on the 1/4 cup part, so that didn't get measured. Just pour some in. It'll be fine.
***My oven is a beast and I ended up only baking it for 35 minutes. Adjust time as needed.
Personal information taken out due to Blog changes 7/2013
I, for one, thought Transformers: Dark of the Moon was awesome. It was full of explosions and conspiracy and robots, which is what a summer movie is supposed to be. I was sad they killed Ironhide, and elated when Optimus killed Megatron. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the first scene in the modern world was a panty-shot of the whiny kid's new girlfriend. They could have left that out.
But it's going to be another year and a half before anything even has a chance of beating the final installment of the Harry Potter movies. Have you SEEN it? Gah! Just... Oh, man. After they butchered Half Blood Prince, I was afraid of watching Deathly Hallows part 1. And after the wonderful movie that was part 1, I was terrified that part 2 was going to be nothing but a battle. It was, totally, but it had everything!
<<SPOILER ALERT!>>
McGonagall called the castle to life, Molly killed Bellatrix, Dumbledore was at the train station with the creepy Voldy-thingy, Nevill killed Nagini, Fred died... They even had the part about Snape and the pensieve! And it showed Snape's patronus! EEEEEEEEEE! Sure, the duel between Molly and Bellatrix wasn't that epic, and the resurrection stone wasn't part of the ring that Dumbledore destroyed, and they left out the attack of the house elves and Grop, and Goyle was a black kid, but let's face it... The movie wasn't about Bellatrix and Molly, at least Harry got the resurrection stone, they left out everything about S.P.E.W., Hagrid was hardly in this one so how could we ecxpect them to put in his brother?, and no one cared about Malfoy's goons anyway.
<<End Spoilers>>
It was a wonderful movie, and everyone should go see it at least twice.
Personal information taken out due to Blog changes 7/2013
So yeah. That's what I've been up to. I'll post some about the adventures of my new warlock, my endeavors at getting a new flying mount on Phwoosh, any other new recipes I have tried and haven't posted (can't think of any, though), and hopefully some crafts when we get a little more settled in.
It's good to be back,
Anny
