Your Tastebuds Will Give Thanks

I was inspired by my friend and co-worker who procrastinates to blog about my cake baking adventure that I embarked upon last night. Fact: I love to bake. It's just that I do not do it all that often because I prefer to stay in a single digit pants size. However, there's no time like the holidays to break every rule your mama every taught you about skipping desserts and practicing portion control. So my contribution to the family Thanksgiving meal this year is a Five Flavor Pound Cake.

Here are my thoughts on pound cake: They are kind of like the girl next door. You know...they are always around and they aren't bad by any means at all, but they are just so normal. So common. So boring. So not Tiramisu Cheesecake with Brandy or something else equally as exciting. But the truth is, sometimes the girl next door has another side to her and the same goes for this pound cake thanks to the influence of the fab five (and I'm not talking about Jordan, Jon, Donnie, Danny, and Joe)...

But in order for something to be truly good, it must have some substance to it...In fact, I probably have a little more "substance" myself after eating cake batter for dinner last night so maybe I'm a better person now. Or something like that. It's important to provide a firm foundation as well...

...in order to be prepared for the unexpected...I'll be honest, the last time I made this cake was a few years ago, and I did so using Val's KitchenAid Stand Mixer. This means that I went into the whole project last night a little hesitant about the ability to produce a good cake without the wonder appliance that is the KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Is it wrong to want a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer as badly as I want one? Probably so when there are people in foreign countries wanting something like their next meal just as badly. So I forged on with my standard hand mixer and well, you can see for yourself how it turned out...

In the words of my grandmother, "it's good even if I did bake it." Or at least the layer that overflowed the bundt pan is good. We'll have to wait until Wednesday night (because that's when my family has declared Thanksgiving will be this year) to find out about the rest.

As with anything I do, it seems that there is always a lesson to be learned, and this proved to be no different. Word of advice: If you happen to own a 7 month old Chocolate Lab puppy who happens to live indoors with you, it's not enough to keep him out of the kitchen while you are mixing up the ingredients and until the cake is actually in the oven. It's probably best to keep him out until you've done all the dishes too. Unless you want him to do the dishes for you... I have no idea who he learned this from. At least I mind my manners and use my finger to scrape the bowl. But now I need a new bowl to scrape.