Smitten Cake

Yet another impulsive cake. One of the best impulsive decisions ever. The recipe comes from the Smitten Kitchen blog, which I was perusing (this time on a Sunday at 5 pm) and was so captivated by the photos I had to make it amoebiately. Lessons learned involved following directions, not just ingredient lists, and again, learning to take things out of the oven in time. The cake ended up too dry because I baked it too long, but it's better to learn from experience than threats, so I'm not too unhappy. Anyway, ten seconds in the microwave and some ice cream work wonders.

You start by creaming a stick of butter until it's super smooth. I let it first soften at room temperature until it was soft, and then let the Kitchen Aid mixer go to work. Normally I would have stopped after a minute, but there were still lumps, so I decided to see what would happen if I let it mix for longer. What happened was perfect, smooth butter. Guess who's never melting butter in the microwave again! Then you add 1 c packed brown sugar and 1/2 c white sugar. Hey, it's less sugar than the Hershey's Holiday chocolate cake!

The directions said to beat three minutes, or until fluffy. I had no idea what she meant by fluffy, but when I checked a few minutes, later, things were fluffy! I added an egg, then a 1/2 c plain nonfat yogurt, and 1/2 c skim milk (in lieu of 1 c buttermilk), and 1 tsp vanilla. I was reminded to keep reading the directions when I saw they said not to worry if things were uneven, because I had been worrying that things looked uneven. I added the dry ingredients (1.5 c flour, 3/4 c Dutched cocoa, [note: if your cocoa isn't dutched, leave out the baking powder and use 1/2 tsp baking soda] 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt), and the result was beautiful:

Waiting for it to bake (an hour!, at 325 F) was hard, but worth it. Next time I'm gonna try to not take fifty pictures.

So the Kitchen Aid mixer is my new best friend. Her and the treadmill!