Follow the rainbow cake to Fake Patty's Day

One week from spring break. That's about all I can think of. That, and the mountain of work I have to do before graduation. Ugh. Also, I couldn't resist the cute kitty picture.

It's been a busy week. My contemporary feminist political theory (say that three times fast!) test ate my soul. That was so much studying for only four questions! It's time to take a break from Judith Butler, intersectionality, social construction feminism, the mobius strip and all that stuff for a while.

My whole week disappeared into that test, but there was one really excellent part: the KU-K-State game. I probably should have spent that time studying, but it was so worth it. And I wasn't going to miss my final home game as a KU student. It was amazing! It was the loudest I had ever heard it; I think we got up t 109 decibels. And it was Sherron's last night. The most winningest player in KU basketball history. He was crying coming out onto the court, and I'm pretty sure I teared up. It was sad, but it was also the realization that my college career is soon over as well. Scary. The referees were terrible, but ultimately, we won. And there was some K-State guy in the student section a few rows in front of me. He got hit with balls of newspaper for the entire game. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He should have known better than to sit in the KU student section in a purple shirt.

I got to do a little baking this week. I made some yummy chocolate cookies and saved a bag to take to my depth reporting class (see: the picture includes Elliot's hand). Naturally, I modified the recipe to include more chocolate. I had to put in the Easter M&Ms. I'm not really even into the holiday itself, but it's so fun to cook with holiday ingredients! I made a double recipe, and I highly recommend these cookies for chocolate lovers. I don't like chocolate that much and I liked them.

After taking my test, I kind of just sat comatose for the rest of that day. Friday, Kelly and I decided to finally try the rainbow cake. I used Smitten Kitchen's yellow cake recipe, the same one I used for Drew's birthday cake. Then Kelly and I split the batter into six equal amounts and mixed in Wilton's icing color dye. Kelly managed to turn a couple fingers blue in the process — she's a smurf. Apparently this type of dye is better than using normal food coloring because it's a gel and more concentrated than the liquid stuff. And those were some super bright colors! Then we layered the batter into cake pans. It's a little hard to layer three semi-liquid items too. We put purple on the bottom of one, then blue, then green. In the other we did yellow-orange-red. I'm not sure if I would do it that way or reverse them (starting with red and green) because the cakes rise and you end up cutting off a lot of one color. Anyway, we made regular buttercream icing (this recipe was *just* enough, so I'd consider making a bit more, maybe 1 1/2 of the recipe). Sprinkles on top, and we had an awesomely colored cake. It's tasty, too!

I ate this cake for breakfast (so healthy, I know!) after coming home today from a trip to Manhattan for Fake Patty's Day with Liz and Sonya. We stayed with Keane, and Rummans and Billy were there too. It was a really fun time, although some of the people we saw were unreasonably drunk. I guess that's the point. I ran into a lot of friends and a lot of people I hadn't seen in forever, even some friends from middle school. Weird.

So now I have one more test, this time in political theory. I'll need some baking ideas for this week because I'm starting to run out of energy. I've switched from study mode to pick-out-what-restaurants-I-want-to-go-to-in-Vegas mode. I have to study at least a little bit before I get in full-on spring break mode! And I have to bake a bit more too.

One last thing: This video makes me giggle. Guess what kind of animal it features ;)

Red velvet and tractor generators

I find that the farther into the semester I get, the less I want to do. I kind of just want to sleep. Things I managed to do this weekend: margaritas at Salty with Mark, Allison and crew, a little bit of homework, bake cookies, go to a KU game, hang out with Mark and crew before they leave, bake a cake with my cousin's daughter, bake cheesecake, get a stomachache, get a fever. Sounds like a lot I suppose, now looking at it.

Drew, Billy and I went to Salty Iguana on Friday to meet Mark and everyone he was with, but we had to wait more than an hour because they got in a little wreck. Margaritas helped make up that extra time though. I went home to do reading for classes and made basic chocolate chip and M&M cookies. Classic.

The next day was lunch at Dempsey's with everyone and the KU game. I think the truffle fries might be one of my favorite foods when I eat out. Then was KU vs. Iowa State. We seem to only play to the level of the people we're playing, so the games always stay uncomfortably close. Fun time though. Then everyone just hung out. AC and Julie were in town from Kansas City to go to the game and see Mark, and Matthias, our friend in the Air Force, is in town for two weeks. We haven't seen him since he graduated two years ago. Good times.

Sunday morning, I went over to my aunt's house, where my cousin and her daughter were visiting. We made Joy of Cooking's red velvet cake (heart-shaped for Valentine's Day) with Martha Stewart's cream cheese frosting. A mixing of mediums, if you will. I guess I'm getting more into cakes. Probably time to get more cake decorating stuff. Anyway, it was REALLY red. And really tasty. My aunt started telling stories of being sneaky and sometimes obnoxious in college, like when the girls in the dorm room below her started bothering her.

We started talking about funny stories, which makes me think of one of my favorite family stories. My grandpa was a farm boy and went to camp one summer. For whatever reason (perhaps it's a sign of the times) he brought along a tractor generator. The kid in the bunk above him was a preacher's son, apparently an annoying kid. So before they went to bed, my grandpa and one of his friends stitched the kid's sheets with copper wire. After the kid went to sleep, they hooked up the wire to the generator and ZING! the kid was shocked. They heard his head hit the ceiling. Then he'd go back to sleep, and a little while later they'd shock him again. They did it all night until morning. The kid woke up, and started talking about this crazy dream he had. He'd thought he'd been struck by lightning. My grandpa was kind of ornery :). That's him in the picture, when he was in the Army Air Corps. Ornery and military.

Anyway, after Aunt Betty's came Valentine's Day stuff. Originally, I was planning to make three kinds of ravioli for a sampler kind of thing, but I just didn't have the energy. So we just did steak and scalloped potatoes, with little personal cheesecakes for dessert. Drew's mom got me these mini heart-shaped springform pans that had a recipe for cheesecake on the back. Then I made a pineapple sauce to go on top, a la Emeril Lagasse. I actually put the sauce through the food processor so it wasn't giant chunks of pineapple.

My next goal is rainbow cake, which Kelly sent me the link to. I can't wait! I wonder if it dyes your tongue a weird color...