The Best Cake You'll Ever Eat

I have just made and consumed the most amazing cake in the world. I really wanted to make chocolate cupcakes, but when I saw this recipe on TheKitchn I knew I had to make it. It was already vegan, and I knew it had to be good if it made it onto the website, so I adjusted to make it gluten-free as well.

It's some Depression-Era "wacky cake," which immediately held my interest. My love of weird things goes WAY beyond just the literary world. And it's also an orange cake, which I never had before, but I really really wanted RIGHT THEN.

I didn't have enough ingredients, so I halved the recipe, and THANK GOD I did because if there was more of this cake I think I'd puke in excitement. It's moist, tender and really sticky! And that comes from gluten-free baking, which is usually crumbly and gross.

Also inspired by watching Julia Child earlier in the day, I decided to make some caramel to go between the layers instead of the marmalade. I didn't have corn syrup, but a touch of maple syrup did the trick and oh lord I'm never buying caramel again. It's so easy! Put sugar in pot. Put water in pot. Cover. Boil until dangerously hot and there's no water left, then watch syrup go from OMFG what is this crap to OMG dark, caramelly goodness in a matter of seconds. I had never made caramel before, so it was exciting.

Check it out HERE

Besides that, I really hate Microsoft Works because I keep losing my writing when I want to paste something. Bah.

My first gothic novel has spawned some Russian vampire/werewolf/sci-fi hoopla that's way too fun to write. SyFy was having a field day, showing Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning, Skinwalkers, and Underworld 1-3 all in one day. I couldn't deny that it was a SIGN FROM HEAVEN or something. I don't know, I just know it's fun and awful at the same time because I hate books about vampire and werewolves yet I magically love mine.

And while I'm still on my sugar high I have to mention something I really hate. Commas. NO ONE seems to know how to use them. They're not that hard, they don't have to be used all that often, and yet suddenly they appear within an independent clause and I want to take a hammer to their shins. Also, I'm being hypocritical right now because I'm obviously not using them 100% correctly, but run-on are almost better than comma splices!!

Besides that, I've almost got the entire Russian alphabet memorized and am decent at reading uber basic Russian. I can pronounce pretty well, once I got past my mental block that Russian is not like Japanese, and thus each symbol does not contain a vowel and a consonant (don't ask, I don't even know why I thought this), so it's more like English and I can make English words so Russian is okay! It's actually very similar to French; I realize most European languages are similar as well.

My head hurts, and I blame the sugar. And I really want a Russian typewriter now. I'm afraid I'm edging ever so closely to Russia-Obsession-Time, and I fear it. Why obsess over Russian? I dunno. But I want the typewriter and that's the end of that.