Another Day, Another Cake

So, most of you have probably experienced my Chocolate Pistachio Bundt Cake- it is typically the only "party" cake I make, because it's so easy and I typically just keep the ingredients around the house so that I can throw one together on a moments notice. The recipe for that cake comes from The Cake Mix Doctor. I received the book as a gift from my sister at my bridal shower. She would make the Chocolate Pistachio Bundt Cake from it as well, so I knew it was a good one. Well, another recipe she used, but actually used in our WEDDING CAKE (she slightly revised the recipe from a bundt recipe to use as a layered cake) was this one:

The Fuzzy Navel Bundt

Last week I just made two of the Chocolate Pistachio Bundt Cakes (CPBC for short) - one for a work party, and another I brought to community group. Well, tonight is the party at PJ&DJ's place for KW's going away party. How could I bring another CPBC to a community group / church gatering less than a week later? The answer is, I couldn't. Well I could, but Tm and I have been wanting a taste of the Fuzzy Navel cake ever since I rediscovered half a bottle of Peach Schnapps when we were unpacking. This is left over from the last time I made this cake.

Now, don't worry here - the alcohol bakes out of the cake, so I'm not going to be getting the babies liquored up by having a piece of cake. But - I am looking forward to cutting into this beauty, and I hope everyone else likes it as well.

I must note, that my dear husband put a lot of work into this cake too. The recipe calls for fresh orange juice, which usually I just replace with some from the carton (store bought). But it also says for a more flavorful cake, to add the zest of 1 orange. Well, if I was going to buy an orange for zest, I might as well just buy 3 oranges to make make fresh orange juice. Which, in our household, juicing citrus is Tm's job. (He also had to juice limes in the same day for our dinner, Pan Seared Pork Tenderloin with Garlicy Lime Cilantro sauce, YUM).

All that said, we didn't get as much done around the apartment (unpacking) that we would have liked to yesterday, but we did get a lot accomplished:

1) I found a Sesame Street mobile on craigslist the day before, we arranged a meeting time and met to exchange the cash for the item. So cute!

2) Went to the Verizon store to check out new phones. I then spent 90 minutes on the phone with Verizon signing up for a new contract (we've been with Sprint for the last 3 years) and following up with paperwork to prove where I work for the awesome corporate discount we got.

3) Tm did the dishes, which doesn't sound like much, but there was about 3 days worth of dishes in there.

4) I unpacked ONE very large box containing towels and linens. We put clean sheets on the bed.

5) Cooked a yummy tasty dinner out of Cook's Illustrated - which, it just so happens that they featured the same recipe on their show "America's Test Kitchen" yesterday, I caught the 2nd half of the show while eating a late lunch. Some of you might be familiar with this recipe, I made it way back when for a Welcome Team event (Spring Thing - Guess Who's Coming To Dinner). Yum!

6) Tm went to the store to pick up the ingredients we would need to make the Fuzzy Navel Cake.

7) I baked some cookies (from a mix) and washed up the dinner dishes.

8) Tm returned with the wrong pudding mix for the cake and without complaint went back out to get the right thing.

9) I did some more dishes.

10) Time to make the cake! Tm got a great arm workout juicing the oranges, I slightly injured myself grating the zest, but we got the cake into the oven then relaxed the rest of the night. So you know there's a lot of love put into this cake!

When I put it that way, we got a lot done! Time to get ready for church and eat some breakfast.