Oh heyyyy, y'all.
How goes it? I'm feeling pretty darn good because I'M DONE WITH THE BAR EXAM (cue triumphant music, angels singing, etc.). For now at least... let's just say I didn't feel too confident walking out of there on Wednesday. In contrast with the 10 weeks of studying I did beforehand, the exam-taking experience itself was surprisingly non-stressful. Perhaps because instead of taking it at the Javits Center I took it at Pace Law School in White Plains... which, as one of my bar-exam-taking compatriots noted, was "like, the Canyon Ranch of bar exam locations."
As far as first-days-of-freedom go, yesterday was pretty uneventful. I tried to sleep late but woke up at 8:30. I watched a couple of hours of HGTV (House Hunters International FTW). I played phone tag with my real estate broker (real life apartment hunting FML). I went to the mall to get an Iphone and a hat and didn't get either, because I'm not due for an upgrade and my head is too darn big to fit into hats (like seriously, its a problem). With my dreams of taking "candid" Instagram self-portraits in a jaunty new fedora crushed, I returned home, whereupon I watched another couple of hours of HGTV. And then I tried to bake a cake.
Yet once again, my plans were destined to fail, as the infamous (?) *Derecho of 2012* struck, leaving in its wake approximately 15 minutes of strong wind, several hours of rain, and... a power outage.
 |
| raspberries and blueberries and blackberries, oh my |
Power outages are a lot less exciting than I remember as a kid. Back then, it was an excuse to light candles, gather in the living room in our PJs, play games, and eat all the ice cream in our freezer "just in case" the power took a long time to come back on and it all melted. Last night, it was essentially my parents and I sitting in the living room alternating between complaining about the lack of electricity and playing separate games of Draw Something, until one by one our phones ran out of batteries. Ugh. But the power came back on around 5 am, at which point my baker's sixth sense woke me up and I ran downstairs to take the eggs and butter out of the fridge so they could come to room temperature by the time I got up for real.
This is probably going to be the last post for awhile, because 1) I am going to be spending the next month recovering in Cape Cod and then hiking my way through Israel (fingers crossed I don't die of heatstroke); and 2) despite becoming an obsessive runner this summer, my sitting-at-a-desk-eating-cookies-and-studying-all-day habit has left me feeling less than healthy. ("it's muscle!" says my mother. "no it's not!" says my bathing suit). So cake-baking is going on a hiatus while I eat salad and brush the dust off of my Jillian Michaels DVDs. But oh man am I glad I made this before stocking my refrigerator entirely with cruciferous vegetables. Berries are so good at this time of year, and anything with blackberries in it is an automatic win for me. Add some lemon zest and a lemon-y glaze and this is the perfect treat for a summer evening. Or for breakfast.
I made the cake without modifying the recipe, so I'll just direct you to the original source, Smitten Kitchen: Deliciousness Ahoy!
I have to say I really love this cake- BUT it is seriously impossible to get the cake out of the pan intact. So it's kind of messy. And falls apart really easily. But it's absurdly tasty. So there you go.
 |
| The dough is really thick, but bakes up light and fluffy |
 |
| Gently toss the berries in a couple of tablespoons of flour before adding them to the dough |
 |
| No matter how gentle you are, the raspberries will probably smoosh a bit |
 |
| So prettyyy |
 |
| Turns out adding 3 cups of berries to a Bundt leaves it... less than structurally sound |
 |
| But icing is good at covering up flaws! |
 |
| Yum Scrum. |
