Got a Hankering!

You ever have an itch behind your eyes, a mental one, one that just drives you crazy. You know, like the nagging feeling you’ve left the gas on in the kitchen (Hah! Let’s see you NOT go check on that later!).

 

Well, the number of itches I’ve had qualify me for mental psoriasis. No flaking, just a flake…

 

But…

 

I sure scratched the hell out of one of them this last week! My birthday was last weekend (Happy Birthday to Me!) and I had a hankering for spice cake, something I haven’t tasted in 25 years. Spice Cake. Feminine Parental Unit-Procreating Spice Cake! (I was gonna barbeque up some steaks, too, but my wife treated me to a fantastic Steak Dinner at a cool restaurant - see my next post)

My kids freaked out:  "I don't want to eat spicy cake!"

"It's not spicy, just spiced." Blank looks...

"I'm adding cooking spices." Glassy eyes...

"There's cinnamon in it." Ah, they're alive after all!

 

Anyways, I broke out my Better Homes cookbook, and looked up the spice cake recipe. And then started modifying.

 

You see, when you’ve lived abroad as long as I have, your tastes change. I can’t eat American frosting at all, and have to reduce the sugar when baking. Still…

 

#Better Homes and Gardens’ spice cake recipe is pretty damn good.  I increased each spice a tad, then changed 1/3 of the sugar from white to brown. “Mmmmm, good cracker!”

 

Frosting is another story, however. Butter and sugar frosting? Oh, my god, NO! Did some googling, but didn’t really like most of what I saw. 2 packs of cream cheese and 4 ½ cups of powdered sugar?  I could hear my pancreas shutting down...

 

So I winged it.

 

One small package of cream cheese, plus a half-pint carton of whipping cream. Start whipping them, then slowly dribble in a little powdered sugar. Keep dipping fingers to taste (preferably not the same one twice!) until it reaches your desired level of sweetness.

 

It came out pretty good, I think.  Take a look:

I'll leave the rest up to the imagination.

So, do you have a hankering? 

(If you do, please torture me with it!)