2 Cakes, 1 Day

It's possible.

If you just so happen to wake up early, at say 4, and then proceed to search for recipes on all your favorite foodie blogs. You may be even more motivated if you have a opened container of pistachio paste to use in a timely fashion.

And so was my morning today. My very favorite pistachio cookies only require a small amount of pistachio paste, so I'm always on the look out for new pistachio recipes. Too bad there are so few! And why, I ask! Why! Pistachios are such wonderful little nuts. There should be an offensively large number of pistachio based recipes. But this is not the case. So this morning, I made it my mission to find a use for them. And I did. In the form of a pound cake.

And who doesn't like pound cake? And pistachios?

By the time I discovered this, it was 4:30, and I seriously had to get a move on.

I took the pound cake recipe, which called for triple sifting of the dry ingredients and separating the eggs. Sighhhh. But who am I to question James Beard? I am not. So I happily sifted and separated. And OMG was it worth it! This pound cake has the most delicate and light crumb. And wonderfully thin crust.



See?

But as much as I enjoyed the faint pistachio flavor and the overall lightness of the cake (despite the 2 sticks of butter), it was just a little, well...homely. I wanted a pound cake I could show off a little.

So, I melted some milk chocolate and cream with some orange zest to make a quick ganache. And chopped some pistachios I keep stashed in the freezer at all times for such occasions.



And poof! Well hello there. I don't think we've met. Oh but don't worry. I'll introduce you to my tummy soon. Very soon.

The sheer airy-ness of this cake makes even this self-proclaimed laziest baker a believer in sifting your dry ingredients. Triple sifting in this case. I was dubious when I first read it...but it was so totally worth it. Oh and whipping the egg whites separately only to fold them in later. So many bowls. But such a lovely pound cake. You'd never know there were two sticks of butter in there.

As wonderful as this pound cake was, I didn't have class tonight, and so, in celebration of no-class Thursday, I decided to make another cake.



Pineapple Upside Down Cake!

I think it had me at the caramel topping. But truth be told, the only pineapple part of the cake were the few pineapple slices scattered across the top. Or bottom. Well, I guess it depends if it's upside down or not. I was just too darn lazy to take myself to Ralph's for the sake of a half cup of unsweetened pineapple juice when I was already at Trader Joe's. And yes, it might be in walking distance from Trader Joe's. And yes, it would take only mere minutes to grab a can of pineapple juice before cake baking. But Trader Joe's is the apple of my culinary heart...if I had one. And I really cannot bear to shop for groceries elsewhere. Except for Whole Foods. Sighhh. Whole Foods. Don't make me choose. It's like saying gummi bears or coconut flakes on my Yogurtland. Choosing is not an option.

But back to my non-pineapple cake. So there was no pineapple juice. There was instead orange juice...in an effort to reduce my 5 lb stash of oranges at home. There was also no dark rum.

I didn't have any.

...

What kind of lush am I? Running out of hard liquor. But I did have amaretto. And I did secretly fold a little into my whipped cream.



And by a little, I mean a lot. Lush overcompensation.