Good Eating

To start, a statistic I heard over the weekend:  two thirds of Americans believe they are smarter than the average American.  Which means that one sixth of us are kidding ourselves.  Where do you fit?

And now, on to the real deal.

One of my all-time favorite things about going home over breaks is my mom's kitchen.  Or, perhaps more specifically, her amazingly vast stores of ingredients.  Seriously.  She's got everything.  It's a poor-starving-grad-student-bake-a-holic's dream.  So of course, when I go home, I do everything in my power to make a dent in that pantry o' wonders.

Over Thanksgiving I made the following:

Cinnamon Caramel Corn with Pecans and White Chocolate

Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Whoopie Pies

Both from the website Our Best Bites.  Plus I did a little bit of experimenting of my own and made a cake.  I didn't take any pictures, but I promise it looked just like this:

It was a white cake with raspberry cream cheese frosting.  Delish.

White Cake that Melissa Sort-of Invented, but Not Exactly, but She Mostly Invented the Frosting

1 white cake mix

1 small box vanilla pudding

4 eggs

1 c. sour cream

1/2 c. water

1/2 c. oil

1 c. white chocolate chips, melted

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Pour the batter into two lined cake rounds and bake at 350* for 30 minutes.  Let cool.

Frosting:

1 8 oz. package cream cheese

1/4 c. butter

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. strawberry or raspberry extract

3/4 c. raspberry jam

3 c. powdered sugar

Cream the butter and the cream cheese until smooth.  Add flavorings and jam.  Add powdered sugar cup by cup until frosting consistency is achieved.  Frost the cake.

And if you're fancy (like me) you can put those frosting rose things all over the cake. Because I totally did.