True Life: Spelling Bee

In the car this evening...

Kid Sister: Spell xanthosis.
Me: X-a-n-t-h-o-s-i-s.
Kid Sister: Correct. Now you spell loghorrea.
The Boyfriend: L-o-g-h-o-r-r-e-a.
Kid Sister. Correct. Now spell towncenter.

You Pick Two Review: Panera Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake

A few days ago I tried Panera's new bakery item, a cinnamon crumb coffee cake. Panera's website describes the new confection as "an old-fashioned butter cream coffee cake, swirled with cinnamon and finished with a butter crumb topping."

The Boyfriend and I both found the coffee cake a little disappointing. The cake tasted too floury and lacked pizazz.

I tried my own version of a cinnamon crumb coffee cake and was very happy with the results. I combined a recipe for a cinnamon swirl bundt cake from allrecipes.com and a recipe for a crumb topping from the Pioneer Woman's cooking blog. The recipes in their original contexts can be found here and here.

My edited versions of the recipes appear below:

For the cake:

Ingredients

• 1 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup white sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease one 9 x 13 pan. [A 10 inch bundt pan would also work and would look prettier. I was concerned about my ability to flip the bundt pan after baking, so I used a 9 x 13 instead].
2. Cream 1 1/2 cups white sugar together with eggs until well blended. Add sour cream and butter or margarine and beat well. Add flour, baking soda, and baking powder and mix well. Stir in vanilla.
3. Mix the remaining 1/4 cup of white sugar with the cinnamon.
4. Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle generously with the cinnamon sugar mixture. Cover with remaining cake batter.
5. Bake at 350 F (205 degrees C) for 30 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.
   

For the crumbs:
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, melted
1 1/2 cups flour

Directions:
To make crumbs in a large bowl, whisk sugars, spices and salt into melted butter until smooth. Then, add flour with a spatula or wooden spoon. It will look and feel like a solid dough. Leave it pressed together in the bottom of the bowl and set aside.

After making the cake, break topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size. They do not have to be uniform, but make sure most are around that size. Sprinkle over cake before baking.

I'm Feeling All Growed Up

Because today I bought a quackulator.

Cookies and Taxes

I just sat down to have a delicious dinner of cookies and milk, a propensity I share with my grandmother and Santa Claus.

I have been studying Federal Income Taxation for hours. My studying consists of me slogging through tax computation problems, getting them wrong, then trying to figure out why.

I opened a box of Pepperidge Farm "Chocolate Cookie Collection." Dripping, chocolately script on the box declared "Seven varieties of pure chocolate indulgence!" But, there were eight small compartments, each with four cookies.

"Thirty-four," said my tax-toiling brain. "I mean, thirty two. I would've gotten it. I'll have a calculator for the exam."

"Right," I said back. "But there are only supposed be to seven varieties. There are eight compartments. I think I got some extra cookies."

I squinted at the pictures of the cookie varieties on the side panel and let my brain try to make sense of it. It read:

"Except as otherwise provided in this side panel, for purposes of this assortment, the term "cookie" shall not exclude, but is not limited to, the following items:

1. Double Chocolate Milano;
2. Lisbon;
3. Tahiti;
4. Geneva;
a) in taxable years subsequent to 2009, the tax code shall recognize that the "Geneva," defined as any cookie, which is both
i) rich chocolate, and
ii) covered in crunchy pecans
is a sub-optimal cookie due to the presence of nuts. It will be subject to an ACC (average cookie consumption) phaseout for taxpayers whose ACC exceeds the threshold amount as defined by the Treasury Department of 50 cookies per annum and a 1/3 phaseout of the phaseout for taxpapers whose ACC exceeds 100 cookies per annum (unless said taxpaper is a qualified dependent, in which case the threshold ACC is 365 cookies per annum).
5. Orleans;
6. Black and White Milano;
-Cross Reference Reg. 350
7. Dark Chocolate Bordeaux;

Reg. 350
Some taxpayers have complained that receipt of the Black and White Milano was a sham transaction, as the Black and White Milano is simply a Double Chocolate Milano sandwich cookie without the chocolate holding the two pieces together. Normally loathe to look into the terms of an arms-length transaction, courts have held that the Black and White Milano is an embarrassment of a cookie, second only to the Geneva. Taxpayers are entitled to deduct the cost of cookie boxes which contain both the Black and White Milano and the Geneva, to the extent that the aggregated cost of these boxes in one year exceeds 7.5% of the taxpaper's adjusted gross income."

"Thanks," I said to my brain. "That was really thorough. But I still don't know which cookie isn't supposed to be here."

So I took out one of each cookie and I lined them up in order, according to the array on the side panel.

Sure enough, I have eight Genevas.

I'm applying for a refund.

Final exams start this week...

...so I may be a little quiet.

My responsibilities are:

1. Law and Poverty (20 page paper, done)
2. Museums and Collecting (15 pages into a paper that will be between 20 and 30)
3. Canon Law of Marriage Exam (Saturday. My mom didn't believe me when I told her that. "But it's the weekend!" Haha).
4. Trusts and Estates Exam (I'll worry about that sometime in the intermediate future, because all I can think about write now is...)
5. Federal Income Tax Exam (Friday. PANIC).

Oh, and did I mention that The Great Cooking Competition is Thursday, the day before law school exams begin? I smell a rat....

Article of the Day: December 4, 2009

Insightful article about the moral lessons in Jane Austen's novels. Read it here.

I also liked this one about Twilight and feminism. Read it here.

Reality TV Update

I noticed that MTV has changed the wording of its "Jersey Shore" promo to replace a potentially offensive term. Discussed here.

Also: Tiger Woods was dating a former "Tool Academy" girl? Huh.

Ugh, how disappointing to see Johnny Bananas defeat Dunbar on the "The Ruins" tonight. Worse yet was seeing him turn on Susie. I wish there were a way that Susie and the Challengers could both win.