Cake and the Single Life

For this picture I used an off camera flash with an umbrella, visible in the upper right corner. It really improves the white balance dramatically.

There are a lot of things I enjoy about living alone. No debate about who does the dishes, walks the dog -- entirely hypothetical, since I don't have a dog -- or what movie to watch. Plus I get the whole sofa to myself, every time. But making a cake is not among them. It just doesn't fit the single life. Cake for one? I don't think so!

This picture I just used a long exposure and tweaked the color balance a bit in Photoshop. Not as crisp and pleasing I think as the flash.

Hence I jumped at the chance to make a birthday cake for a friend. To get the three layers and the crumb coating, I baked the cake (link to recipe) in two eight inch layers and cut each in half. One of the layers I toasted in a warm oven until dry and then pulsed it in the food processor to make crumbs. As I assembled the cake I sopped the layers with a simple rum syrup (1/4 cup of sugar dissolved in three tablespoons of boiling water, plus a 1/4 cup of rum.) Then I let it sit for 24 hours in the refrigerator before serving. Very tasty and pretty quick to put together!