Month: December 2011

Crankypantsing, Photography

Scraping

Shelly

Scraping

I spent the early morning scraping and scraping and scraping in the bathroom. And then the painters came, and they scraped some more. And now there’s drywall mud everywhere. They’re coming back on Monday to finish. Supposedly maintenance is going to replace my three interior doors (today, I thought, but I haven’t heard from them yet). After that, there will be no more peeling paint! I hope.

Also, there’s a new film/lens pack available form Hipstamatic, and it’s not crappy! In fact, I’m kind of in love with it. It’s geared toward food photography, but I like it as an overall combo. The photo above was taken in really crappy light bathroom, but it doesn’t have the harsh yellow/green tones that most of the other film/lens combos have under interior lighting. So, if you have an iPhone and use the Hipstamatic photo app, I’d recommend picking up the Foodie SnapPak.

Photography

More Cake

Shelly

Cranberry Cake

I’m obsessed with this cake. It started out as my great grandma Nell’s rhubarb cake, but I swapped out the shortening for butter and the rhubarb for cranberries. It’s super good and easy to make. I remember making it when I was, like, 10 years old, so it’s pretty fool-proof.

Cranberry Cake
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
dash of salt
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups cranberries, chopped (I measured before giving a quick pulse in the food processor)

Cream the butter and sugar, add the vanilla and egg and beat until fluffy, then add the buttermilk and mix. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda and mix until combined. Add the cranberries. Pour into greased 9 x 11 inch pan and bake at 350 for about 35 minutes.

(The original recipe calls for topping it with 1/2 cup of brown sugar before baking, but that made it too sweet. I’m going without this time. If it’s not sweet enough, which is unlikely, I’ve got some cream cheese and can make frosting for it. This is more of a naked cake, though, so I don’t think that’ll be necessary.)

If you want to try the original version, just substitute 1 1/2 cups of finely diced raw rhubarb for the cranberries.