SRD3 Cake and Monkeys

It turns out Percoset withdrawal takes longer than one day. I've added sweaty palms and general squirreliness to my list of symptoms. Also, the arm still hurts a lot; too much to sleep, too much to sit still and watch TV, too much to eat anything more demanding than soup. I decided to take another pill and deal with all this later when my arm doesn't hurt so much. I guess I've got a monkey on my back.

But, hey, cake!! I made a cake yesterday. Friends and family already know that I indulge in therapeutic cooking. When feeling a little blue I often attempt to lighten my mood by baking. Also, the clearest signal I am coming to the end of a cold or virus is the appearance in my kitchen of freshly baked cookies, cake, or bread. It's creative, makes the house smell good, and people can always eat the baked goods. Although I have been known to whip up an old stand-by under these circumstances, therapeutic baking usually involves preparation of something I've never made before. The serious and protracted nature of my recent malady seemed to demand an experiment.

This time it was poppy seed cake with blackberry topping. Upon encountering the stack of sticky bowls and rubber spatulas the project left in the sink, my husband entertained the idea of banning future therapeutic cooking until I am also capable of cleaning up. He changed his mind when he tasted the cake.

I was not prepared to declare the cake an unqualified success when I removed it from the oven. The recipe called for adding the blackberries after 30 minutes of baking. This was designed to keep the berries from sinking into the batter. But either my oven was too hot or my substitution of goat cheese for cream cheese threw off the moisture content, because the surface of the cake was already pretty firm. My berries did not sink, they didn't even stick to the surface of the cake. Instead of creating what I imagined a "berry topping" should look like, my blackberries were precariously perched on top of the cake looking ready to topple off at the slightest provocation. Berries did indeed fall off when I sliced the cake. But all was forgiven when I took a bite. The rich lemon/vanilla/poppy seed cake was just sweet enough to offset the tart berries; definitely a keeper.