Let's wrap this up

Enough with the blogging already!
I'll just wrap this week up with what has already become a post-backlog since the fount of blogging-inspiration has poured forth upon me in restless nights. (Getting rid of the backlog is another one of the accomplishments before my mom arrives for her extended visit tomorrow. And then hopefully for everyone involved, especially you, dear readers, I will knock it off with all this yappitiyap yap yap blogging. For a while.)

About Bagel Baking:
Just wanted to let you know that I've been there done that. At home. Wasn't to die for but I have not found really good NY-style bagels in a walking distance from my apartment (sob), and hey, it was fun and kept me busy for a whole morning. And it turned out better than last time when the yeast did not dissolve. I still think something went slightly wrong, and suspect it might have something to do with the fact I used the hook attachment of the mixer not just for the kneading part but for the initial flour-and-fluid mixing part as well, where I should rather have used the paddle attachment for that first mixing phase. Suggestions, anyone (that is, mom)? Next time, with a heavy heart I'll ditch my beloved Doram Gont's recipe and try this one.

This is a pretty good cake (whenever I say something is "pretty good", I inadvertently start singing to myself Tori Amos' Pretty Good Year. I once thought I should try updating as many "what's on my mind"s in facebook as possible using quotes from Tori songs. I would probably start with the inevitable "Never was a cornflake girl". But then move on to slightly more obscure lines such as "Got my rape-hat on, honey, but I always could accessorize". How long before someone reports me as an abusive user? File these whole parentheses under: ramble).
And I mean a pre-tty GOOD cake. Yum. I am draining out my supply of frozen butter. Oh dear. Where has all the butter gone? Could it possibly be in my arteries?! Anyway, I used this as my plan B desert in case the cinnamon "pound cake" (I decidedly do not know what pound cake means. The whole basic grounds of American food vocabulary, I'm just not really familiar with it.), made amid Tchulnt-anxiety-attack as well as fretful attempts to halve the recipe and exchange the butter in it for oil, turned out as not the best cake ever. Sorry about that long sentence. Point is - cinnamon pound cake indeed turned out kinda blaah, and I still had half of this very pretty-good-cake left so I served it as dessert for the Tchulnt instead.
You can use whatever fruit you feel like. I used frozen cherries, but should have just dumped the whole 10 oz bag in, instead of measuring 2 oz less for the half-pound required in the recipe (I am truly an expatriate. I almost know my way around the weather forecast in Fahrenheit. And now I can tell you that there are 16 ounces in one pound. Beloved Metric System, you are becoming a nostalgic hazy blur in the back of my mind! No, don't go yet! I miss you soooo! Groan. Sigh).

Next time I am making a muffing version out of this!
(File under: Oh my god, no! This is a food blog! Where I link to other people's what-I-baked blogs! NOOOO!!!)