I’ve had an amazing weekend.  I’ll blog more about it later.  Meanwhile, I thought I’d share the cake I made for Easter.  I invented it myself.

Coconut Lime Cake
 
Cake:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups sifted flour
4 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Lime zest to taste
Lime Juice to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 3 (9-inch) cake pans.

To make the cake: Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift flour with baking powder and salt.  Add flour mixture and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and continue to beat until just mixed. Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 3 or 4-inches above counter, then dropping flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure you of a more level cake. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling racks. Cool completely.
 
Filling:
1 heaping cupful of coconut
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup granulated sugar
Zest and juice of 1 Lime

Let mixture come to a boil. Boil slowly and stir until sugar is dissolved. Set for a few minutes, then spoon filling onto the first cake.  Place the second layer on top.  Top again with coconut filling, letting the liquid seep into the cake.  Place the third layer on top.
 
Frosting:
2 cups heavy whipping cream that is ultra pasteurized
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp. lime zest
 
In a large mixing bowl place the whipping cream, lime zest/juice, and sugar and stir to combine.  Cover and chill the bowl and beaters in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.  When chilled, beat the mixture until stiff peaks form.

Add the lime juice and zest, and whip until evenly distributed.  Frost entire cake, and then coat the cake evenly with coconut.
 

I have put my artwork online at dbebg1.deviantart.com.  Check it out!

I have been photographing my artwork to apply for the BFA in april.  Now I am going over the 30 images with my professors to pick the best 15 to use in my application.  The images that I am using for the portfolio weren’t in a format I could put up online, so I had to redo the images so you could see them.  Sorry some of the colors are off.

Also, I put a maturity content filter on the figure studies.  I promise they are not inappropriate images, but just as a precaution for anyone who may be freaked out by artistic nudity, I put them on there.  That means that you have to login to deviantart.com to see them, but it is really easy to get a login name.  They are actually really strong oil paintings, maybe my best work of all 30.

Anyway, hope you like the artwork. 

I just wrote a five paragraph essay for my Sociology 111 class.  I am ashamed and embarrassed to have resorted to third grade writing techniques in a college level course, however it did seem like what the Professor wanted.  It was the best way to respond to the prompt.  I am so ready to be done with my generals it’s not even funny.  100 level classes are insulting.

For the record, it was a damn good five paragraph essay.

I went to the Matchbox Twenty/Alanis Morissette concert last night.  Soooo much fun!  It kind of brought me back– Matchbox Twenty was the first concert I ever went to way back in May of 2003.  Unlike that concert at the United Center, though, this one didn’t make me smell like pot.  It was a pretty fun atmosphere, though significantly smaller venue than the United Center.

I am mad at Alanis Morissette for not singing Hands Clean, but she did make up for it with a joke in her performance of Ironic.  Instead of singing, “It’s like meeting the man of your dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife” she sang, “It’s like meeting the man of your dreams, and then meeting his [dramatic pause] husband.”  I was laughing.  She does a pretty good performance.

I’m glad that Matchbox Twenty is back together.  Rob Thomas was no good on his own.  Their new stuff is a lot better than their last album, although they don’t have very much new stuff.  We’ll see if this tour gives them enough energy to bounce back.

I am so excited about life.  Some recent art projects are going really well.  I am getting ready to apply to the BFA program in the Visual Arts department at BYU.  That means I’ll have to take pictures of all my artwork.  When I do, I will post the images online somewhere for you to see.  I just get so into these projects.  It’s like they consume me.

I don’t really know why I’m posting right now.  I think I started with a point and forgot what it was.