Getting you through the loss...

So here's something you might not know about me. When I'm not busy watching hockey, or blogging about hockey, or working, I like to do all sorts of fun stuff... like sew, and cook (and read many, many books, but that's a whole other post).

Since my sewing machine is all packed up at the moment, and we're waiting another day until game day, let me offer you a little recipe for getting through this loss. It falls under my "eating cream cheese makes everything, even the worst loss, better" theory. This theory closely coincides with my "if you bake for your roommate you can watch all the hockey you want" theory.

Shutout Recovery Lemon Cream Cheese Cake - in a Bundt pan.

Ingredients:
1 box of yellow cake mix (regular, not the pudding kind).
8 ounces of cream cheese. (That would be one package.)
4 large eggs.
3 ounces (85 grams) lemon gelatin. (Mmmm, Jello. It's one of the small boxes.)
3/4 cup of milk.
1/2 tsp. lemon extract.
2 tbsp. lemon zest.


First of all, you need to do something before you even get to baking to burn the 8000 calories of cream cheese you are about to eat. Well, unless you use low fat cream cheese, like I always do, because I have non-discriminating taste buds, then it's only 7500 calories. (I exaggerate. Who knew?)

If you're a multi-tasker though, you can get both done at once, by being a very active baker. I'm just going to throw it out there that in my kitchen baking and dancing and Great Big Sea are very closely related. (This is the long way of saying baking can get boring, so you might as well get some music going.)

To start get your cream cheese into a bowl and beat it until fluffy with your electric mixer (can I suggest a medium speed). Then add your eggs in one at a time. Take time to beat them in between each addition. This will make your cake more airy and fluffy. Not like a giant brick of lemon cake.

Next, mix together your gelatin powder and cake mix. You'll want to add both the milk and the dry ingredients in with the cream cheese, so alternate adding them in 2 or 3 additions. I started with the dry ingredients, but c'est a vous. Beat it all together until it's smooth, but don't over beat it. Stir in the lemon zest and the extract. (This version wasn't really lemony enough for me, I'd add a little more next time... fyi.)

Pour the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan. Bundt pans make me ridiculously happy. Joyous, even. Bake for 50-55 minutes at 350-degrees. Be sure to check it after 50, mine was definitely done then.

You can eat it plain, or dust it with a little icing sugar or even stir up a little lemon glaze. (Or serve it with ice cream... if the loss was particularly bad. That's how I'll do it if, say, the Pens lose the Cup in OT in Game 7.)

It will make you forget for about 12 minutes that the Pens lost so badly. Or, at the very least, it's an excuse to listen to Great Big Sea for a while.

So, go bake this cake and impress/appease your favourite hockey fan, or your significant other, or your co-workers, or your grandfather (which is what I did).

Edit: Speaking of losses. Kitchener lost in the Memorial Cup final to Spokane. Congrats to Spokane on their win. Next year's tournament will be in the former Junior Hockey home of Sidney Crosby, Rimouski, Que.