The Cake Is Not A Lie

Look at that beautiful butter cake.

(Apologies for the paper plate.)

Perhaps the best way to introduce ourselves is to deconstruct the title of our new food blog. Those of you who have delved scantly into the world of conversational French have proudly remembered that “mademoiselles” is the French title for plural unmarried women — congratulations! Cara and I (Alyssa) are two very unmarried students at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Cara is studying International Relations and French Language & Literature and I am studying English Literature, Spanish Language & Literature and French Language & Literature. Cara plans to be a big-shot human rights lawyer some day and I plan to teach literature at the university level. As you may have noticed, a common denominator in those études is, indeed, français!

As an enthusiastic language student, I am very excited about today’s Word Of The Day. Are you ready?

Miam!

Miam is the adorably French way of saying Yum! Feel free to incorporate this into your daily cooking lingo.

And so we are the Mademoiselles Miam because both we and our food are incontestably yummy.

You may have noticed that we are college students. You surely know what that means — although lithe, we are friends of fats and fructose, faithful comrades of calories and carbs. That’s why I think this butter cake is an excellent explanation of everything we are about — delicious and full of butter.

This butter cake is a recipe adapted from my Texas grandmother, Doris, who has never been afraid of anything artery-clogging and who, ironically, lived to the age of eighty two. 

What a beautiful butter cake.

Are you ready for the recipe?

Texas Butter Cake

Ingredients: 

3 eggs

1/2 pound unsalted butter

1 box yellow cake mix

1 box powdered sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 8oz box cream cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine cake mix, 1 egg and 1 stick (1/4 pound) melted butter. Mix well with electric mixer and pat mixture into the bottom of a greased 13x9 baking pan.

3. Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Mix in 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract until smooth. Slowly fold in 1 box of powdered sugar until mixture is fluffy and smooth.

4. Pour cream cheese mixture over the cake mix and bake for 40-50 minutes or until edges are browned. The center should still be gooey.

— Alyssa