Day 23 AND Recipe #52...

I know, I know, I know. I am a bizarre dieter. I seriously can't stay away from the baking though. Especially after the weekend the Tri-Cities is having. The snow began on Tuesday night, and it dumped and dumped through Friday afternoon, ending with a nice coating of ice supplied by a solid two days or so of freezing rain. Kennewick was literally shut down- I was slightly amazed that we were even told to go to school on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday I didn't dare venture outside the house, since I HATE winter driving, and highways were being closed around the area due to ice. Yeah, no thanks. With that being said, it had been quite a while since I had managed to make it to the gym (not since the Tuesday before I left for Provo), so I was really nervous about my weight. I have great news though- like, jump-up-and-down-you're-so-excited kind of news... I am, as of today, 136.6 pounds! I am at my lowest weight since I initially lost all of that weight way back right after I had moved back from Pullman. That feels pretty darn good, especially considering I only have 1.6 pounds left to go before I hit my initial goal! Holy cow! And in only 23 days, I am pumped!

I am a little nervous about hitting a plateau now, since this is where I plateaued last time. My diet was a little different though- I was spending a lot of time counting calories, and I would literally starve myself for a day so I'd be able to go out with my friends at night and eat whatever I wanted without thinking about it. Probably not the best decision. The diet is getting harder and harder to follow though- my parents' house is just full of WAY TOO good food. The worst was when my mom and I made a less than satisfying fajita salad on Thursday night, and my brother, bless his heart, decided to take out corn chips and start dipping them into our salsa right in front of me. I literally cried watching him.

I've gone ahead and put some fun little treats in place for myself when I do reach certain weight goals. When I hit 135 flat, I am going to go ahead and purchase a couple of bikinis I'm taking with me to Hawaii this summer. When I hit 130, I am going to purchase a tanning package. And IF I feel crazy enough to attempt 125, I am going to bake a chocolate cake, and Jenna and I are going to eat it all by ourselves. Because we're worth it... and this will all be worth it, when I'm here. Check out my Maui webcam.

http://livesurfcamhawaii.com/maui/kaanapalibeach.htm

Yessss! Cannot wait. On top of all of this, I ALSO went ahead and baked ANOTHER project. I found a really fun looking DIET recipe on Pinterest that I wanted to try, but I scrapped that idea when I decided I couldn't charge into the Bairds' home with diet food in hand. There'd be a mutiny for sure. Instead, I took the technique behind the pinterest recipe, and made my own cake using ingredients from the store. So, no, before you even judge, this is NOT a homemade recipe, but the amount of effort it took should made this a valid entry in my baking challenge.

#52: Birthday Rainbow Cake (as inspired by http://www.omnomicon.com)

Ingredients:

*One package of white cake mix (I used Pillsbury Moist Supreme Classic white, because it was on sale)
     - Using this mix, I had to also use 1 cup of water, 1/3 a cup of oil, and three eggs.
*2 cans of any sort of frosting you might like (I used Betty Crocker Rich and Creamy Rainbow Chip. It was hard to decide between this and the funfetti Pillsbury frosting, but I realized I prefer my sprinkles to already be incorporated into my frosting)
*Food coloring (I used Betty Crocker Classic gel food colors- the woman on the blog said the gel works better than the drops. Fair enough)

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. While it is heating, mix the batter, water, oil, and eggs together (the cake mix box says to mix the batter with an electric mixer for 2 minutes)

2. After mixing the batter, split it equally among six bowls.
     - The blog said to be very precise. I chose not to be, and my two cakes ended up being uneven. No big deal, I frosted them when all was said and done, so it doesn't LOOK bad. Anyways, I started out scooping a 1/2 cup of batter into each bowl, then a 1/4, and then I ended up eyeballing the rest to try to make it all even.

3. Dye each bowl a different color of the rainbow according to the directions on the gel colors box.
    - Welcome to my messy nightmare.

4. Grease up two 9-inch circle pans. Pour half of the first color of batter into the pan. In this case I used red. Then I poured in half of the orange over that, alternating the colors, ending in purple. In the other pan, I started with purple and ended with red. I spread the batter out in the pans evenly, and this is what they looked like-

Isn't that cool? I just wish I could EAT IT later.

5. Place both of the pans in the oven and then bake it according to the directions of the cake mix. For me, it was 27 minutes, which was wonderful for the centers, but turned the tops a kind of off brown color. Oops. I blame it on my parents new, wonderful convection oven.

And this is the final result- after allowing the cakes to cool, I spread frosting between the two cakes, and then put frosting all over. It looks adorable... now here's hoping it tastes good! I'll keep you updated...