Lazy Daisy Cake

It has turned chilly here. Days in the 50s, nights in the 40s, and my house is down to 64 degrees inside. So, on Wednesday, my dearly beloved turned on the furnace for the season. Uh Oh!

It didn't go well. OK, that's an understatement. There was water pouring out of the center of the furnace. Turns out the cast iron body cracked. WTF??? That sucker doesn't move, no one abuses it, and, well, gee, it didn't even freeze up down there in my basement between May and September. "It just happens," the plumbers say. Fortunately, we have a spare furnace sitting in our basement, one that we had replaced in 1999 because we converted to oil (we're now back to natural gas). So we can just have that one put right back in. Simple, right? Except that they're making a federal project out of it; I'm not enjoying the words I'm hearing drifting up the stairs, like "retrofit". I can only hope we'll have heat, or at least hot water, for the weekend.

So, what better to do while it's chilly than bake a nice little cake? This one came from Fannie Farmer. It's easy; you'll like it.

LAZY DAISY CAKE

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp butter

Beat the eggs until thick and light colored; beat in the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, and the vanilla extract. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt. Heat the milk and butter until the butter melts; beat the batter until smooth. Pour into a greased 8" square pan, and beat at 350F for about 25 minutes.

You can either let the cake cool somewhat and top with the glaze I used on my Apple Zucchini Cake, or top with Fannie's suggested topping:

3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp heavy cream
1/2 cup shredded coconut or chopped nuts

Melt butter with cream; stir in brown sugar and coconut or nuts, spread on top of the warm cake, and broil for a minute or 2, until the topping browns. This option wasn't open to me, because I'm the only person currently in residence who likes coconut, and only my dearly beloved and I like nuts. And I promise that I didn't need this entire cake attaching itself to my derriere!

As for the furnace fixit guy? Well, Thor doesn't do stairs, but he's laying next to the basement door, making sure the guy doesn't leave without us knowing. Or maybe not until he shares his lunch. It's hard to tell sometimes.