HEART YOU.

heart cake.
heart cake?
yeah.
HEART CAKE.
but, heart cake
yes.
like, for real, though-
HEART CAKE!!
check out the valentine's day hottness i baked up for your face:

WORD UP.
it's just like i said-
ultra-romantic super-sexxxy ultimate lovely-love-style HEART CAKE!!!
that's right.
and it's got vegan white chocolate in the cake part!
uh-huh.
white cake, with white chocolate.
a nod to the infinite snowy weather that february has forsaken us to.
mmmmmhmmmm.
*
oh,
and i made my own white chocolate,
since i wasn't really sure where to find it in a vegan incarnation.
it wasn't that hard, either.
1/2 cup of raw cocoa butter, which i grated up to melt faster-
and 1/4 cup of sugar, tossed into a pot,
with roughly 4 tablespoons of coconut oil,
and a heavy-handed splash of vanilla...
over low heat,
or better yet in a a double boiler, for those of you more cautious than i am,
until it's all melted together,
and voila! now you've got the goods.
*
i let it cool just a bit, so that the molten mass didn't eff up my cake batter,
but,
i creamed that stuff up, in the mixer,
with 1 stick of butter;
1 cup+ of sugar;
1/2 tsp salt;
2 tsp vanilla;
and 3/4 cup of vanilla soy yogurt.
wow!
from there, as per usual,
i added in 2 1/4 cups of flour;
1/4 cup of tapioca flour;
2 tsp bakey kapowder;
1 tsp bakey soda;
and  >1 cup non-dairy milk.
whisked and whipped into an airy dose of dopeness,
and spread evenly between two heart shaped, greased and floured pans.
i want that nicey-nice, you nerds,
and nobody is going to keep me from it!
those were baked for more than thirty, but less than forty minutes,
at 350F,
and allowed to cool completely before the decorations were activated.
and holy sh!tballs, neighbors.
you see that cake?
it tastes every bit as sexxxy as it looks,
and it looks SO sexxxy.
uh-huh.
and that was without a valentine to call my own.
i can't help but get psyched on romance, kids.
i like that stuff.
ANYway,
fluffy vanilla frosting in the middle,
and thick on top, with colormatch glittery sparklesugar sprankles on top.
aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!
so kyoooooooooot!!!
and then, with the foundation applied,
our solid frosty footing allowed for some expert flavor elevation got poppin'.
and from there, what could i even do?
oh. right-
dark chocolate ganache drizzled around the edges and down the sides.
a cascading black icicle edge-up,
taking that white chocolate cake into deeper, darker territory,
like hemmingway on safari-
dangerous, but weirdly kind of dope, in a torturously indulgent kind of way.
haha.
is that it?
obvioulsy not, man.
c'mon.
pay attention.
we got ourselves into some powdered raspberry mix-in magic,
and that tingly tart berry business immediately brought
the turn-on-turn-up touch up to eleven.
for serious......and then, cocoa added into THAT?
you'd better recognize.
i do not play around with valentine's day.
also,
i know how the story goes-
too much is the right amount-
so there's ALSO shaved german chocolate on the edges.
if you can't hang out with that much hottness,
i forgive you, only just barely...
i s'pose i can't expect everybody to be super-elite all the time,
but,
i hope you at least wore some filthy lingerie or somethin'.
*
those roses are from valentine's past.
hmm?
well, yeah-
i save 'em.
so?
i already told you-
i'm like that.
heck,
the one red one is from somebody who is actually deceased,
gifted to me years ago,
on my last lonely heart's valentine's...
and those others?
well,
i don't know the precise whereabouts of their giver,
but for all practical purposes, that sucka is dead, too.
...at least, to me, anyway.
i rep a hard style, but i'm also selectively sentimental.
and those mummified flowers remind me of just how hard this style really is.
now,
here's the thing-
two of my best clients,
both of whom i absolutely consider my friends,
and who happen to be kind and generous and thoughtful people,
brought me some real live roses,
in a gesture that turned my evening around,
all the way until i got home to four feet of frozen roof-fall ice in front of my door.
oh, yes.
i was barred from opening my door by a brutal barricade of arctic awfulness...
but,
as i shoveled and chipped and picked at the evil avalanche
that blocked my entry into the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
i still had a smile on my sweaty, ice-rimed face,
because of these jauns right here:

YEAH!!!
dennis and patty are damned good folks,
and they did a heck of  nice thing...
i am grateful to have people in my life who give a sh!t.
an evening outside with crabtree,
shoveling away at the mountains of snow,
in anticipation of an equal or greater onslaught this afternoon?
it was much easier to endure
knowing that somebody out there was thinking about me.
.....and then, of course, there was pizza.
ah!
rules is rules,
and when you can't have a good time,
you can always make pizza time;
never quiet, never soft.....