Warning: cliché tourist-y Chicago pictures ahead.

It’s weird to think that I live in a city now.
I’m a small town girl, born and raised in heaven Ithaca.
Living in a city is different.  I’ll grow used to it (I already have) but there is a lot more hustle and bustle and many fewer friendly faces.  (It’s true!)

I miss Ithaca.  I love my hometown.  It’s, well… my home!
This weekend, I missed the apple festival, which is my favorite fest in Ithaca.
I miss fall/nature.  Cities are kinda weird for me in terms of the absence of animals.
I’ve seen, like, 3 squirrels since I’ve been here.
I miss my fam.
I really, really, really miss my dog.
And I kinda sorta miss my cats.

So I’m still getting used to being away from home, and also being in a city.
Pretty standard college stuff… I ain’t stressed.
I must say, though, the architecture in Chicago (and uChic, but that’s for another post… Coming attractions!) is amazing.
I love walking around this city.  It’s inspiring and so, so beautiful.
So, photos.  Tourist-y photos.  Sorry not sorry.

The cake you see here was the first thing I made upon arriving at college.
It was for someone in my house; their birthday was in the middle of o-week.
It was a disaster.
The first batch I made didn’t seem to be setting up, and was overflowing like crazy out of the pans.
Aside from new kitchen jitters, I knew something else was going on.
Upon further inspection, I realized I had used whole milk in the batter, which had added enough fat that the gluten never properly formed, resulting in overflow and explains the never-setting-up part.
Oh well.  My friends and I ate the molten cake and I made up another batch the next day; only one of the first cakes was salvageable.
The frosting is a simple Italian meringue buttercream with a few ounces of chocolate mixed in.

P.S. You can see some more Chicago/tourist photos on my flickr, in the Chi-Town set.

Click here.

The recipe for the cake is here.
I spread raspberry jam in between the layers.
For chocolate Italian meringue buttercream, halve this recipe and, right after whipping in the butter, add in 4 ounces of melted and cooled chocolate.