now how was your new year's eve?

did you resolve to do anything in particular? because i probably should resolve to be less of a terrible person. i got a little out of hand. it happens from time to time. i should probably come with a warning, like "do not add red wine. and champagne. or whiskey. beer's probably ok though. but just beer."
what i really want to tell you about is how awesome i am at baking. i made the most delicious rum cake. for some reason i decided that new year's eve this year ABSOLUTELY necessitated a rum cake, and i found a super easy recipe. and then i baked it. and then i soaked it in more rum syrup. i would show you a picture, but before i could take one, i took the cake to my folks' house where we demolished it along with a ton of chinese food. there are two more pieces left, and i'm going to use them to make rum cake ice cream. yeah, you heard me. i found a really awesome recipe here for party cake ice cream WITHOUT AN ICE CREAM MAKER! which seems revolutionary, and totally awesome, since i don't have an ice cream maker (though my husband swears we do...i think it's just wishful thinking). plus when you add rum to anything it just gets exponentially better. i may eventually share the recipe. i'm not sure yet. it may make it into competition rotation, in which case you will never know.
in other baking news, my baby sis came over today and we experimented with one of the coolest Christmas presents i've received in years...the book "artisan bread in five minutes a day." heard of it? it's all over the food blogs and also it's apparently big amongst homesteaders and the folks preparing to survive the apocalypse (how do i know? how do you think? i've got a plan, baby.) anyway, the dough was super simple and the bread came out crusty and delicious-looking, though small. however, the size thing is my fault i suppose. the book says to use a piece of dough approximately the size of a grapefruit for their basic boule, but since grapefruit is one of the most heinous things in my whole food world, i'm afraid i may have underestimated the size because i ended up with a tiny baby loaf. i'm not sure how delicious it is yet, i'm waiting to have it with potato soup with dinner when the hubs gets home. but it is gorgeous. like, would buy it for $5 at whole foods despite it's tiny size kind of gorgeous. tomorrow i'm going to try to make a baguette, and i'm super psyched about it. the way i figure it, if the results are anywhere near as good as the mediocre bread from my supermarket, i'm gonna save myself money in the long run since my house is comprised solely of carb-ohalics who could eat bread all day every day. i've got enough dough for like two real-people loaves or three tiny baby loaves left in the fridge (i halved their basic recipe), and i'll let you know how they turn out. either way i'm pretty sure that this book is going to be a lazy baker's life saver.
anyways i'm off to make some fridge-clearing potato soup because it's like, brittle cold here and nothing, NOTHING, is better for the cold than potato soup. except maybe more rum.