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Cap'n Crunch Coffee Cake

I've been making one variation or another of this coffee cake since I was in high school. For my most recent batch, whipped up to celebrate my friends Sharon and Ian's housewarming party, I decided to try a little something different with the topping. Instead of the usual brown sugar and butter topping, I went with some Cap'n Crunch. And it was delicious!

For the Topping

• 3 Cups Cap'n Crunch Cereal, smashed by hand so it is partially crumbled
• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 1/2 Cup powdered milk
• 2 TBSP sugar
• 1 TSP salt

Combine all these ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.

For the Coffee Cake

• 3 Cup flour
• 1/2 Cup sugar
• 5 TBSP baking powder
• 1/2 TSP salt
• 1/2 Cup butter (room temperature) or shortening
• 1/2 Cup milk
• 2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375. Grease your loaf pans or muffin tins (I've even used brioche tins with great success for these.) Mix all the coffee cake ingredients in a large bowl or your mixer until blended together, about 1 minute. Spread batter into pans and sprinkle topping over the  top. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the topping starts to brown. Then cover with foil to resume baking for another 20 minutes. Test with cake tester and remove from oven when cake tester comes out clean. Muffin tin sized cakes usually are ready in about 30 minutes, but larger pans have taken up to an hour in our terrible electric oven.

Enjoy!

 

Moulin Rouge, via Gatsby

I have a terrible confession to make.

You are likely to shake your head in disbelief when I tell you this.

But I've decided to come clean: I just saw the film Moulin Rouge this week.

*ducks for the inevitable pelting with overripe vegetables that follows*

I can explain! 2001 was a tough year for me. And the previews here in the states showed that zippy little number done to the tune of the Can Can. It looked to be far too bouncy and jubilant for me to digest. And thus, I never saw it.

Over the years, as I listened to friends whose taste paralels mine, or at least frequently overlaps when it comes to movies, I would smile and nod when their unbridled love for this movie would come up. "Mmmmhmmm" I would say, before bouncy off on another topic as quickly as possible.

So what made me take the plunge this week? It was the trailer for the new Baz Luhrmann film based on The Great Gatsby, as seen above. Gatsby is one of my all-time favorite books (tho it seems I most unfortunately lent my vintage copy of it out to someone who never brought it back to me.) So knowing that I will defintiely want to go see Gatsby, and having had an evening with movie watching on the agenda and nothing in hand that looked particularly inspiring, we rented Moulin Rouge from the iTunes store...and I positively loved it. Of course.

I'm sorry it took me so long to see the film, but am glad to finally be able to add to the conversation the next time someone brings it up as one of their favorite movies, or an example of Ewan McGregor being positively adorable, etc.

Now, what else do you secretly suspect I've never seen and should add to my queue ASAP?

8 Things People Who Do Not Live in San Francisco Think they Know About the City

Every so often, I am reminded that having lived in this city for almost 2 decades, I have a distinctly different point of view on a number of items related to our fair CIty. And thus, I share with you this list of things people who do not live in San Francisco often are certain they know about San Francisco. Please leave me some of your favorites in the comments!

8 Things That Are Not True About San Francisco But Many People Seem to Think Are

1. It is OK to call us "Frisco" for short.

2. Every place from Marin County to San Jose to Oakland is all San Francisco.

3. When you tell me you're coming to San Francisco and want to meet up, but are actually in San Jose, that's OK because I can just take BART there.

4. Parking is plentiful in the Marina, on a weekend night, so we don't need to pay for parking/valet. We'll just circle the block again...

5. Everyone lives in one of those adorable Victorians.

6. There are no straight guys in the City, so if you move here as a single lady you are on your way to spinsterhood.

7. If you come to visit, be sure to pack shorts, you'll want to be wearing them for your trip to Ocean Beach.

8. Cabs are plentiful and can be flagged down from any street corner throughout the City.

How Pinterest has Changed the Way I Share Links on the Web

I was a latecomer to Pinterest, having fallen in love with the reblogging charm of tumblr . But as you can see from the tumbleweeds rolling through my tumblr page, I've changed course and have pretty much moved over to Pinterest instead for my content sharing.

What prompted this change? Although I love the content being shared on tumblr, I never had the ability to really slice and dice what I was sharing by topic. With Pinterest,not only am I able to do just that, I'm also able to easily visually scan the content I've shared, which is especially handy for the hundreds of recipes I've bookmarked in web browsers and my google Reader RSS feed reader over the years.

For all the foodie content I'd been hoarding, I started up three separate boards: cocktails, cook this, and baked treats. Then for the miscellaneous geekery , I have star wars, hello kitty and geekery boards. I even started one to save all the interesting infographics I inevitably share and can't put my finger on ever again. Then I tackled my travel photo stash, and made a Pinterest board for my travels, focusing just on a photo or two that captures a specific place/moment in time, and one for windows since they are so often a topic for my photography.

I feel bad about having been neglecting my tumblr. Because it was a ton of fun for a number of months. But at this point, it doesn't make sense to me to be keeping up two profiles that basically are focused on the same activity, so you'll be finding me on Pinterest instead. Hope to see you there.