Pumpkin Cake, Brown Butter Icing

I eat cake for breakfast. With tea. And only when out of coffee.

Thus, I associate eating cake for breakfast with an early morning sense of disappointment and hardship. Coffee is the latch on the day; if I cannot tug the day open with it, I endure the sensation of banging my head against a (highly polished mahogany) wall all day.

So, let's just say that it occurred to me how much I adore this cake recipe at a time when I was spent, leaning against the mental mahogany door, as it were. Likely, that is the reason why, even after Eddie Ross suggested on his beautiful site that this Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Icing was an easy-go'er, I still managed to add twice as much milk as it calls for.

Because it would be uncouth and graceless, I did not utter sixty expletives in as many seconds when I realized this. Though, let the record show: I wanted to.

Eddie has never failed me, however, and the recipe endured the happy folly that was two, rather than one, cups of milk. I added 1/2 cup additional flour and I must tell you, it was perfect. Just the way cake crumb should be; sticking to the back of your fork when pressed and without a single hint of dryness. Coffee or not, it was a sure indicator I was not meant to hit my head again that day.

Future coffee-less breakfasts may not be the grouchy pity-festivals for which I have surely become so beloved around Rancho Relaxo. Which will disappoint no one but the CEO of Starbucks, from whom I have now become one step removed... okay, who am I kidding?