belated egg nog cake

I am terribly late writing this entry, as I did not particularly care for the cake nor do I feel particularly strongly about egg nog.  I should have seen this apathy coming when I decided to make an egg nog dessert outside of the holiday season.  I love the holidays.  I have created very rigid guidelines about when I can start to enjoy myself about Christmas, otherwise my apartment would be filled with pine boughs all year round and I'd be listening to nothing but Christmas music.  Because that certainly does not happen.

I have been met with a lot of questioning when I have told people about how I made this cake coupled with the fact that I do not like egg nog.  For the record, I made it for someone who does, in fact, like egg nog.  This person has stared longingly at the egg nog in the refrigerated section of the grocery store since it arrived in mid-November (not egg nog season, thank you) and has put up with my scorn for his lack of holiday willpower.  I'm a terrible girlfriend.  To make up for this, I bought egg nog and decided to turn it into a cake.  This also allowed the extra egg nog to be sent home with him at no extra charge.  I am the best girlfriend.

As with all of the recipes that I find, I took a little artistic liberty.  All of the pictures on the website where I got it had it drizzled with custard and nicely shaped.  I drove all over town looking for a bundt pan to no avail, so mine was just a circular blob of cake.  I also didn't know how I felt about custard, so I made my own glaze that I poured over each slice.  I tried sprucing the cake up with some red sprinkles, but they just turned the cake pink over time.  The picture that you see to the left is not my cake, but this is what I want you to imagine my cake looked like.  Pretend it tasted good, too.



Egg Nog Cake
adapted from Allrecipes.com

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix (I used butter cake, this may have been a mistake)
• 2 cups egg nog
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a mixing bowl, combine the first five ingredients. Beat on low until moistened, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour into a greased and floured 12-cup fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; invert onto a wire rack. Remove from pan; cool completely. 

For glaze, combine egg nog with confectioners sugar and a dash of vanilla extract.  Mix with fork until smooth.  Pour over cake if you like mushy cake, as this is not actually a glaze.