Well, I can tell it's fall because the baking itch, while borderline compulsive all year round, becomes insurmountable. Studying? Family time? Errands? Student loans? Chores? None of these things are as important as getting my next baking fix. Sorry, floors.

Also about this time every year, I become fixated on certain foods. Last year it was soup; I seriously craved soup at every meal. Last night's soup was reheated in the morning, topped with a poached egg, and consumed as breakfast, and whatever was left was scooped into a tupperware and eaten cold with a plastic fork for lunch. It was pathetic. This year, I have a couple of obsessions to fiddle around with.

First, the wacky cake. Inspired by Homesick Texan's beautiful post, I've now made this twice in the last week. It's just so... easy. It's like cheating. Less than an hour from the time you say "I want chocolate cake", one is being driven to it's sweet demise by the forkful into your mouth. You don't even have a bowl to wash. The second time I made it, I subbed out 2 of the tablespoons of flour for 2 more of cocoa powder, and I'm not at all sorry. Next time, I'll use coffee instead of water. But even just as it's written, it's well wrth the um, 6 minutes of time it takes to prep the cake, and the 15 seconds it takes to sprinkle your slice with powdered sugar.

Secondly, I'm back into the bread world. After a ridiculously frustrating time trying to find (regular, plain, active dry) yeast in this fun-forsaken town, I resigned myself to using the Waitrose instant yeast. Then, in a brilliant stroke of inspiration, I phoned up the goodly folk at Falko Konditormeister, who "sold" (for uber-cheap) me some fresh yeast. I stirred a pinch of this, along with some flour and water and a tiny sprinkle of sugar, into a soft dough starter and let it hang out in the fridge until it rose hopefully to the top of the bowl, peeking through the foil as if it were just begging to come out and play.

Then, after pinching about a handful off of it to make into my long-term starter, I stirred the rest of it along with more flour and water and a leeetle salt into some pseudo-sourdough. I let it rise by the heater (and, for a couple of hours, in my lap), then shaped into two boules that rose again, were scored (not deeply enough, alas) and shoved in our oven. Now our house smells grood, like sourdough and fried chicken (dinner) and pumpkin seeds (hallowe'en). There are also two moderately loves round loaves of pseudo-sourdough bread sitting on the kitchen counter, a little dark on one side, a little under-risen (from the shallow scoring), but still soft and warm and fragrant in that special way that only fresh bread can be.

So if you want some fresh bread, head o'er this way. In the meantime, what's your most recent food obsession?