Double chocolate espresso pound cake with rose-scented cream cheese frosting

After Christmas, New Years, and the December holidays are over, I'm always spending January counting down the days to Valentine's. Sure, there are lots of people who grumble about Valentine's Day, citing that it's become this Hallmark holiday, but I still maintain a very romantic notion about it and most other holidays (ah, romantic in the 'idealization' sense).  After all, life's too short not to be celebrating the happy things in it! and I'm a firm believer that we should celebrate everything we love on Valentine's Day, not just significant others.  (I'm such a holder of this philosophy that I think, the dork I am, that I even wrote an essay arguing such in eighth grade.)  Finally, when it comes down to it, through all of that lovey-dovey hubbub, Valentine's Day is the holiday of desserts, so what's not to love?

This double chocolate espresso pound cake with rose-scented cream cheese frosting is one of the desserts on my Valentine's Day radar this year.  The combination of rose and chocolate is just so classic that I can't ever really escape it, especially ever since watching Like Water for Chocolate.  The key here balancing the light sweet scent of the rose in the cream cheese frosting with the robust dark chocolate espresso pound cake underneath--my friend who tried the cake called it the perfect "breakfast cupcake," given how dense and buttery but not-too-sweet the cake is.  Oh, and why are these called "double chocolate"?  Because they also have a healthy handful of bittersweet chocolate chips thrown in to the mix.  Despite what Hallmark says, really Valentine's Day is about celebrating chocolate.  (Though I don't doubt for a second that there's a Hallmark card out there that says just that!)

So here's the countdown: 19 days left until Valentine's Day, the holiday of desserts!  What are you making to celebrate what you love?


Read on for recipe...

Mango and Kiwi Coconut Sticky Rice

After traveling for the better part of the first two weeks of the academic quarter and being away from my home institution for an entire semester prior to that, I've been spending this week just trying to land on my feet and get back into the swing of things.  It most definitely has NOT been easy!

Certain things have made the transition survive-able though, like getting back to my Wednesday night routine: making dessert and watching the latest Top Chef episode on Bravo with my friend Starr.  This week, Starr mentioned that she had sticky rice at home, and I jumped at the opportunity to try this recipe that I'd been eyeing on one of my favorite food blogs, Une-deux Senses, for a while now.  The rice, which I made in a rice cooker rather than on the stove (because I'm Chinese and have no idea how to cook rice that's not risotto/paella without a rice cooker!), turned out beautifully--sticky, al dente, perfectly coconut but not overly sweet--and was the perfect base for sweet slices of tropical fruit on top.  The kiwi was a great addition as well, and, unlike certain people on Top Chef last night, I was smart enough to stop there and not add any foam.  (you Top Chef fans know what I'm talking about!)

Anyways, I still feel as if I'm totally scrambling to catch up with my life right now, but hopefully! soon I'll get back to a proper rhythm for my days.  Otherwise, I'm going to be totally screwed....  ack!

(I barely made any changes at all to the original recipe, so hop on over to --> Une-deux Senses <-- for the instructions to this dessert.)