SCOTUS has declined to review Obama's eligibility to serve as president based on the assertions of some totally smart dude who claims Obama was not an American citizen at birth.
What an enormous relief. If SCOTUS had taken up the appeal and attended to it with their usual tenacious integrity, they surely would have found out that Obama was really born on Planet Zorkwazzle, uncovered his plan to take over America with his army of radical gay feminist black-power babies, and enslaved all white people in the service of Allah. (Well, Zorkwazzle's a heavily Muslim planet, what can I tell you?) So, if you're like me, and you want Obama to be president because you're tired of working and just want to sit around collecting government checks for doing nothing like the conservatives keep promising he'll do, breathe a sigh of relief. We really dodged a bullet there.
You Can All Relax, Shakers
Quote of the Day
"Any heterosexual woman today over the age of 25 who grew up in America is basically a dominatrix. … What does a professional dominatrix do that an ordinary woman doesn't do in America today? Half the women look like post-op transvestites to begin with, trying to look like they're gay or keeping up with the mores of the society. You ever see what they look like? They thin themselves down, they're on some kind of diet pill. The lipstick looks like it was applied by, what's her name, Joan Rivers when she was high. They all have a mouth on them, and the guy is, like, pushed into the background. It's any wonder I'm in talk radio. The safest place for a man to be today is in talk radio and listening to it."—Michael Savage, nee Weiner, on his radio show, commenting on a New York Post article "that reported allegations that a New York City attorney was shot to death by a rival for the affections of a woman 'who moonlights as a dominatrix'." (Coming soon to a TV near you on a new episode of Law & Order: SVU, except with a twist that makes it deliciously rapesationalistic! DUNH-dunh!)
Misogyny? Check. Transphobia? Check. Homophobia? Check. He's hit the trifecta, Shakers!
During this rant, the Savage Weiner also noted: "When I was a kid, we didn't need to go to a dominatrix; all we had to do is argue with our mothers." Paging Dr. Freud…
WTP???!!!
Arriving January 2009 at a theater near you:
You have got to be kidding me. There is not one legitimate reason on Maude's green earth, nor even a single, solitary, infinitesimal particle of a substance remotely resembling a reason, for this fooking piece of execrable misogybaggery to even exist.
And no—making money off of promulgating ugly, demeaning, and oppressive stereotypes about women while simultaneously celebrating the privilege conferred by whiteness, straightness, able-bodiedness, and wealth is not, as it happens, a legitimate reason.
It positively horrifies me that there are people who will find this entertaining. And not just because it offends me on every level as a progressive and a feminist, but because it just looks like total shit!
Big stinking wev.
Oh, and, while I'm not surprised to see Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway throwing this huge pile of fetid waste into the cultural tradewinds, I'm appalled that Candice Bergen would sell her soul to this pathetic devil. Grrl, you were Murphy fuckin' Brown! Gah!
Monday Blogaround
lol your fat blogaround
Recommended Reading:
Elle: How Not to Teach Middle Schoolers about the Middle Passage
Pam: The Meme That Will Not Die -- Blacks Enabled Prop 8 to Pass
Kevin: Bush Moves to Natural Habitat
Phil: Razor's Edge
Steve: WILLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAARD!
Leave your links in comments...
News from Shakes Manor
Living with Iain McEwan is like this: Some mornings, five minutes after you've both woken up at the crack of half past WTF o'clock, he'll drive you absolutely batshit fooking insane by running around the house like a hyperactive and slightly addled monkey, doing impressions of a fire engine siren—"NEE NAW! NEE NAW! NEE NAW!"—until you threaten to rip out his vocal chords with a rusty spanner, which only makes him laugh maniacally and do it even more. And you think: What did I do to deserve this?
And some mornings, when you don't hear him get up and only awaken when he gently kisses your cheek before sneaking out quietly, you go downstairs to the office and find something like this waiting for you on the computer:
And you think: What did I do to deserve this?
And either way, you are grinning and feeling quite fortunate to know this tremendously mad person.
Possibly More Good News
You know, I've given Obama plenty of shit for his less-than-impressive relationship with the gay community. But this bit of news pleases me to no end. President-elect Obama may be the first president to appoint an openly gay person to his cabinet. Mary Beth Maxwell is described as "a gay woman, community organizer and labor leader with an adopted African American son." And she's in the running for the position of Secretary of Labor under Obama. Very cool. Here's to hoping she gets the job. This country needs someone like her.
How About Some More Good News?
So there's this factory in Chicago, the Republic Windows and Doors factory, and about 250 of its workers, who were laid off with three days' notice, have barred themselves inside the factory "in a quest to get vacation and severance pay owed them."
[The workers] occupied the factory and warehouse after Republic closed its doors Friday and company officials failed to show up at negotiations brokered by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez.Of course they're not.
"We're going to stay here until we win justice," said worker Blanca Funes, 55, of Chicago.
Union leaders say the company failed to give workers the 60 days' notice required by federal law, and that its bank, Bank of America, barred Republic from paying for the 60-day period or for vacations. The leaders also criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind.
"We're doing something we haven't done since the 1930s, so we're trying to make it work," declared Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers.
Bank of America, which received $25 billion from the government's financial bailout package, maintains it isn't responsible for Republic's financial obligations.
Obviously, that's not the good news. (Well, the fact that they're exercising their right to organize is good news—that they have reason to in the first place isn't.) The good news is this: President-Elect Obama publicly supports them.
I know, believe me I know, I will have reasons in the future to be disappointed with Obama, that I will have reason to criticize him; hell, I'm still pissed off at him for some of his campaign shenanigans and rhetoric.
But today, I'm really feeling the love.
And after eight long, grim, dismal years of this, feeling the love feels oh-so-good.
[H/T to Shaker Betsy via email.]
Do Tell
Karl Rove was the most petty, vindictive, infantile, and paranoid public official to occupy an office in the White House since Richard Nixon resigned. Now he is promising to exact revenge for the rotten way George Bush was treated by the rest of the world.
In a new interview with Cox News, Rove rails against all the people in America who never “accepted the legitimacy of George W. Bush,” saying that he plans to call them out in his new book:Woo... I'm fwightened. What's he going to do, give them all wedgies?“There were people who never accepted the legitimacy of George W. Bush and acted accordingly,” he said.
[…]
“I’ve got behind-the-scenes episodes that are going to show how unreceiving they were of this man as president of the United States,” Rove said, adding: “I’m going to name names and show examples.”
And I will be really pissed if I'm not on the list.
(Cross-posted.)
Let's Start the Week With Some Good News, Shall We?
President-elect Barack Obama pledged to restore United States' international standing, including a promise to push for ratification of the long-ignored United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the women's equal rights treaty known as CEDAW, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Nov. 30.[Via Ann.]
Although 185 countries have ratified the 1979 treaty, the United States remains one of only eight that have not, alongside Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, Iran, Nauru, Palau and Tonga. The U.S. Senate must ratify the treaty and it could be difficult to persuade because the treaty says women should have access to "information, counseling and services in family planning," which anti-choice groups have interpreted as a guaranteed right to abortion.
Obama is also expected to eliminate the emphasis on abstinence--as opposed to safe-sex and prevention--in the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief. That has some religious conservatives worried that a core policy of President Bush's foreign aid agenda will be eliminated, the Christian News Service reported Dec. 2.
This puts me in mind of a TNR piece forwarded to me recently by Matttbastard, in which A.J. Rossmiller notes:
In a major adjustment for the realms of foreign policy and national security, [Obama's] new approach will be led by women. … Of appointments already designated, the top posts in the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security, both cabinet-level positions, are Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano, respectively; our new ambassador to the United Nations will be Susan Rice; and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the number three position in the Department of Defense, is said to be reserved for Michele Flournoy. For perspective, in the 318 total years those positions have been occupied, women have held them for 16. Or to put it another way, if these women each serve for a single term, they will match the entire combined tenure of women in these positions in the history of the country.Not to take anything away from President-Elect Obama, but I suspect that the women he has advising him (cough Clinton cough) have something to do with the push on CEDAW. (If you want to read some supercrazy, have fun Googling "Hillary Clinton Secretary of State CEDAW" and enjoy the MRA panic at the thought of her pushing for its ratification.)
Joe Biden is also a supporter of ratifying CEDAW.
Good stuff.
Quote of the Day
"I don't think of myself as being a celebrity; it's too mortifying."—Johnny Depp, in an interview with Britain's Psychologies magazine.
Something about that quote, deeming celebrity "mortifying," just struck me as very funny, especially in light of yesterday's thread, in which so many of us copped to being desperately shy IRL.
Also, I need very little encouragement to post pictures of Johnny Depp.
Yes We Can Invest in Infrastructure
[Full transcript here.]
Wow:
President-elect Barack Obama committed Saturday to the largest public works construction program since the creation of the interstate highway system a half-century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy.I feel a wee bit blubby about all this. It just feels so hopeful, so much like the beautiful clatter of ten thousand teaspoons.
With unemployment on the rise and no end to the recession in sight, Mr. Obama began highlighting elements of the economic recovery program he is trying to fashion with Congressional leaders in hopes of being able to enact it shortly after being sworn in on Jan. 20.
Mr. Obama's remarks sought to expand the definition of traditional work programs for the middle class, like infrastructure projects to repair roads and bridges, while also pushing a federal effort to bring in new-era jobs in technology and so-called green jobs.
Although he put no price tag on it, he said he would invest record amounts of money in the vast infrastructure program, which also includes work on schools, sewer systems, mass transit, electric grids, dams and other public utilities. He vowed to upgrade computers in schools, expand broadband Internet access, make government buildings more energy efficient and improve information technology at hospitals and doctors' offices.
"We need action — and action now," Mr. Obama, said in an address taped for broadcast Saturday morning on radio and YouTube.
..."We will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s," Mr. Obama said.
Please, Maude, let it work. Let us see a new day for America.
Emulating 'Liss -- I Write Letters
(For those who haven't seen it yet -- this is the Advocate cover that I'm talking about. What follows is an actual letter that I'm sending to the Advocate -- I can't leave it in their letters section because they only allow 1000 characters and you know how I am with the excessive words thing. I'm sending it in complete from via snail-mail.)
===Begin Transmission===
Dear Advocate:
Your December cover was appalling to me.
In one fell swoop, you managed to:
- Appropriate the black civil rights movement,
- Act as if the struggle for equal rights for people of color is completed,
- Potentially piss off and alienate a whole bunch of queer and straight allies -- and -- Big finish now! --
- Infer that the gay rights movement is the only civil rights struggle still in existence.
But as if that weren't enough, you also wrangled an opportunity to fail utterly at both edginess and cleverness.
"_________ is the New Black" is a phrase meant to infer that something is new or cutting edge. News for you: Oppression is neither new nor cutting edge -- in fact, lateral oppression among and between disenfranchised groups is so old and status-quo that perhaps your cover would be better served with the following slogan: "Same Shit, Different Gays".
In your rush to construct a "clever" cover, perhaps it did not occur to you to completely think through the inferences in your choice of trendy phrase -- which is most commonly defined to mean this: "Blank is the New Black" is used "to indicate the sudden popularity or versatility of an idea at the expense of the popularity of a second idea". Get that?
And if you did consider all the implications of your catchy, hip cover blast, and decided to use it anyway -- if there were discussions such as "You know, queers of color, and straight allies who are people of color, and all kinds of people for whom racism is an important issue might be offended by this, but . . . . . hey, f*ck 'em!", then I would posit that you are consciously doing harm to the very movement that you dub (with all the arrogance borne of privilege): "The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle"!!!eleventy-one!!
Oh, and about that little conclusion you seem to have drawn, there -- can I just say: WHAT?!?!?
Last I looked, there were plenty of perfectly great civil rights struggles to be had -- immigrant rights, disabled rights, transgender rights, transsexual rights, intersex rights -- just to name a very, very few. Oh, and those two eensy-weensy matters of equal rights for women and people of color. (I thought I'd mention some of those just in case you were wondering what you might do with your free time after you complete the Last Great Civil Rights Struggle.)
Because I'm sure, what with completely alienating a bunch of people of color (gay and straight alike) and people like me, who actually care about stuff like inclusiveness and outreach, you're just going to whip that Last Great Civil Rights Struggle into shape in no time. (Good luck with that, by the way.)
OK -- enough with the snark. You see -- that type of flippant, psuedo-hip, so-what-if-it-oversimplifies-the-entire-situation- and-alienates-someone-with-whom-I-might-otherwise-be-a-natural-ally-but-hey!-don't-I-look-cool!? communication (which is exactly what I perceive your cover to be) -- just isn't helpful, in my opinion.
I'm a white lesbian. I've been active in the struggle for queer rights since the mid-70s. Although I understand the convenience of the short-hand term "gay rights", I don't feel included by it, and I've been deeply saddened and disheartened to see some in the "gay community" continue the ongoing attempt to distance themselves from the rights of transsexual, transgender, and intersexed queers.
Although I understand that it can (sometimes) be useful to connect with narratives of various other struggles for equal rights, I have been attempting to listen and learn what it means for people who have faced oppression because of racism, ableism, classism, and xenophobia to hear me do so. I think that there are ways to discuss certain parallels or similarities respectfully, and in ways that foster connection and understanding, rather than alienation -- but I don't believe that your choice of a cover is one of them.
The deepest inroads that queer-rights activists have effected in my 33+ years in the movement have been made through connection and visibility, not appropriation and alienation. The biggest problems that I've seen in that movement over those 33+ years have arisen from marginalization of certain queers within the movement, complacency bred of "I've got mine", "It's the best we can get", or "It's not my problem" thinking, and the alienation of natural allies.
The article that Mr. Gross wrote at least put a question mark behind the words: "Gay is the New Black?" (and for what it's worth, I thought that the vast majority of his article was respectful, thoughtful, and thought-provoking -- I did have some nits to pick, but I won't pick them here).
I find it hard to believe that the cover-space, dominated as it was by a simple white title, couldn't have accommodated that question mark (and maybe one after the bold christening of gay rights as the Last-Great-Blah-Blah-Blah-Frankly-I'm-Sick-Of-Typing-It, as well?).
Sweeping declarations are, to me, only rightfully owned by those who have actual authority in a matter, and in the matter of civil rights, "gays" definitely do not own exclusive rights to the territory.
Mr. Gross posed his article as a question, and, in my opinion, brought himself to the examination of that question forthrightly, with a good degree of nuance and complexity. I think that you did his article a great injustice, in fact, by replacing his question with that extremely unstable declarative -- because only the Advocate's primary audience is likely to look beyond that cover.
In my opinion, that greatly reduces the likelihood that an important discussion that might have taken place in response to Mr. Gross' article will take place. Even I, as someone more likely to be sympathetic to the article, opened it ready to be offended and alienated -- based on the message of your cover.
You have a big voice in the queer community.
I ask you, please, to use that big voice with more care. What you choose will affect the lives of queers like me, whether I agree with you or not. People will point to your cover and say: "See? The gay rights movement is racist and insensitive!", and I will counter: "I think the cover editors at the Advocate were racist and insensitive." -- but my voice won't sit on every news-rack or echo through the mainstream media.
Sincerely,
PortlyDyke/Carol Steinel
===End Transmission ===
[cross-posted at Teh Portly Dyke]
Hillary Sexism Watch, #114
by Shaker ScottRS
By now, you've likely seen the photo of putative Obama administration Director of Speechwriting Jon Favreau, posed with his hand on the right breast of a cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton. On the right is another (unidentified) person (wearing an "Obama Staff" t-shirt, no less), holding the head of the cutout, putting a bottle of beer to the cutout's lips, and delivering a kiss.
[Photo via.]
Reactions? "Boys will be boys." "He's only 20-something and just blowing off steam and having fun." "It's just a cardboard cutout." "Lighten up." "All in good fun."
I have read multiple comments suggesting that those who don't find the photo pants-peeing funny are just making mountains out of molehills, and trivializing the "real" problems women face.
Somehow, this isn't objectification since it's a cardboard cutout.
Somehow, sexism isn't "real" if it's clearly a "joke" and Clinton (allegedly) laughed it off (though one must wonder how immune she must be to this stuff by now—and of course she'd be labeled humorless if she hadn't laughed it off).
Somehow, it's not demeaning and disrespectful since it's merely an alcohol-fueled lapse of judgment. I guess he's a hero for managing not to call the cutout "sugar tits."
I'm not so much upset as disheartened. I hoped against all hope that our country might, one day and once again, at a bare minimum, be run by responsible adults.
This is made all the more astounding in light of the…umm…comprehensive Obama administration vetting process.
But why, pray tell, do so many people seem so compelled to make excuses for what is, at best, such puerile, obnoxious, and just plain disrespectful behavior?
[Hillary Sexism Watch: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty, Forty-One, Forty-Two, Forty-Three, Forty-Four, Forty-Five, Forty-Six, Forty-Seven, Forty-Eight, Forty-Nine, Fifty, Fifty-One, Fifty-Two, Fifty-Three, Fifty-Four, Fifty-Five, Fifty-Six, Fifty-Seven, Fifty-Eight, Fifty-Nine, Sixty, Sixty-One, Sixty-Two, Sixty-Three, Sixty-Four, Sixty-Five, Sixty-Six, Sixty-Seven, Sixty-Eight, Sixty-Nine, Seventy, Seventy-One, Seventy-Two, Seventy-Three, Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five, Seventy-Six, Seventy-Seven, Seventy-Eight, Seventy-Nine, Eighty, Eighty-One, Eighty-Two, Eighty-Three, Eighty-Four, Eighty-Five, Eighty Six, Eighty-Seven, Eighty-Eight, Eighty-Nine, Ninety, Ninety-One, Ninety-Two, Ninety-Three, Ninety-Four, Ninety-Five, Ninety-Six, Ninety-Seven, Ninety-Eight, Ninety-Nine, One Hundred, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113.]
War on Christmas, OFFS Edition
I'm seriously so exhausted with this shit that I'm looking forward to January. January. In Chicago.
(CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch.Oh, puh-LEEZE. You can't for a second tell me that you were expecting any other reaction when you put this sign up. As I've documented far too many times, there are people out there whipped into a frenzy over the manufactured "War on Christmas" that are dying to find examples that it's really happening. And I've got a little news for you, radical athiests: When you do stuff like this, it appears as if it does exist, and you're not helping.
An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.
"I thought it would be safe," Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN earlier Friday. "It's always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It's not something you get used to."
The sign, which celebrates the winter solstice, has had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.Oh, for FUCK'S SAKE, STOP IT. I'm so goddamned sick of the whining on both sides about "stifling speech" that I could puke blood.
"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation says in part.
The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., Gaylor said.
The incident will not stifle the group's message, Gaylor said. Before reports of the placard's recovery, she said a temporary sign with the same message would be placed in the building's Rotunda. Gaylor said a note would be attached saying, "Thou shalt not steal."
"I guess they don't follow their own commandments," Gaylor said. "There's nothing out there with the atheist point of view, and now there is such a firestorm that we have the audacity to exist. And then [whoever took the sign] stifles our speech."
"It's not that we are trying to coerce anyone; in a way our sign is a signal of protest," Barker said. "If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to hell if we don't bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views."You know something? I seriously fucking doubt that there was anything on the Nativity scene explicity stating anything about non-believers going to hell. Symbolically? Well, that's arguable. But to say that there was an explicit message is disingenuous, it insults the atheists that can tell the goddamned difference between an expression of celebration of a religious holiday and an attack on themselves or atheism itself, and it's just fucking annoying. (This is, of course, completely separate from atheists- not to mention religious people, for that matter- who object to religious displays in public spaces for Constitutional reasons. There's a difference between that and "You hurt my feelings!") Besides, if you're an atheist, why the fuck are you worried about anyone saying you're going to hell it the first place? You don't believe in hell, remember? "I guess they don't follow their own commandments." Oh, shut the fuck up. You wanted this. You were hoping they would do this so you could use that stupid line.
Oh, and all of you War on Christmas whiners? You can shut the fuck up, too.
"Although a number of humanists and atheists continue to attempt to rid God and Christmas from the public square, the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to such efforts," Roberta Combs, the group's president said in a press release.GAH. Thanks SO much for handing Bill O'Reilly and his like-minded knuckleheads more ammo. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if these War-on-Christmasers and You're-telling-us-we're-going-to-hell atheists are profiting together off of this bullshit.
"We will ask our millions of supporters to call the city of Washington, D.C., and Congress to stop this un-Godly campaign."
For some, the issue isn't even that the atheists are putting their thoughts on display, but rather the way in which they are doing it.Except for the little thing that a Nativity scene isn't hate speech, you asshole.
"They are shooting themselves in the foot," said iReport contributor Rich Phillips, who describes himself as an atheist. "Everyone's out there for the holidays, trying to represent their religion, their beliefs, and it's a time to be positive."
The atheist message was never intended to attack anyone, Barker said.
"When people ask us, 'Why are you hateful? Why are you putting up something critical of people's holidays? -- we respond that we kind of feel that the Christian message is the hate message," he said. "On that Nativity scene, there is this threat of internal violence if we don't submit to that master. Hate speech goes both ways."
I'm not a huge fan of people using government property to erect Nativity scenes, but this is the wrong way to go about protesting. It's as obnoxious as religious fundamentalism, and I'm sending all of you the bill for my high blood pressure medicine.
FUCK.
HA!
The Red Queen wants to know "what about you would shock us on the internet," and, coincidentally, I just answered that very question in an email earlier today, when I said to my correspondent: "I suspect most people who read Shakesville pretty regularly have a good sense of who I am; I write just like I talk, lol. The only thing that might surprise you is that I'm kind of still and quiet and shy in person (at least with new people)—but I do have a giant, loud-ass horse laugh."
It is, according to my Londoner Andy, positively Gervaisian.
Shaker Gourmet: Miracle Flan Cake
From Shaker Auntie Meme, who notes that "it's not very Nietzschean unless it doesn’t turn out"
Auntie Meme sent me a follow up email after sending me this and said: "[T]he time it cooked was longer than in the recipe. After 45-50 minutes with the foil, I removed the foil and the cake was still very liquid-y. I then checked it every 15 minutes and it took about 40 more minutes to fully bake. It could be because of the water bath (more steam, like a Christmas pudding)--I used more water this time. And I did chill it until it could be comfortably handled before I removed it from the pan--an hour or two. (Too many impatient Bundt cake disasters to risk dumping it out hot.) I then put it in a cake container with lid and refrigerated overnight. Looks lovely and amazing."Miracle Flan Cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Have a pan of water that the Bundt pan will fit in.
Ingredients:
Cake:
1 18.25 ounce chocolate cake mix, plus ingredients it requires (Devil’s Food or not).
1 t cinnamon
Flan:
3 eggs
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 teaspoon Mexican vanilla
Topping:
1 (15.75 ounce) can caramel spread (such as Coronado Brand Cajeta Quemada)
Directions:
Cake: Prepare cake batter according to package instructions, add cinnamon, and set aside.
Flan: In a blender or mixer, mix eggs, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, cream cheese and vanilla until smooth.
Pour prepared cake batter into a greased Bundt pan; add flan mixture on top of batter. (Do not overfill!)
Place Bundt pan into pan of water in oven. Cover loosely with foil. Uncover to check it after about 50 minutes and do not cover during the remaining baking time. Bake about one hour. The cake is done when a knife inserted comes out clean. The cake may crack a little on top. Remove and cool completely. Place on a serving dish.
Topping: Warm up the caramel spread and pour on top.
If you'd like to participate in Shaker Gourmet, email me at: shakergourmet (at) gmail.com
