Glazed Chocolate Pumpkin Bundt Cake

My study group has been teasing me all semester that I haven't made any of my infamous desserts for them yet, so I decided to have everyone over for a post Fall A celebration. One of my classmates heard that I was baking and after reading my blog implored me to blog about this and make sure to share a photo. So, you can thank her for making sure that I took the time to blog about this one and remembered to take a picture of my creation.

Upon moving to business school, I sent some of my most prized cooking and baking tools to my parent's house because I figured that I would spend too much time studying and doing other things to have time for cooking. Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong. Dinner parties are totally in! But, alas, many of these essential baking gadgets are still at my parent's house which is why this bundt cake was made in an angel food cake pan.

If you're looking for a very easy recipe this holiday season, this one's for you. Total active time on this cake was about 30 mins. 30 MINS! Yes, you too can make beautiful baked goods to bring for your loved ones. You do have to make sure that you're home for the next hour or so, but you can be working away on other things.

The cake part of this recipe is phenomenal. It was very moist and the chocolate and pumpkin flavors blended together beautifully. I have to say that I was rather disappointed with the buttermilk glaze on the cake. It's really sweet in contrast to the well balanced cake and really didn't add anything for me. If you're a cake person, but not a frosting person, I'd recommend leaving the buttermilk glaze off.

All in all, for 30 mins of work, this was a highly delicious cake! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there! I can't wait to hear about the tasty treats that you enjoy this week!

If you'd like to make your own Glazed Chocolate Pumpkin Bundt Cake, please check out the recipe from Eating Well here.

The Internship Search Has Begun

It seems amazing to me that we've just been in school for about 3 months now and it feels that we're already into the full-fledged internship search. We've started trying to fit company visits, job fairs, and on campus presentations into our already busy schedules.

My first visit was at Symantec a couple of weeks ago. Despite having worked at Symantec for a brief month during my previous life in management consulting, it was really great to get back on their campus and learn more about how their product management organization works. We also got a quick tour of their engineering labs which was very interesting for someone who's worked in tech for 4 years and never set foot in a data center.

The following week, I headed into the downtown SF office of Adobe to learn about their product management team. The office is gorgeous and I could totally see myself fitting into the culture there. The company is great about fostering creativity but also making products that really satisfy the user's needs. This is something that I am passionate about as well. I wished that we had more time to talk to each of the alumni presenters to learn more about their experiences with Adobe, but it was a great afternoon learning more about Adobe.

I'm sure in the next couple of weeks, I'll be at a bunch more presentations and trying to figure out what I really might like to do with my summer. At the moment, I'm thinking a product management internship with a tech company but we'll shall see where this crazy business school experience takes me.

Grades

So I know that everyone tells you grad school isn't about grades. I mean just look at the grading distribution. At Haas, the lowest grade a professor ever has to give is a B-, with the majority of students getting B+s. While I intellectually knew that this was true, I can honestly say that after spending my entire prior educational career trying to get straight As, I have to say that it was difficult to let go of grades. I tested the waters by not doing assigned readings and waiting until the absolute last minute to complete assignments which are all things that I would have previously considered to be slacking.

Our last quarter ended almost a month ago and we have yet to hear how we did, so I have pretty much forgotten about grades as I've become heads down trying to make sure that this semester is successful. We started hearing about our grades from first quarter today and I have to say that seeing that my grades start to come in and not have my more laid back strategy blow up in my face. I will definitely have to remember this in the future as all of the end of first semester, thanksgiving, and holiday parties start! Relax and worry less about grades!

Oh No! Not My Computer

On Friday, my worst fear was realized. I hopped on the bus and was surfing my phone when I felt a tap on my shoulder. A woman across the aisle was getting my attention to let me know that water was pouring out of my laptop bag. Oh no! I reached in to see what had happened. The lid to my waterbottle had opened and 12 oz of water was now floating around my bag with my laptop, notes, and portfolio for my company trek in a few hours.

Let's just say that Friday was not one of my best days. I got off the bus as quickly as possible and stopped at a local cafe to get paper towels and dry off my laptop. Luckily after much anguish and stressing, two days later when I took my beloved Mac to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, it just decided to magically work. I'm not sure why, but at this point, I'm very excited to have my laptop back and in working order given that we have more midterms next week and a whole host of papers to write.

Please heed my advice and back up your laptop at least once a day!!! No one needs to deal with data loss!!! Let's just say from here on out, I'll be backing up my laptop every night as I fall asleep.