I am not a big fan of Starbucks coffee but their Lemon Pound cake is to die for! One must wonder though why I feel the need for baking something that truly only I will enjoy in this household and  10,000 calories will stare at me every morning, when I walk by the cake stand on the way to the kitchen until they have found their way to my hips, thighs and belly. I think the more than depressing outlook on this years presidential elections made me do it – I need comfort food to be able to deal with this years bleak situation for  presidential frontrunners – the choice between a proven lying politician and a politically unfit misogynistic show man.

And its not just the bleak outlook of the presidential candidates that worries me, it is the state our country is in that we would even consider someone like Trump to become President. The rest of the world is scratching their heads asking what has gotten into a good part of Americans to even consider such a vulgar insolent for president?

The media now speaks about “Trumpism”. I am asking myself how has Trump come this far in the political arena?  So far he hasn’t offered any ideas to any of our countries burning issues such as our long standing economic depression,  our broken and corrupted political system, our struggling educational system, ever rising national debt, gun violence, environmental issues, in country poverty, the disastrous health care system and so many more issues. All he touts about is building a wall to keep illegal immigrants out and banning Muslims from this country – that will not solve our countries most pressing issues and sounds somewhat similar to Nazi Germany – that is very scary.

It was just a matter of time that my mum would ask…So who will vote for Trump she asked during our weekly call yesterday. I tried to explain to her the fascination with Trump in the following way: I think the Trump voters will partially be the “poorly educated” as Trump himself puts it. It is a fact that the American educational system scores very poorly compared to other industrial/first world countries and that means we are “producing” lots of “poorly” educated voters”.  Thinking about what is trending on US TV for many many years now…Honey Boo Boo, The Real Housewife’s of…insert any big city here, Jersey Shore who made ridiculously dumb Snooky famous, The Kardashians and the list goes on and on. People are enamored with reality TV celebrities. Nobody wants to see a show of a hard working mum who helps her kid succeed in life, its all about the drama. Americas celebrity culture is achieved  these days without any talent or ability.

I came to the conclusion that our political culture unfortunately is inextricable from the rest of our culture which is highly dominated by Reality TV  and gives people the illusion that what they see on TV is real .  And that’s why Trump is so successful, a celebrity without any (political) substance behind him who speaks to those lacking the capabilities of separating fact from lie. He makes bad behavior look fun and makes us believe that he is the real deal who can make America great. What a crock of you know what!  On top of that is the American population tired of lying, cheating, money stealing politician who run down our country for the past decade and Trump says it as it is and doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him. He portraits “authority” and not the all politically correct, backing down, compromising coward like the rest of the politician come across these days. Americans like straight shooters, if he is one though is doubtful. He changes his opinions like a flag in the wind, one has to be flexible he says.

This will be a very sad day if America will indeed vote for Trump and I will have to bake many many more cakes to comfort myself and my non Trump voting friends. Make sure you have this recipe handy November 8th – and it can’t hurt you already testing it out ;-).

Copy Cat Starbucks Lemon Pound Cake

Ingredients:

• Zest of 3 Lemons
• Juice of 3 Lemons
• 250 grams soft butter
• 250 grams sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 4 eggs
• 200 grams flour
• 50 grams corn starch
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 150 grams powdered sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat the butter with the sugar, lemon zest and pinch of salt in a standing mixer for 10 minutes. The butter should look almost white.
3. Add 1 egg at a time and incorporate well.
4. Mix together the flour, corn starch and baking powder.
5. Turn off the standing mixer and add the lemon juice and flour mixture. Turn back on the standing mixer for 5-6 seconds just to barely incorporate the flour mixture. You don’t want to beat the flour and butter too long or the cake will turn out dense.
6. Pour the mixture into a  greased loaf pan (or cut some parchment paper and drape it into the pan, letting some of the parchment hanging over the rim, so that you can lift out the cake after its baked, that will avoid your hot cake breaking apart when you want to lift it out) and bake it for 50 minutes. Test with a longer wooden pick in the center of the cake if its done and comes out clean. If wet dough is sticking to your pick, bake it 5-10 minutes longer.
7. Mix the powdered sugar with 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice and glace the cake when cooled out. Once the glaze is dry, cover/wrap the cake and let it sit for a day. It tastes more “lemony” if you let it rest.

Guten Appetit!