i'll see you later, okay?

Sure, here's my disorganized recipe from hell, cobbled together from various websites and experiments. I just realized that I pasted the caramel and pastry cream in the wrong order... It's easier if you make the pastry cream first and clean that pot for the caramel. I'm on mobile. Will fix.

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1 box white cake mix, using egg whites. Bake. Flip onto a wire rack.

2/3 box spice cake mix (save the rest to turn into batter later, or portion the batter and bake it on the side.) I add extra allspice. Bake in previous pan.

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Caramel Ganache (kinda):

1 cup granulated sugar

⅓ cup butter, salted or unsalted

White chocolate and hot milk ganache (pre-prepare or don't; pour hot milk over the chocolate and stir until thick but fluid consistency. Use the same method over dark chocolate to make a separate, thicker ganache for later).

Heat until fully melted and amber, without burning. People say don't stir the sugar; I don't think it matters much for a cake like this and I stir it to help it melt faster after it has started.

Add the butter pieces and stir until smooth. It's gonna look scary. Just keep going.

Add the white chocolate ganache until reaching desired consistency. This is done now. Transfer to a holding container and immediately wash your pot. Filling the pot with water and letting the leftover scuz simmer on low helps.

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Pastry Cream (it's just custard with butter, apparently) (ALSO NOTE: I never have a ton unless I make a thin tall cake, but this amount offers an appropriate texture. Maybe double this exclusively if you can make it look pretty. IMO, I'd turn this into a mousse to stabilize it, but I haven't. Spicetrekkers Walnut Espresso Blondie has a good custard->mousse setup.)

▢ 2 cups whole milk

▢ ¼ cup granulated sugar

▢ 1 large egg

▢ 2 large egg yolks

▢ ¼ cup cornstarch

▢ ⅓ cup granulated sugar

▢ 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or vanilla bean, split open, to add to the milk during heating)

In a medium saucepan, combine milk and granulated sugar. Gentle simmer/steam. Do not boil.

Whisk together 1 large egg, 2 large egg yolks, ¼ cup cornstarch, and ⅓ cup granulated sugar in a mixing bowl until smooth and pale.

Slowly pour about half of the hot milk into the egg mixture in a steady stream, whisking constantly to temper the eggs and prevent curdling.

Immediately pour the tempered egg mixture back into the saucepan. Return to medium heat and whisk constantly until the mixture thickens and begins to bubble, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove from heat. Stir in 2 tablespoons unsalted butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract until fully melted and incorporated.

Transfer the pastry cream to a clean bowl. Press plastic wrap directly onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until completely chilled (can use freezer initially, if you want).

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Layer as per image. Layer as follows:

Spice cake → Caramel ganache → White cake → Plain pastry cream → Pastry cream with add-ins → Dark chocolate ganache with oreos if you want it that way → Crushed biscoff cookies

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It is very reminiscent of a typical Southern dump-cake, but if you organized it. It's fun. With work, it could be kind of classy?

zara larsson summerrrr!!!🌈🌺🫧

How’d you get here? On the train?

No, I walked. A long way!

How’d you get beyond the wall?

I always love the og zoot suits made by black americans in Harlem, I really like looking at the changes from these clothes from the 30s to some of the more exaggerated renditions from the 40s. It's also so interesting to look at how fast the subculture spread, and especially in the american west integrated with mexican diaspora and pachuco culture to the point that that's what a lot of usamericans associate them with.

⬆️ long wallet chains and pork pie hats were classic accessories for mexican diaspora zoot suiters. Zoot suits/their components were also really popular with women and were a way to symbolize independence and a choice to move away from strict gender roles on top of the existing countercultural message ⬇️

Anyways it's kind of impossible to talk about zoot suits without mentioning the racism and violence that followed them. On top of a zoot suit making someone a target for individual racial violence, the national reaction of white america to zoot suit culture was part of the beginning of clothing and presentation being read explicitly as signals by police and justice systems, and the broad association of youth of color with gang violence through this specific excuse. Gang culture and how it's percieved in the western US and especially California is very influenced by this era. The most famous events from the zoot suit era are the collective zoot suit riots and the media characterization of all mexican american, filipino american, and black american youth as violent anti-american baby gangsters. Which, even if that was broadly true I mean. I'll take the opportunity to be flippant hell yeah??

As a side note, while making more new zoot suits during war rationing was pretty sick, most people weren't buying from the black market tailor shops and just wore what they already owned because the style had been popular for years already. People bought clothes less often to begin with back then. I think that misconception comes from the reasoning white americans gave to go beat up people of color with baseball bats in the street; i.e. it was racial and xenophobic violence to begin with and the nature of the suits themselves has been mushed around a lot to serve different narratives.

More zoot suits! ⬇️

Johnson's Dictionary Online (thanks @yellowbelliedtoad!) – 1755 and 1773

Green's Dictionary of Slang – 1300s to today

A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – 1788