I'm not really a New Year's Eve kind of guy.

Well, perhaps I should say that I'm not one to "go out" on December 31st -- there are drunks driving out on the road, restaurants run terrible, over-priced prix fixe menus, and, when the strike of midnight arrives, it's often, more than not, a little bit of a let down. That's not to say that I don't like getting together with friends. Armed with an overcoat, a decent pair of gloves and a working subway system, I'll do my best to put in an appearance, a bottle of cava in hand.

Anyway, after years of NYE naysaying, karma finally caught up with me -- this past Thursday, I rang in 2010 by myself, and in a decidedly uncomfortable position. The Pasta Burner was out of town (visiting her family), and, while working on a few projects around the house, I threw out my back something wretched. Indeed, as 11:59 became 12:00, I found myself horizontal, a heating pad tucked underneath me, the Times Square ball appearing to drop left-to-right.

As I've said in this space many times before, baking does not come naturally to me.

This isn't to say that I don't try; it's just that I've had more practice with sauté pans than with baking powder or yeast. I realize that this can be overcome -- much as I hope that many of you realize your own cooking fears can be overcome by making things off of this food blog -- and, as a result, these days I often make myself break out the flour and preheat the oven as opposed to providing my guests with a bowl of fruit, some good blue cheese, and a few extra bottles of red.

[Editor's Note: Seriously, who would choose dessert over that?]

One side effect of this increase in baking is that it has been self-driven, rather than learned at the side of a parent or relative, which is how it seems most of my baker friends first learned. As a result, my techniques are a bit unorthodox, my combinations of flavors and textures somewhat of their own making.

This cake is a prime example of that. In its most basic form, it is a frosted Vanilla-Buckwheat cake, but, rather than use buckwheat flour, I used Kasha (seen at the top of this post), the whole-kerneled groat of the plant, resulting in a richer dough, much more akin to the Italian torta di noci than, say, yellow cake from a box. As for the frosting, rather than turning to a heavy buttercream, I opted for a lighter-than-air meringue.

While I realize that this is contrary to the traditional principles of cake dynamics (light, fluffy cake surrounded by rich frosting), the resulting product turned out to be both full of flavor and not too heavy, perfect for mid-summer. Let's get to it.