Mood: Trying to channel the divine powers of Julia Child

I got a recipe for a delicious pecan spice cake with buttercream icing from Coleen that I've been craving ever since I tried it at her birthday, and I am attempting to do some domestic-like baking fueled by my hunger for tasty dessert. Currently the cakes are cooling on my counter. I'm not sure how long I need to let them cool completely before I frost them... Half and hour? An hour? The whole afternoon? I guess I'll just keep prodding at them with my finger until they seem more-or-less room temperature-ish.

Oh god I have to clean my kitchen again now. It looks like a mini tornado of flour, brown sugar, and spices ripped it's way through. D:

EDIT: Cake is a success. There was a slight upset when we tasted the frosting and it turned out to be not so much smooth and whippy as it was very crunchy. After a quick Google I realized that when the recipe calls for confectionery sugar, that's actually another name for icing sugar (and not just plain Jane regular granular sugar that I had used.) In my defense, icing sugar has always been called just that in my experience -- icing sugar. Don't start flinging new names all willy nilly on me, I can't be entirely at fault at the outcome. So after a disgruntled second trip to the grocery store, I made an entirely new batch of frosting that was both perfectly smooth and whippy, and the finished spice cake is pretty tasty. WIN!

Countdown until shiny exciting house possession: 11