A snapshot from my evening:
Me, my t-shirt smeared with flour, forkful of lasagne in one hand and stirring vanilla cake mixture with the other, dancing round the kitchen to Pictures of You.
Boojum, my occasional rapper team, will be 3 at the weekend. Somehow I agreed to make the birthday cake this year.
So, on getting in from work I did a quick run up to Tesco, having discovered we were out of eggs, and that weird things had happened to all our cake tins. On getting home, I eyed up the tins and decided that, in view of how many of us there'll be, I'd better make two cakes. For variety, I'd make one vanilla and one chocolate.
So I did that. And made some chocolate, cherry and date krispie cake for our household. Then looked suspiciously at the chocolate cake: not really risen properly, and looking a bit lumpy. I made another, and will put the deformed one together and inflict it on colleagues tomorrow; I dare say it'll taste OK.
In case anyone's wondering about this mass manufacture: it's a simple recipe, stolen from my mother who can turn out about 6,000,000 sponge cakes on a Saturday morning when she's in going order, and we've got a Kenwood to do all the hard work.
I've not made cakes in ages, and, since quantites for flavourings are a bit approximate, I was worried: how would I know when I'd put enough in? EVentually the obvious dawned. Owing to the upholding in my parents' house of the fine tradition of the Licky Bowl, I know exactly what cake mix is supposed to taste like. Sorted.
In between times, I heated up my Tesco's finest beef lasagne - which, it must be said, for a microwaveable, is pretty damn fine. (And,
onebyone, it's entirely valid.) And I did the repeated bits of washing up necessary to clean up the various required bits and bobs between cakes. And re-salted the dishwasher. And ground up some sugar to make icing sugar[*]. Then made butter icing with it. And paid half attention to MTV2's Bluffer's Guide to Seattle (why were they playing the Cure?) and a biopic of Spike Jonze. Which, as ever, caused me the slight pang of disappointment I feel when I realise they don't mean Spike Jones.
I guess Delia Smith doesn't occasionally mung up her cakes because, at a critical moment, she was hurtling into the other room in an attempt to catch who that band were (the answer turned out to be Pretty Girls Make Graves, thank you google.) And she probably doesn't drink beer either. Or flick quite so much cake mix round the kitchen. Ah well. I bet I have more fun than her.
[*] Yes, yes, I kow you can buy icing sugar. I just forgot, OK ? Fortunately, the cooking advisory service (or "mother"), who was fielding random queries, had the solution.
Me, my t-shirt smeared with flour, forkful of lasagne in one hand and stirring vanilla cake mixture with the other, dancing round the kitchen to Pictures of You.
Boojum, my occasional rapper team, will be 3 at the weekend. Somehow I agreed to make the birthday cake this year.
So, on getting in from work I did a quick run up to Tesco, having discovered we were out of eggs, and that weird things had happened to all our cake tins. On getting home, I eyed up the tins and decided that, in view of how many of us there'll be, I'd better make two cakes. For variety, I'd make one vanilla and one chocolate.
So I did that. And made some chocolate, cherry and date krispie cake for our household. Then looked suspiciously at the chocolate cake: not really risen properly, and looking a bit lumpy. I made another, and will put the deformed one together and inflict it on colleagues tomorrow; I dare say it'll taste OK.
In case anyone's wondering about this mass manufacture: it's a simple recipe, stolen from my mother who can turn out about 6,000,000 sponge cakes on a Saturday morning when she's in going order, and we've got a Kenwood to do all the hard work.
I've not made cakes in ages, and, since quantites for flavourings are a bit approximate, I was worried: how would I know when I'd put enough in? EVentually the obvious dawned. Owing to the upholding in my parents' house of the fine tradition of the Licky Bowl, I know exactly what cake mix is supposed to taste like. Sorted.
In between times, I heated up my Tesco's finest beef lasagne - which, it must be said, for a microwaveable, is pretty damn fine. (And,
I guess Delia Smith doesn't occasionally mung up her cakes because, at a critical moment, she was hurtling into the other room in an attempt to catch who that band were (the answer turned out to be Pretty Girls Make Graves, thank you google.) And she probably doesn't drink beer either. Or flick quite so much cake mix round the kitchen. Ah well. I bet I have more fun than her.
[*] Yes, yes, I kow you can buy icing sugar. I just forgot, OK ? Fortunately, the cooking advisory service (or "mother"), who was fielding random queries, had the solution.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-22 03:31 pm (UTC)Mmm... Cake mix ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-23 01:11 am (UTC)Last time I did that, I was impatient and it turned out crunchy.
Out of interest - do you own any recipe books ? Or is everything memory and "the cooking advisory service" ?
(no subject)
From:A Quick Review
Mmm... Disaster Cake.