Yesterday I did something I haven't done for a very long time... I made a birthday cake. The birthday girl requested something with lemon so there was only one place to turn for inspiration... Epicurious! I spend so much time on my Epicurious iPhone app.
The goal - a lemon and blueberry cake with lemon cream cheese icing.
Feeling energised after boot camp in the morning, I walked down to the supermarket, bought the ingredients and proceeded to make an absolute mess of the kitchen! I love cooking - love planning what to eat, when to eat it, shopping for food, preparing dinner... finely slicing onion after a day at work is never a chore. Baking on the other hand... hmmmm.... baking is a challenge. There doesn't really seem to be much wriggle room or scope for interpretation of a recipe. Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy (don't bake therefore avoid it and have no experience to draw on when I need it), but baking my cake yesterday really stressed me out!
Firstly I had to cream the butter and the sugar - pretty simple huh? I did HomeEc at school... well did you know that you can over beat butter and sugar? I didn't, until it sort of started to curdle... fine, keep calm and carry on. Slowly add wet and dry ingredients... no problem... until you realise that you not only forgot to add baking powder, but you entirely forgot to buy any at the supermarket in the first place. Hmmm... now I was certain my cake was going to turn out as dense as a brick. Oh well, by now it was far too late to turn back, so into the oven it goes. Absolute worst nightmare. I thought perhaps liberal application of icing might partially hide my woeful baking attempt - and serving the cake late in the evening when everyone had a few drinks under their belts... Fortunately, the end result was that the cake was very tasty - stodgy, but tasty. And the birthday girl was happy, which is the main thing right?
I did learn one useful thing - if you don't have cream cheese you can drain yoghurt through a cheese cloth in the fridge for a couple of hours and use that instead. Actually, I almost think it's better than using cream cheese in the first place - tastes just as good, but not as rich.
The birthday party was a great night. Being a Chilean birthday there was copious quantities of pisco on offer - yum!! I love pisco. It's so refreshing and scarily easy to drink. Needless to say I had a stonking headache this morning when I woke up. Being hung over in the tropics is not good - not good at all - but the best thing for a hangover is my boyfriend's pancakes! So back into the kitchen I went to whip up some pancakes. They're very simple, very thin and taste great with lemon juice and a little sugar.
I knew Saturday night was going to be a big night drinking, so I made sure I went to boot camp in the morning. Group fitness is so motivating - sharing the pain perhaps? I know I would never ever push myself as hard if I was exercising by myself. Today I feel like I've been run over by a bus - I ache everywhere! To be expected, as it was my first session back from holidays. It is a satisfying pain though... how masochistic!
Next week I am putting together my training schedule for running. It's going to be a bit of a jigsaw puzzle I think, fitting around Dutch lessons, boot camp and work evening conference calls.
Off now to plan what I'm cooking this week - lots of light meals to atone for the copious consumption of pisco.
And of course, there's nothing better on a Sunday night than stretching out on the sofa watching a movie.
The goal - a lemon and blueberry cake with lemon cream cheese icing.
Feeling energised after boot camp in the morning, I walked down to the supermarket, bought the ingredients and proceeded to make an absolute mess of the kitchen! I love cooking - love planning what to eat, when to eat it, shopping for food, preparing dinner... finely slicing onion after a day at work is never a chore. Baking on the other hand... hmmmm.... baking is a challenge. There doesn't really seem to be much wriggle room or scope for interpretation of a recipe. Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy (don't bake therefore avoid it and have no experience to draw on when I need it), but baking my cake yesterday really stressed me out!
Firstly I had to cream the butter and the sugar - pretty simple huh? I did HomeEc at school... well did you know that you can over beat butter and sugar? I didn't, until it sort of started to curdle... fine, keep calm and carry on. Slowly add wet and dry ingredients... no problem... until you realise that you not only forgot to add baking powder, but you entirely forgot to buy any at the supermarket in the first place. Hmmm... now I was certain my cake was going to turn out as dense as a brick. Oh well, by now it was far too late to turn back, so into the oven it goes. Absolute worst nightmare. I thought perhaps liberal application of icing might partially hide my woeful baking attempt - and serving the cake late in the evening when everyone had a few drinks under their belts... Fortunately, the end result was that the cake was very tasty - stodgy, but tasty. And the birthday girl was happy, which is the main thing right?
I did learn one useful thing - if you don't have cream cheese you can drain yoghurt through a cheese cloth in the fridge for a couple of hours and use that instead. Actually, I almost think it's better than using cream cheese in the first place - tastes just as good, but not as rich.
The birthday party was a great night. Being a Chilean birthday there was copious quantities of pisco on offer - yum!! I love pisco. It's so refreshing and scarily easy to drink. Needless to say I had a stonking headache this morning when I woke up. Being hung over in the tropics is not good - not good at all - but the best thing for a hangover is my boyfriend's pancakes! So back into the kitchen I went to whip up some pancakes. They're very simple, very thin and taste great with lemon juice and a little sugar.
 |
| Perfect Pancakes Two eggs, four super heaped breakfast spoons of flour, pinch of salt, about 300ml milk. Beat all together in a large bowl, slosh in more milk until a runny consistency. Squeeze lemon and sprinkle sugar on top. Enjoy with a hot coffee. |
I knew Saturday night was going to be a big night drinking, so I made sure I went to boot camp in the morning. Group fitness is so motivating - sharing the pain perhaps? I know I would never ever push myself as hard if I was exercising by myself. Today I feel like I've been run over by a bus - I ache everywhere! To be expected, as it was my first session back from holidays. It is a satisfying pain though... how masochistic!
Next week I am putting together my training schedule for running. It's going to be a bit of a jigsaw puzzle I think, fitting around Dutch lessons, boot camp and work evening conference calls.
Off now to plan what I'm cooking this week - lots of light meals to atone for the copious consumption of pisco.
And of course, there's nothing better on a Sunday night than stretching out on the sofa watching a movie.
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