Let them eat cake ~

Mmmm….   Cake.  It all started yesterday afternoon.  I was cleaning up and decided instead of stripping the chicken carcass for the dog I would make stock with it and cook soup for dinner.  {Because that is sooo much easier than pulling bits of chicken off the bone.  I wonder how my mind can be so illogical sometimes…..}

Ooh!  I forgot!  I haven’t introduced my family yet!  DH and I have a mini family consisting of two children ~

an 8-almost-9-year old Siberian husky, Amabelle,

and a 10 year old Standard bred gelding, Copper.

  

Anyway, back to the story!  I’d gone for a ride on Copper ~ a quick warm up in the arena and then a lovely trail ride with my Dad on Rusty {our other horse} and Amabelle.  When I came back I somehow managed to get all ambitious.  Not only was I going to make my own soup {without a recipe no less} I was going to bake a cake.   Now, for all the accomplished cooks out there that doesn’t sound like such a big deal.  But this is me in the kitchen ~

Yes, that is a plate of burnt food….    My poor husband hasn’t starved yet, but we have had more ready-made meals {such as pizza, pies and chips!} than I’d care to admit.   I’m just not the greatest at culinary stuff.  So when I say that dinner and a cake is ambitious for me, I mean it. Things started off reasonably well, I tried a Walnut cake, but the thing is I made it with coconut flour.  It was a bit of an experiment to say the least.  Cake mixed, tinned and ovened; it was all good so far.  Now it was vegetable time.

I got the piles of veggies chopped {DH likes his soup to be chewy.  >  >} and all was going relatively well until I went to ice the cake.  It had come out the oven, cooled for fifteen minutes or so, but when I put it on the rack, it broke in half.  And I was all ~ “Uh-oh, this doesn’t look good at all…”   Then I tried a crumb of the cake and it was GROSS!!  As in, “Eww ~ what is that?!??” gross.  I chucked it in the bin.  And panicked.  I promised cake!! {Ok, more like bribed cake in return for DH doing the dishes.  Well, the dishes were done and there was no cake to be seen…}

I flipped through the DH’s family recipes we’d been given as a wedding present but all of them took too long ~  I had twenty minutes until DH came home for tea and I wanted the cake in the oven before that.  Plus, I wasn’t sure we had all the ingredients.  Okay, back to cake book with the failed walnut recipe.  The only thing that looked reasonably easy was the sponge cake.  Although I had heard that they could be difficult… 

I gave it a wack anyway and to my surprise, it was a success!!  I’ve never been able to cook well under pressure, so I was amazed when it turned out so well.  So happy!!!  Now for the photos to show off my purty cake.

    

       

    

Yes, it tastes great!!!  One cake, two people:  yummmm……

I will never be a master chef, but one day I hope I can cook a proper meal {at least two courses} without getting flustered or burning the food, or having to throw  mistakes out.  One of these days!

xox,

b.