Monday 9 May 2011

of Cats and Cakes


My dad always says he wants to come back (in his next life) as one of Mum’s housecats.  While this always elicits a nod and chuckle, this weekend I decided I am on board with that statement.  Sunday was a very lazy day for us.  It was cloudy and windy and we declared it a ‘duvet’ day.  Meaning it was the kind of day where you just want to lounge around in bed or on the couch and won’t feel guilty about missing out on good weather. 
Then, the sun came out.  At this point we were well into duvet mode.  In the late afternoon our front room becomes a bit like a conservatory (or glassed-in porch for those readers not in the UK), lovely and sunny and cosy.  Pete and I were pretty entrenched on the couch, I was reading and he was mastering a game on the iPhone.  In the process we curled together, turned our faces to the sun and fell into a blissful nap-basically temporarily becoming my mum’s housecats.  It was a lovely hour spent napping and basking.  I could definitely do that for a lifetime.  However, I would require a Pete-cat companion, occasional string battles and bouts of laser-pointer chasing.
When we shook ourselves awake, we were feeling a bit restless.  It was too late to go for one of our walks and we were a little munchies but not ready for dinner just yet.  Then, in another episode of deliciously decadent domesticity, we opened my new Nigella cookbook and discovered we had all the ingredients for a flourless chocolate lime cake.  Done. 
Down to the kitchen we went and started pulling out the needed supplies.  The one thing we didn’t have was a mixer.  I was hesitant, but Pete declared he would take care of the whisking, no problem.  I started in on the other elements.  10 minutes later my bits were ready to go and Pete was still whisking.  We spent an entire Jack Johnson CD taking turns hand whisking together eggs and sugar into a ‘yellow mousse.’  We weren’t sure what constituted a mousse-consistency and after the mixture doubled in size, we declared we were there.  Actually we had a very good idea of the proper consistency but after 30 minutes of tag-team whisking we called it done.  I’m sure we were only moments away from glorious mousse peaks, but we convinced ourselves it would be fine.  We carefully ‘folded’ in the rest of the ingredients (which was more like gentle mixing as we never got to the mousse stage), poured the whole thing into our never-been-used springform and popped it into the oven. 
The result could have been great, but as we knew would happen (but were really hoping wouldn’t) all the cocoa covered crushed almonds and lime zest settled to the bottom of the mixture (because we didn’t have the mousse consistency, I assume).  We didn’t know this until about three hours after we took it out of the oven.  We had left it to cool with a tea towel covering it, as instructed, it looked like the photo on the outside.  We innocently believed that we had beat the system, and then I cut into the cake.  The perfect outside literally disintegrated as the knife touched it revealing a perfectly shaped, barely cooked, chocolate-lime interior.  It’s safe to say that our neighbours won’t be getting the usual care package that comes with my baking. 
So now we have a mass of uncooked chocolate-lime on our counter in an air-tight container.  I’m not usually one to turn down chocolate in any form, but I have to say I’m having a hard time with this one.  I’m thinking a few seconds in the microwave and a little ice cream on the side might make it doable.  At least it won’t be raw. 
It might be time to get a hand-whisk.  And perhaps a laser pointer for periodic exercise since once I get the whisk, I will be making a lot of flourless chocolate cakes. 

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