I'm not very good at baking, or in general at making sweet things. Perhaps it's my puritan / austere side. But lately I've had a couple of goes at this, having bought a new ring-mould cake tin and in honour of various people. We had retirement drinks for two much loved colleagues last week, so I made an almond cake for that one. Not particularly easy to make because it's very hard to get marzipan to smooth out into a paste, but it was very nice -- moist and buttery as well as sweet, which I like because too much sugar puts me off.
Then on the weekend, we had two young, new colleagues over for dinner -- which was lovely because it made us feel a renewed sense of hope, despite the departure of aforementioned warhorses. So for that I made blackberry and raspberry ice cream. And used the leftover egg whites to make almond macarons (almonds seem to be the theme, as I also made Elizabeth David's completely addictive salted almonds to have with champagne). These really were too sweet, and I still have lots to learn about greasing the greaseproof paper (??) and baking at the right level. But I enjoyed them, and the ice cream (River Cottage Year) is really, really delicious -- even before it's frozen. And the yolks are cooked in the custard, so it's safe for everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment