more online recipes
The dude's second birthday party is on Sunday. On his birthday, last weekend, we took part in a shared birthday party elsewhere, with all of the babies from our pre-natal group. I thought it would be nice to have a smaller one at home, as well, so we could invite some of our friends around (plus a couple of other baby friends who aren't in the other group.) Since it's just a party for a one-year-old, there isn't any pressure to do much structured entertaining. It is, however, a good excuse to do some baking if one is so inclined.
I did a bit of pre-baking today, doing a batch of brownies, as well as a tres leches cake. I've never made the latter myself, so when I had a look around online and saw that the trusted Pioneer Woman had a recipe, I chose that one. (I made it today, btw, because I'd read elsewhere that this cake gets a lot better when done a day or so in advance.)
For the hell of it, I thought I'd look around elsewhere just to see if there were any variations, like maybe coconut or so. I decided to keep it classic, but in the meantime, I fell into one of my favourite internet recipe-related pastimes: reading the reviews. Alton Brown, a Food TV personality in the US, has his own version of this cake (much sweeter than the traditional one, by the looks of it) and the reviews are generally positive. But, there are some random single-star reviews, and of course those are the ones I was interested in. Every single one of them was some kind of user error. "WHY do you give recipes in weights, how am I supposed to make this cake?!" Why would you rate a recipe one star if you haven't even 1) followed the instructions or 2) MADE THE DAMN THING? Reviews are here.
I ran into a similar situation with an Ina Garten recipe. It was a sheet cake with a rich chocolate icing. The reviews? My favourite was the one that gave one star and said "I suppose this cake is okay, but I hate chocolate, so I really didn't like it." WHY DID YOU MAKE IT? Her recipes might be awesome but seriously she isn't going to turn water into wine, and she isn't going to make chocolate palatable to those who don't like it. gah.
Tomorrow is grocery shopping, other shopping, more cleaning, and more baking. good times!
Dude note of the day: at our playgroup today, not only did he empty a box of blocks one by one (as he loves doing), he actually put them all back in again! hah!
I did a bit of pre-baking today, doing a batch of brownies, as well as a tres leches cake. I've never made the latter myself, so when I had a look around online and saw that the trusted Pioneer Woman had a recipe, I chose that one. (I made it today, btw, because I'd read elsewhere that this cake gets a lot better when done a day or so in advance.)
For the hell of it, I thought I'd look around elsewhere just to see if there were any variations, like maybe coconut or so. I decided to keep it classic, but in the meantime, I fell into one of my favourite internet recipe-related pastimes: reading the reviews. Alton Brown, a Food TV personality in the US, has his own version of this cake (much sweeter than the traditional one, by the looks of it) and the reviews are generally positive. But, there are some random single-star reviews, and of course those are the ones I was interested in. Every single one of them was some kind of user error. "WHY do you give recipes in weights, how am I supposed to make this cake?!" Why would you rate a recipe one star if you haven't even 1) followed the instructions or 2) MADE THE DAMN THING? Reviews are here.
I ran into a similar situation with an Ina Garten recipe. It was a sheet cake with a rich chocolate icing. The reviews? My favourite was the one that gave one star and said "I suppose this cake is okay, but I hate chocolate, so I really didn't like it." WHY DID YOU MAKE IT? Her recipes might be awesome but seriously she isn't going to turn water into wine, and she isn't going to make chocolate palatable to those who don't like it. gah.
Tomorrow is grocery shopping, other shopping, more cleaning, and more baking. good times!
Dude note of the day: at our playgroup today, not only did he empty a box of blocks one by one (as he loves doing), he actually put them all back in again! hah!