(no subject)
opalfruit 's birthday was hijacked, somewhat, by the other events happening in London on Thursday. I was pretty incognizant of everything for a long time. I'd heard something about a disturbance at Liverpool Street station, but how many of those happen in a month? My plan was to miss lectures and do my dissertation, so I was sitting connected to the internet, ignorant, where kiptrip enlightened me, and then I looked at the news and went downstairs and stared at the TV for ages. Surreal. And the phone networks went down, enabling me to receive worried text messages from not just my own but all kinds of concerned parents (including davinci_in_drag's mum), but not reply to them. Everyone I know is fine, which is lucky. The RLH - our hospital - seemed to be at the centre of everything on the news. My housemates and I were debating whether or not to go over and offer our services but (thankfully) the scale of the affair hadn't reached those heights. (And what could we have done as impotent medical students?)
My dad was meant to arrive that day from the N'lands and stay a night on his way home to Calcutta. Obviously, with all kinds of transport down, and no left luggage facility, even, he was stranded at Heathrow for quite a while, before he decided to get the soonest connecting flight out. Poor dad.
How dumb are people? In general? Things like this make you despair. And I have to bitch about someone with to tell you, opalfruit, what my housemate's g/f had to say about the whole thing - it was on similar disturbing lines as the Olympics bid.
And London was having such a good run, too, with Live8 and then the Olympics. Poor London.
But well. Here's what's important. I made this cake.
Williamsburg Orange Cake
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup shortening
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
1 cup golden raisins, chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
Williamsburg Butter Frosting
Orange rind and sections
Frosting:
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
4 1/2 cups sifted powder [sic] sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
4 to 5 tablespoons orange juice
Directions:
Combine first 10 ingredients. Blend with an electric mixer 30 seconds on low speed; beat 3 minutes on high speed. Stir in raisins and pecans.
Pour into 3 greased and floured 8-inch round cakepans. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 to 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely. Spread frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake. Garnish with orange rind and sections. Yield: one 3-layer cake.
Frosting:
Cream butter; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add orange rind and juice; beat until smooth. Yield: enough for one 3-layer cake.
Addenda:
It's not right when cake recipes direct you to 'garnish'. I'm not comfortable with that. I'd rather decorate cakes.
I fucked with the recipe somewhat: I had real trouble with the cup amounts - I'm lost without the metric system. Perhaps it's a universal American recipe book thing, I don't know. On the advice of my friend Papia I used half a coffee mug instead of one cup. It seemed to work well in creating enough batter to fill three cake tins. I also used lard instead of shortening. And instead of buttermilk - what is that? Morrisons didn't stock any; it sounds like it should be a more-liquid-than-sour-cream-like product - I mixed half yoghurt and half semi-skimmed milk. And there weren't any pecans in the supermarket, so I added another handful of sultanas. And I added more than 5 tablespoons of juice to the frosting, because I was afraid the orangeness would be overpowered by the icing sugar. Plus, I don't think the greaseproof paper was greased up enough. I had to peel it away from the cakes after it was done; at that point, the chances of this creation were looking ugly. I was not optimistic. Also, Papia deserves large amounts of grateful acknowledgement in helping cut out greaseproof paper sections to fit the tins; that's always a tough one, for me.
But! Despite all that, it turned out ok*. It was an epicurean.com recipe; I didn't know if I could trust them at first, but it's fine now, they're obviously well-meaning people. I'm not a natural baker, much as I dream of being one. I'm a good recipe-follower, though; that's as close as I can get.
*-Edit: you know, I haven't eaten any of it, yet? But I do believe Em and her housemates when they say that they aren't just being polite. I think. I'll have to make it again! That's the real test.
My dad was meant to arrive that day from the N'lands and stay a night on his way home to Calcutta. Obviously, with all kinds of transport down, and no left luggage facility, even, he was stranded at Heathrow for quite a while, before he decided to get the soonest connecting flight out. Poor dad.
How dumb are people? In general? Things like this make you despair. And I have to bitch about someone with to tell you, opalfruit, what my housemate's g/f had to say about the whole thing - it was on similar disturbing lines as the Olympics bid.
And London was having such a good run, too, with Live8 and then the Olympics. Poor London.
But well. Here's what's important. I made this cake.
Williamsburg Orange Cake
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup shortening
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
1 cup golden raisins, chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
Williamsburg Butter Frosting
Orange rind and sections
Frosting:
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
4 1/2 cups sifted powder [sic] sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
4 to 5 tablespoons orange juice
Directions:
Combine first 10 ingredients. Blend with an electric mixer 30 seconds on low speed; beat 3 minutes on high speed. Stir in raisins and pecans.
Pour into 3 greased and floured 8-inch round cakepans. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 to 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely. Spread frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake. Garnish with orange rind and sections. Yield: one 3-layer cake.
Frosting:
Cream butter; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add orange rind and juice; beat until smooth. Yield: enough for one 3-layer cake.
Addenda:
It's not right when cake recipes direct you to 'garnish'. I'm not comfortable with that. I'd rather decorate cakes.
I fucked with the recipe somewhat: I had real trouble with the cup amounts - I'm lost without the metric system. Perhaps it's a universal American recipe book thing, I don't know. On the advice of my friend Papia I used half a coffee mug instead of one cup. It seemed to work well in creating enough batter to fill three cake tins. I also used lard instead of shortening. And instead of buttermilk - what is that? Morrisons didn't stock any; it sounds like it should be a more-liquid-than-sour-cream-like product - I mixed half yoghurt and half semi-skimmed milk. And there weren't any pecans in the supermarket, so I added another handful of sultanas. And I added more than 5 tablespoons of juice to the frosting, because I was afraid the orangeness would be overpowered by the icing sugar. Plus, I don't think the greaseproof paper was greased up enough. I had to peel it away from the cakes after it was done; at that point, the chances of this creation were looking ugly. I was not optimistic. Also, Papia deserves large amounts of grateful acknowledgement in helping cut out greaseproof paper sections to fit the tins; that's always a tough one, for me.
But! Despite all that, it turned out ok*. It was an epicurean.com recipe; I didn't know if I could trust them at first, but it's fine now, they're obviously well-meaning people. I'm not a natural baker, much as I dream of being one. I'm a good recipe-follower, though; that's as close as I can get.
*-Edit: you know, I haven't eaten any of it, yet? But I do believe Em and her housemates when they say that they aren't just being polite. I think. I'll have to make it again! That's the real test.